I would like to use javascript to develop general-purpose GUI applications. Initially these are to run on Windows, but I would like them to ultimately be cross-platform.
Is there a way to do this without having to make the application run in a browser?
Answer
Check out Adobe AIR.
From Wikipedia:
Adobe AIR is a cross-platform runtime environment for building rich Internet applications using Adobe Flash, Adobe Flex, HTML, or Ajax, that can be deployed as a desktop application.
Also check out Mozilla Prism (in beta).