Introduction

Bootstrap and package your project with Angular 4 and Electron (Typescript + SASS)

Currently runs with:

• Angular v4.0.2
• Angular-CLI v1.0.0
• Electron v1.6.5
• Electron Packager v8.6.0

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 :

git clone https://github.com/maximegris/angular-electron.git

Install dependencies with your favorite dependencies manager (npm or yarn) :

npm install

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
in another terminal window -> npm run electron:serve

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

The application code is managed by main.js. In this sample, the app runs with a simple Electron window and "Developer Tools" is open.
The Angular component contains an example of Electron and NodeJS native lib import. See Use NodeJS Native libraries charpter if you want to import other native libraries in your project.
You can desactivate "Developer Tools" by commenting win.webContents.openDevTools(); in main.js.

To build for production

• npm run electron:dist

Your built files are in the /dist folder.

Included Commands

• npm run electron:linux - builds your application and creates an app consumable on linux systems.
• 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 the files of /dist folder are included in the executable.

Use NodeJS Native libraries

Actually Angular-Cli doesn't seem to be able to import nodeJS native libs or electron libs at compile time (Webpack error). If you need to use NodeJS native libraries like 'fs' or 'os', you MUST add it manually in the file webpack.config.js in root folder :

  "externals": {
    "child_process": 'require(\'child_process\')',
    "electron": 'require(\'electron\')',
    "fs": 'require(\'fs\')'
  },