Introduction

Currently runs with:

• Angular v5.2.5
• Angular-CLI v1.6.4
• Electron v1.8.2
• Electron Builder v20.0.4

With this sample, you can :

• Run your app in a local development environment with Electron & Hot reload
• Run your app in a production environment
• Package your app into an executable file for Linux, Windows & Mac

Getting Started

Clone this repository locally, install dependencies with npm :

npm install

There is an issue with yarn and node_modules that are only used in electron on the backend when the application is built by the packager. Please use npm as dependencies manager.

If you want to generate Angular components with Angular-cli , you MUST install @angular/cli in npm global context. Please follow Angular-cli documentation if you had installed a previous version of angular-cli.

npm install -g @angular/cli

To build for development

• in a terminal window -> npm start

Voila! You can use your Angular + Electron app in a local development environment with hot reload !

The application code is managed by main.ts. In this sample, the app runs with a simple Angular App (http://localhost:4200) and an Electron window. The Angular component contains an example of Electron and NodeJS native lib import. You can desactivate "Developer Tools" by commenting win.webContents.openDevTools(); in main.ts.

Manage your environment variables

• Using local variables : npm start or cross-env ENV=local npm start
• Using development variables : cross-env ENV=dev npm start
• Using production variables : cross-env ENV=rod npm start

Included Commands

Command	Description
npm run ng:serve	Execute the app in the browser
npm run build	Build the app. Your built files are in the /dist folder.
npm run build:prod	Build the app with Angular aot. Your built files are in the /dist folder.
npm run electron:local	Builds your application and start electron
npm run electron:linux	Builds your application and creates an app consumable on linux system
npm run electron:windows	On a Windows OS, builds your application and creates an app consumable in windows 32/64 bit systems
npm run electron:mac	On a MAC OS, builds your application and generates a .app file of your application that can be run on Mac

Your application is optimised. Only /dist folder and node dependencies are included in the executable.

Browser mode

Maybe you want to execute the application in the browser (WITHOUT HOT RELOAD ACTUALLY...) ? You can do it with npm run ng:serve. Note that you can't use Electron or NodeJS native libraries in this case. Please check providers/electron.service.ts to watch how conditional import of electron/Native libraries is done.

How to install native modules

Three ways to install native modules:

The Easy Way

The most straightforward way to rebuild native modules is via the electron-rebuild package, which handles the manual steps of downloading headers and building native modules:

npm install --save-dev electron-rebuild

# Every time you run "npm install", run this
./node_modules/.bin/electron-rebuild

# On Windows if you have trouble, try:
.\node_modules\.bin\electron-rebuild.cmd

The npm Way

You can also use npm to install modules. The steps are exactly the same with Node modules, except that you need to setup some environment variables:

export npm_config_disturl=https://atom.io/download/atom-shell
export npm_config_target=0.33.1
export npm_config_arch=x64
export npm_config_runtime=electron
HOME=~/.electron-gyp npm install module-name

The node-gyp Way

To build Node modules with headers of Electron, you need to tell node-gyp where to download headers and which version to use:

$ cd /path-to-module/
$ HOME=~/.electron-gyp node-gyp rebuild --target=0.29.1 --arch=x64 --dist-url=https://atom.io/download/atom-shell

The HOME=~/.electron-gyp changes where to find development headers. The --target=0.29.1 is version of Electron. The --dist-url=... specifies where to download the headers. The --arch=x64 says the module is built for 64bit system.

Source