PHP (HTML5) based Windows Software

Question

Is it possible to make from a HTML5-APP (PHP,SQLITE,HTML,CSS,JS) a installable Windows Software in c#? The software must start PHP (5.4), and must just load the document-root in the webbrowser object.

In theory it should work without problems. But what about protecting this code? Is it possible to protect at least the PHP part? Will ioncube or zend-guard work on PHP 5.4's embeded server? And is it possible to hide the shell window, which will open everytime, when i start the PHP Webserver via cmd?

Or do you know an alternate, how i can make a software from a HTML-5 (with PHP) App?

PHP is not sooo important. But the idea, to use jQuery, CSS and HTML for styling a app sounds perfect for me. — mr_app, Aug 12 '13 at 15:15
PHP/SQLite/html/css/js is capable of running as a Windows app, though not necessarily the best choice of language; but what's C# got to do Windows apps written in PHP? — Mark Baker, Aug 12 '13 at 15:16
Would'nt ASP be the best choice instead of php for a WINDOWS app?? it can be C# or VB.NET at least — Sebastien, Aug 13 '13 at 12:45

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Aug 12 '13 at 15:16

1

Your choosing the wrong language. PHP, HTML, JS, CSS and SQLLite are separate technologies.

I'd suggest writing the app in another language capable of producing an executable like C / C++ (and one that can plug into to SQLITE fairly easy).

answered Aug 12 '13 at 15:16

Andrew Berridge

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I know that this is not the common way. I worked before with visual basic+c#. And its ultra hard to design a pretty gui. IN HTML this is basic stuff... Why should i not use it? – mr_app Aug 12 '13 at 15:20
@mr_app Because then you end up with the exact problem you're having now. It's not intended for that purpose. If you want a pretty gui, look into WPF. – Sylverdrag Aug 14 '13 at 04:24
Thank. I know WPF. Its OK. I found a good solution, which i will test in the next days. PHPDock must do exacly what i need. But their demo is not working on my PC. They are selling a webbrowser with embedded webbrowser(with PHP etc..) – mr_app Aug 14 '13 at 09:04

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 13 '13 at 12:41

If you want to create a installer out of HTML5-APP (PHP,SQLITE,HTML,CSS,JS) , take a look at bitnami package, it may solve your problem, if you have any explicit reason to use C#, and then you have see its library or namespace which may give you installer capability. However your question is unclear, can be be more clear?

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Jan 20 '14 at 11:57

You can embed a Chrome browser in C# using the CefSharp project. You would also need to embed some webserver (php built-in webserver might work, but it's single threaded so it might be an issue).

If it doesn't necessarily need to be C#, then take a look at the PHP Desktop project that is using C++ to embed a Chrome engine, a multithreaded webserver Mongoose and a PHP interpreter. Sources can be protected using many available php encoders, see the KnowledgeBase wiki page on the project site for details.

PHP (HTML5) based Windows Software

3 Answers3