Compiling a custom binary

Follow this guide if you want to compile the MAS-compatible binary by yourself.

You will need to download the source code and apply various patches on it.

This guide is based on @alexeyst's node-webkit-macappstore repository.

1. Get the source
2. Get the patches
3. Patch NW.js
4. Patch WebKit
5. Build

Get the source

Get the Chromium depot_tools

Instructions available here

Get nw.js

Create a directory wherever you want, the following instructions assume it is named nwjs-source.

Create a .gclient file with the following content:

solutions = [
   { "name"        : "src",
     "url"         : "https://github.com/nwjs/chromium.src.git@origin/nw12",
     "deps_file"   : "DEPS",
     "managed"     : True,
     "custom_deps" : {
       "src/third_party/WebKit/LayoutTests": None,
       "src/chrome_frame/tools/test/reference_build/chrome": None,
       "src/chrome_frame/tools/test/reference_build/chrome_win": None,
       "src/chrome/tools/test/reference_build/chrome": None,
       "src/chrome/tools/test/reference_build/chrome_linux": None,
       "src/chrome/tools/test/reference_build/chrome_mac": None,
       "src/chrome/tools/test/reference_build/chrome_win": None,
     },
     "safesync_url": "",
   },
]

Download the code by running:

cd nwjs-source
gclient sync --no-history

Downloaded code can use up to 4GB.

Get the patches

# Assumes cwd is nwjs-source
curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/alexeyst/node-webkit-macappstore/master/node-webkit-mas.diff > node-webkit-mas.diff
curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/alexeyst/node-webkit-macappstore/master/webkit.diff > webkit.diff

Patch NW.js

# Assumes cwd is nwjs-source
cd src
git apply ../node-webkit-mas.diff

Patch WebKit

# Assumes cwd is nwjs-source
cd src/third_party/WebKit
git init
git apply ../../../webkit.diff

Project dependencies are located in the third_party directory, and are ignored, so we init an empty Git repo to apply the patch.

Build

# Assumes cwd is nwjs-source
export GYP_GENERATORS='ninja'
./build/gyp_chromium content/content.gyp --no-circular-check
ninja -C out/Release nw -j4

/!\ The process can use up to 30GB.

Some warnings may appear during the compilation.

When it is done, you can test the binary: nwjs-source/src/out/Release/nwjs.app.