nbind updates coming

[jjrv]

Installing nbind-based packages on Windows currently requires Visual Studio and Python, just like most other native binary Node.js addons. There's now a plan to change this.

nbind should eventually come bundled with a precompiled minimal binary addon for all Node.js versions, for communicating with a special entry point in shared libraries. It will then be possible to pass a flag to node-gyp and compile the project into a single .dll, .so or .dylib with such an entry point, and put them in the npm package. In practice only the following should be required:

• 32-bit .dll for Windows
• 64-bit .dll for Windows
• 64-bit .dylib for OS X

Linux users can probably get node-gyp working anyway.

libui-node would still be compiled and installed exactly as now, but if that fails, it could use a precompiled .dll or .dylib as a fallback. When in use, the fallback will introduce a tiny performance penalty for each call.

I'm also investigating running the C++ code in another thread to avoid having to poll UI events, but that won't happen at least until next year.

[parro-it]

Installing nbind-based packages on Windows currently requires Visual Studio and Python, just like most other native binary Node.js addons. There's now a plan to change this.

This looks really awesome! 🎆

libui-node would still be compiled and installed exactly as now, but if that fails, it could use a precompiled .dll or .dylib as a fallback. When in use, the fallback will introduce a tiny performance penalty for each call.

According to you, this penalty could be noticeable in a GUI app like libui-node? Otherwise, it could be useful to use the precompiled binaries as default choice, doing compilation as a fallback.

[jjrv]

The speed difference really wouldn't be noticeable in a GUI app, probably less than a microsecond per call. Now that you mention it, I guess the precompiled binary might be the first choice in this case.

[parro-it]

Libui-node is now using last release of nbind, in branch 0_1_0. 🎉🎉
Thanks for your amazing work on nbind, you rock!