node.js is a server and needs a package manager such as npm or ng. All of which could be built with angular/cli. Am I correct in assuming that Angular is the preferred method. also angular.js is good for mobile.
This is the easy way of accessing the API for desktop apps, which also leaves you free of any licensing restrictions (if you link directly with the Rust libraries you must GPL your code for example). If you wanted you could develop in another language (Python, C# etc, but MaidSafe do not currently provide the necessary ffi bindings for this, so you’d have to create that yourself first). Bindings for other languages will no doubt be provided by MaidSafe or others in due course, but this is the easiest route for now.
The framework preference is yours, but yes you’ll need to use a package manager such as npm or yarn etc as MaidSafe have done with their desktop examples.