@melonjs/capacitor-plugin

A melonJS plugin that bridges Capacitor's native lifecycle and hardware back-button events into the engine — so a melonJS game wrapped as an iOS or Android app pauses on background, resumes on foreground, and lets each Stage intercept the hardware back press without manual event.on / event.off boilerplate.

melonJS games already run inside Capacitor's WebView with zero engine changes — this plugin is purely an ergonomics layer over the standard @capacitor/app events, plus optional helpers for orientation lock and splash-screen dismissal.

Install

npm install melonjs @melonjs/capacitor-plugin @capacitor/app

The plugin's required runtime peer is @capacitor/app. The orientation and splash helpers are optional and pull their respective peer deps lazily — only install them if you call those helpers:

# only if you call lockOrientation / unlockOrientation
npm install @capacitor/screen-orientation

# only if you call hideSplash
npm install @capacitor/splash-screen

Quick start

import { Application, plugin, state, Stage } from "melonjs";
import {
    CapacitorPlugin,
    bindStageBack,
    hideSplash,
    lockOrientation,
} from "@melonjs/capacitor-plugin";

await lockOrientation("landscape");

// `new Application(...)` boots the engine and creates the renderer
// in a single call — replaces the legacy `boot()` + `video.init(...)`
// pair.
const app = new Application(1024, 768, {
    parent: "screen",
    scaleMethod: "flex",
});

// One register call wires lifecycle (appStateChange → state.pause/resume)
// and forwards hardware back-button presses into the engine event bus.
plugin.register(CapacitorPlugin, "capacitor", {
    pauseAudio: true,
});

class PlayStage extends Stage {
    onResetEvent() {
        // Bind a back-button handler that lives as long as this stage.
        // Calling `evt.preventDefault()` keeps the engine from running
        // the default action (App.exitApp).
        bindStageBack(this, (evt) => {
            state.change(state.MENU);
            evt.preventDefault();
        });
    }
}

state.set(state.PLAY, new PlayStage());
state.change(state.PLAY);
await hideSplash({ fadeOutDuration: 300 });

API

CapacitorPlugin

A BasePlugin subclass. Register it via the engine's plugin system:

plugin.register(CapacitorPlugin, "capacitor", options?);

Once registered the instance is reachable at plugin.cache.capacitor (or plugin.get(CapacitorPlugin)).

Options (ConnectCapacitorOptions):

| key | default | description | |---|---|---| | pauseOnBackground | true | When the OS sends the app to background, call state.pause(); resume on foreground. | | pauseAudio | true | Forwarded to state.pause(music) / state.resume(music). Set false if you want background audio to keep playing. | | forwardBackButton | true | Forward Capacitor's backButton event to the engine bus so subscribers can intercept it. | | onUnhandledBack | () => App.exitApp() | Called when no subscriber calls evt.preventDefault(). Override to e.g. show a confirm dialog. |

The instance exposes a teardown() method that removes every Capacitor listener it installed. Mostly useful for hot-reload and unit tests. It is async: await cap.teardown() to wait for all removals to settle, or fire-and-forget for opportunistic detachment.

bindStageBack(stage, handler)

Subscribe a hardware-back handler whose lifetime matches the given Stage's reset/destroy lifecycle. The handler is attached in onResetEvent and detached in onDestroyEvent automatically.

The handler receives a CapacitorBackEvent:

interface CapacitorBackEvent {
    readonly defaultPrevented: boolean;
    preventDefault(): void;
}

If any handler calls evt.preventDefault(), the plugin's onUnhandledBack action is suppressed for that press.

onBackButton(handler)

Subscribe a global handler (not tied to any stage). Returns an unsubscribe function. Useful if you want a back-button policy that applies regardless of the active stage. Most code should prefer bindStageBack for per-screen behavior.

lockOrientation(o) / unlockOrientation()

Thin lazy wrappers around @capacitor/screen-orientation. The dependency is import()-ed only when these are called.

hideSplash(opts?)

Thin lazy wrapper around @capacitor/splash-screen's hide(). Same lazy-import pattern.

Capacitor project setup

This plugin is a runtime adapter — it doesn't replace the standard Capacitor project setup. After scaffolding a melonJS game (e.g. via npm create melonjs my-game) wire Capacitor as you normally would:

npm install -D @capacitor/cli
npm install @capacitor/core @capacitor/app
npx cap init my-game com.example.mygame
npx cap add ios
npx cap add android
npm run build
npx cap copy
npx cap open ios       # or: npx cap open android

melonJS's Vite-based build outputs to dist/, which is Capacitor's default webDir. No additional config required.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.