How to package a NW.js application on Windows

Question

I am reading the instructions for how to package a NW.js app and the wording is a confusing mess and makes no sense. I highlighted the contradictory word-salad parts.

Answer 1

nw-builder does not support the NW.js newest versions (version > 0.12) before the 02/July/2016 release, it has support now, but stills in alpha/beta state.

You can try using nwjs-builder, easy and powerfull (with ffmpeg prebuilt support via withFFmpeg option), you can use from command line and as a module, if you want to use it as a module and automate builds with (for example) using gulp, you can do something like this:

var gulp = require('gulp'),
    glp = require('gulp-load-plugins')(),
    del = require('del'),
    nwb = require('nwjs-builder'),
    argv = require('yargs').alias('p', 'platforms').argv,
    paths = {
        build: './build',
        src: './src',
        images: './src/images'
    },
    detectCurrentPlatform = function () {
        switch (process.platform) {
        case 'darwin':
            return process.arch === 'x64' ? 'osx64' : 'osx32';
        case 'win32':
            return (process.arch === 'x64' || process.env.hasOwnProperty('PROCESSOR_ARCHITEW6432')) ? 'win64' : 'win32';
        case 'linux':
            return process.arch === 'x64' ? 'linux64' : 'linux32';
        }
    };

gulp.task('build', ['clean:build'], function () {
    return new Promise(function (resolve, reject) {
        nwb.commands.nwbuild(paths.src, {
            version: '0.15.4',
            platforms: argv.p ? argv.p : detectCurrentPlatform(),
            withFFmpeg: true,
            production: true,
            macIcns: paths.images + '/icon.icns',
            winIco: paths.images + '/icon.ico',
            sideBySide: false,
            //outputFormat: 'ZIP',
            outputDir: paths.build
        }, function (err) {
            if (err) {
                reject(err);
            }
            return resolve();
        });
    });
});

gulp.task('clean:build', function () {
    return gulp.src(paths.build, {
        read: false
    }).pipe(glp.clean());
});

required dependencies in your manifest (adjust your desired versions):

"devDependencies": {
    "del": "^2.2.1",
    "gulp": "^3.9.1",
    "gulp-clean": "^0.3.2",
    "gulp-load-plugins": "^1.2.4",
    "nwjs-builder": "latest",
    "yargs": "^4.7.1"
}

You can get a lot of more documentation about use and args on the main GitHub repo.