datasette-app

It would be nice if GP's stuff worked better, ironically. The Datasette app for Mac seems to be constantly stuck on loading (yes I have 0.2.2): https://github.com/simonw/datasette-app/issues/139 And his screen capture library can't capture Canvas renderings (trying to automate reporting and avoiding copy/pasting): https://simonwillison.net/2022/Mar/10/shot-scraper/ Lost two days at work on that. It should at least be mentioned it doesn't capture Canvas. Speaking of technology not working as expected.

Yes, if you know how to use pip you can run "pip install datasette" and use it that way. I'd love to get the desktop app working on Linux and Windows. I did manage to get a prototype working on Windows, despite having VERY little experience working on that platform: https://github.com/simonw/datasette-app/issues/71 The bit I'm stuck on is how to turn that prototype into an application with an installer that's signed so people can download and run it.

I have an Electron app on GitHub which uses their macOS runners to run tests and even package and sign the application: https://github.com/simonw/datasette-app/blob/84903f2ab171fb2... Wrote up a bit about how that works here: - https://til.simonwillison.net/electron/sign-notarize-electro... - https://til.simonwillison.net/electron/testing-electron-play...

This is a desktop application wrapper around my Datasette web application. I built the desktop app because the alternative was talking my users through setting up a Python 3 environment on their computers, which was too much friction! The most interesting aspect of this application in my opinion is that it supports plugin installation, which can be used to add all sorts of additional functionality - see the full list of plugins at https://datasette.io/plugins Getting plugin installation working was not easy at all: I ended up bundling an entire copy of Python 3.9 inside the /Application/Datasette.app bundle in order to support this - I wrote more about how that works here: https://simonwillison.net/2021/Sep/8/datasette-desktop/#how-... I launched the 0.2.0 version of the app yesterday - I wrote up some detailed annotated release notes abo