Awesome Cross-Platform Node.js

A curated list of awesome libraries and applications for writing and testing code that works on Windows and Unix-like platforms.

Inspired by the awesome list thing.

Table of Contents

• Resources
• Known Issues
• Online Tools
• Applications
  • Virtualization
  • Development Environment
• Libraries

Resources

• Microsoft Open Technologies - Windows ports of non-Microsoft technologies.
• Microsoft Node.js Guidelines - Tips, tricks, and resources for working with Node.js on Microsoft platforms.
• Writing Cross-Platform Node.js - a great tutorial covering many common issues that arise when writing cross-platform code: path creation, script execution, newline characters.
• Node.js AppVeyor Configuration - a great configuration file to use as a starting point for adding your Node.js project to AppVeyor CI.

Known Issues

• cmd.exe unicode woes - by default, cmd.exe does not display unicode characters on Windows.
• spawn issues - child_process.spawn() behavior is not consistent between Windows and Linux.
• node-gyp on Windows - it can be quite painful to compile native modules on Windows.
• stdio issues on v0.10.x - a race condition in stdio lead to confusing terminal output when testing on Windows prior to Node v0.11.12.
• exec() behavior between shells - depending on the shell being used, e.g., bash vs. dash, child_process.exec() has inconsistent exit behavior.

Online Tools

• AppVeyor - Continuous integration service for Windows. Free tiers are available for OSS projects.

Applications

Virtualization

• ievms - Automated installer for the free virtual machine images that Microsoft provides for testing on multiple versions of IE. These images can be useful for cross-platform testing various technologies, however make sure you read and understand Microsofts' licensing.
• VirtualBox - General purpose software for running x86 virtual machines.

Development Environment

• Atom - A cross-platform, full-featured, hackable text editor.
• Node.js - Node.js installer for various platforms.
• MSOpenTech Redis - A build of Redis maintained by Microsoft Open Technologies.
• nvm-windows - Manage multiple installations of Node.js on a Windows computer.

Libraries

• any-path - Use Windows and POSIX paths interchangeably when fetching values from an object.
• is-windows - Detect whether the current platform is Windows.
• rimraf - Cross-platform rm -rf.
• mkdirp - Cross-platform mkdir -p.
• execa - Cross-platform implementation of child_process.{execFile,exec}.
• which - Cross-platform implementation of Unix's which.
• user-home - Get the path to the user home directory. Cross-platform.
• opn - Opens stuff like websites, files, executables. Cross-platform.
• log-symbols - Colored symbols for various log levels with Windows fallbacks.
• figures - Unicode symbols with Windows fallbacks.
• del - Delete files and folders. Cross-platform.
• cpy - Copy files. Cross-platform.
• fkill - Kill processes. Cross-platform.
• graceful-fs - Improves the fs module, especially on Windows.
• chokidar - Improved cross-platform file watching.
• shelljs - Cross-platform Unix shell commands.
• cross-env - Set environment variables cross-platform.
• cross-spawn - Cross-platform implementation of child_process.spawn().