Electron App Base

A base project for creating interactive desktop application with Electron.

Basic Usage:

Add basic usage data for your application here.

Quick Start

Production

The latest release is available here (add a link to your release server here).

If you do not already have a release server, consider using electron-release-server.

Development

Ensure that you have installed Node.js on your development machine.

Note: Node.js version >= 8.x.x is required.

npm install
npm start

The Stack

The App Stack includes various tools and frameworks. Below is a list of those items and their intended purpose:

• AngularJS: Client Side Web-App Stack
• Bower: Managing CSS/JS dependencies (i.e. AngularJS)
• Sass: Enhanced Stylesheets (SCSS)
• Jade: HTML Templating Engine
• Wiredep: Injecting Bower dependencies into the Jade files
• Karma/Jasmine: Testing framework for AngularJS + code coverage support
• Grunt: Build Automation for compiling Sass + other resources before application is run
• Electron: Application wrapper which enables native multi-platform support
• Node.js: Running the Electron/Desktop Application
• Electron Builder: Used to generate release artifacts (executables and installers) for all target platforms.

Adding new views

Thanks to the use of Grunt and Wiredep, resources are automatically included from the main.jade file. It is recommended that all views be written in the same directory as their controller, as.jade files.

Adding/Managing Bower Resources

In order to add a new resource, simply install + save it using bower. Below is an example using Angular

bower install --save angular

And that's it. Since we are using Grump + Wiredep, all bower dependencies will be included on pages supporting the Wiredep tags.

Adding/Managing NPM Resources

There are two package.json files for this project. One is found in this folder, the other in ./app

The package.json folder found in this folder contains only those node modules required for development, while all packages used by the app at runtime are in the app folder. This allows for more reliable packaging.

In order to add a new resource, simply install + save it using npm in the appropriate directory.

Below is an example using lodash for a package required at runtime

cd app
npm install --save lodash

Here is another example, this time using karma for testing during development

npm install --save-dev karma

Using the Desktop Application During Development

To compile the application and run it for development usage, type in the project root directory:

npm start

In order to additionally run the application with the ability to connect a debugger to the main and database processes, run the following:

npm run debug

Note: The main process' debug port is 5858 whereas the database's is 5859.

Building the Desktop Application

This project is setup to package Windows/Mac/Linux apps for distribution.

For doing so we use electron-builder. See the GitHub page for more information on the tool and it's dependencies.

You will first need to run npm install in this directory if you have not already. Afterwards, run the following to build the app for all architectures and distributions:

npm run build

Multi-Platform Builds

Important: Be sure to read the requirements set out by electron-builder.

Distribution & Release Process

Release builds must be code signed and since all builds can be completed from OS X, it has been established that all release artifacts must be generated on the dedicated OS X build server.

Release artifacts will be generated on every commit pushed to the master branch. As a result, all changes to master must be submitted through a PR.

Note: The automatically generated artifacts are not auto-published, this must be done by hand.

Adding build machines

If a new build machine is to be used, it must have the code signing certificate applied to it.