Node on Android

Make Node.js apps for Android (Currently only supports ARM64)

Installing

First install the command line tool from npm

npm install -g node-on-android

You also need to fetch the Android SDK if you haven't (See "Get just the command line tools" here) and unpack them somewhere.

Then install apktool from brew or similar

brew install apktool

That's it! You are now ready to write Node.js apps for Android.

Building an app

Node on android works by running your Node.js inside the android app using a shared library. It then bundles a WebView that hosts your UI code. All UI is just classic html/css/js.

In the node app you can require node-on-android to get access to the WebView. You can use this to load an html page in the WebView

// in the node app
var android = require('node-on-android')

// will load localhost:1000 in the webview
android.loadUrl('http://localhost:10000')

You can call loadUrl as many times as you want. It'll just change the WebView address.

Here is an example app

// save me as my-app/index.js
var http = require('http')
var android = require('node-on-android')

var server = http.createServer(function (req, res) {
  res.end(`
    <html>
    <body>
      <h1>Welcome to Node.js hacking on Android</h1>
    </body>
    </html>
  `)
})

server.listen(0, function () {
  android.loadUrl(`http://localhost:${server.address().port}`)
})

To bundle up the Node.js app into an apk file use the command line tool

node-on-android ./my-app -o my-app.apk -b ./path/to/android/build/tools

If you installed Android Studio on Mac the build tools are usually installed in a path similar to ~/Library/Android/sdk/build-tools/26.0.1/.

After the above succeds you should be able to install my-app.apk on your Android phone and run the Node.js app.

Happy mobile hacking!

License

MIT