Wails on Mobile: Working Proof of Concept & Call for Contributors

[its-ernest]

Wails on Mobile: Working Proof of Concept & Call for Contributors

Hey everyone!

I’ve been working on bringing Wails to mobile, and I have a working proof-of-concept up and running for Android using gomobile bind. It packages a fully functioning embedded Wails backend and frontend assets directly into a native .aar library.

Check out the repository and templates here:
👉 [github.com/its-ernest/wails-mobile](https://github.com/its-ernest/wails-mobile)

The core pipeline is functional, but to turn this into a production-ready framework, we need the community's help.

Where we need contributors:

• iOS Support: Porting the bindings and setting up templates for iOS/Swift targets.
• Windows/macOS build env: Current pipeline project works for Linux with Android Studio only
• Unit Tests: Writing more and better unit tests for the Wails Mobile project for integrity
• CLI Tooling (wailsm): Porting the current shell helper workflows into a robust Go binary for scaffolding and refreshing projects.
• External Packages: Everyone can now build upon wails-mobile for more deep integration features (Fingerpring package for wails-mobile, Face ID package, Permissions package, Camera package, etc.) since wails-mobile lifts heavy boilerplate by making communicating with Native APIs( straightforwardvia .aar/.dylib)
• Bridge Parity: Bringing the mobile bridge APIs closer to the standard Wails desktop experience.

If you’re interested in Go on mobile, CLI development, or native wrappers, grab the repo, test out the helloworld example, and join in
All PRs, feedback, and architectural ideas are welcome

[its-ernest]

I believe you would love to see mobile app development in Go as straightforward as seen in Wails desktop. Why not help make it better?
https://github.com/its-ernest/wails-mobile

[leaanthony]

Thanks for taking the time to do this and letting us know. Did you see that we have experimental iOS and android code in v3? It would be good to understand approach and gaps 🙏

[its-ernest]

I completely missed the experimental mobile code in the v3 branch and that's amazing to hear.
I just peeked at the v3/examples/android structure. I noticed that you guys are taking the pure Go/C-shared route, compiling down to .so files and writing custom jni binding glue.

I'm rather using gomobile bind to compile the Go backend and embedded frontend assets straight into a native .aar library.

.aar native archives provides me with:

1. Zero jni Writing: gomobile autogenerates the Java classes in the .aar, eliminating the overlooks, bugs and vulnerabilities of manual JNI bindings. Why reinvent those wheels when gomobile provides it?
2. Native Ecosystem Power: Because it outputs a standard .aar, Android developers can call Go directly from Kotlin/Java and build deep native extensions (Camera, FaceID,Services, Permissions) using standard Android Jetpack libraries in the app or as external reusable packages
3. My approach uses shell automation to produce a standard android studio project just like the one in your alpha repo. After the dev has finished writing Go code, he'll run a refresh command to re-bind the Go to the android studio project. Building and managing the app becomes 100% native in Android studio.

I'd love to see if this .aar boundary approach could simplify the v3 mobile integration and make it way more plug-and-play for actual mobile development!

Screenshot:

[leaanthony]

Like I said, it's totally experimental so we are free to use better options if possible. Are you willing to take on this work? Even just documenting the approach, how it should work, tradeoffs etc would be great

[leaanthony]

We're looking to move to this process for such enhancements: https://github.com/wailsapp/wails/blob/master/v3/wep/README.md

[its-ernest]

sure, I'll add docstrings to the codebase and make a WEP as described in the wep readme.
I'd let you know once I push it

[leaanthony]

Incredible! Thank you 🙏

[its-ernest]

hello there Lean.
Here to let you know that I have finally submitted WEP to the repo.
I have joined the official Discord to collaborate and seek more ideas into the iOS ecosystem