ScriptWeaver Documentation

ScriptWeaver lets you build native desktop apps in plain JavaScript — no web browser, no heavy runtime. You write standard JS, lay out real native widgets, and ship a tiny cross-platform bundle that runs on the free Player.

New here? Start with the Hello, World tutorial.

Getting started

• Introduction — what ScriptWeaver is and how the pieces fit
• Install & run — get the Player; run a script or a .zip app
• Command-line reference — every flag and the pack / bake subcommands
• Tutorial: Hello, World — a clickable button in 60 seconds

Guides

• Widget basics — creating widgets, options-as-properties, the common methods
• Layout — pack, grid, place, and the Flex / Grid helpers
• Docking — a dockable-panel workbench: split / tab / float / redock panels and save the layout
• Drag & drop — draggable widgets, drag-and-drop payloads, and reorderable lists
• High-DPI & scaling — resolution independence across platforms; when fixed-pixel sizes need scaling
• Accessibility — accessibleLabel, roles, app.announce(); the native screen-reader story
• Events & binding — onClick, .bind(), keyboard and mouse events
• Variables & reactivity — StringVar / IntVar / … two-way binding
• Dialogs — native message boxes and file pickers (sw.dialog)
• System & files — sw.sys, sw.fs, sw.app
• Theming — app.setTheme(), semantic colours via bootstyle, the palette
• Icons — 116 bundled Feather icons via sw.icons
• Packaging apps — bundle your app as a .zip
• Debugging — breakpoints, stepping and inspection from VS Code / VSCodium
• MarkView: in-app Markdown — render Markdown help inside your app

Widget reference

• Buttons — Button · CheckButton · RadioButton · ToggleSwitch
• Inputs — Entry · Combobox · Spinbox · Scale · DateEntry · TimePicker · AutocompleteEntry · TagEntry
• Containers — Frame · TkFrame · LabelFrame · Card · CollapsingFrame · ScrolledFrame · Sidebar · Notebook · PanedWindow · DockManager · TopLevel
• Display — Label · Badge · Message · Listbox · Treeview · Tableview · Text · ScrolledText · Notepad · Progressbar · Meter · Floodgauge · WebView (experimental)
• Drawing — Canvas — vector scene graph (tkpath)
• Menus & images — Menu · MenuButton · Photo
• Scrolling & decoration — Scrollbar · Separator · Sizegrip · StatusBar

Reactive variables (StringVar, IntVar, BoolVar, DoubleVar) are covered in the Variables & reactivity guide.

The standard controls — Button, Entry, Scale, and friends — are the themed (ttk / ttkBootstrap) widgets, styled to match the active theme. The redundant classic Tk twins were retired for a coherent look; their raw Tk commands remain reachable via __native_tcl. One classic survives as a named widget — TkFrame, whose direct background / relief has no themed equivalent (Frame is the themed frame). The widgets with no themed twin — Text, Listbox, Canvas, Menu, Message — keep their plain names too.

ScriptWeaver bundles the Bootstrap-flavoured ttkbootstrap theme family — 17 light and dark themes, switchable at runtime with app.setTheme(). The themed widgets are the default; the few classic Tk widgets (prefixed Tk, e.g. TkFrame) keep their native platform look.

System API

The sw.* system namespace is covered in the guides:

• System & files — sw.fs (files), sw.sys (processes, paths, environment), sw.app
• Dialogs — sw.dialog (message boxes and file / directory / colour pickers)
• Reflection — sw.reflect (introspect widgets, options and commands; intended for tool authors)

Data

• SQLite — an embedded SQL database via new Database(path); the API mirrors better-sqlite3

Examples

Annotated walk-throughs of the bundled demos: a notes editor, a file browser, a todo list, a preferences dialog, and a Markdown help viewer.