Third party browser plugins

This feature works for node-webkit v0.3.3 to v0.12.3

Like normal browsers, node-webkit enables you to load third party NPAPI plugins, and you can even ship them with your app. So apart from using node.js native modules, you can also use browser plugins to add native code for your app.

Supported plugins

Despite using Chromium codebase, node-webkit does not support Pepper API plugins.

Only NPAPI-based plugins are supported.

Enabling plugins

The support for plugins is turned off by default.

Add "plugin": true in the "webkit" section of your application's manifest to turn on the plugins.

{
  "webkit": {
    "plugin": true
  }
}

Location of plugins

Node-webkit will find and pick plugins installed on your system (i.e. will use the paths common for other browsers).

Additionally node-webkit scans /plugins subdirectory of your application's root directory (root is where package.json resides).

Distribution of plugins

• If a plugin is relatively popular (such as Flash), you may hope that plugin's already installed on your users' systems and node-webkit picks it.

• If a plugin has its own installer, you may run it when your application is installed.

• You may also include plugins in the /plugins directory of your application.

Listing of the loaded plugins

To see whether your plugins are loaded, you can use navigator.plugins in Developer Tools' console.

Your application can also use navigator.plugins. (For example, it's possible to warn the user about a missing plugin or to use a workaround.)