Letting users pick their favourite modules loading method

[GiovanniFrigo]

Removing require.resolve from rendererRequireDirect allows users to load modules in different fashions:

• webpack-packed modules (ie: ElectronRemote.requireTaskPool(require.resolve('electron-remote/remote-ajax'));)
• absolute/relative files (ElectronRemote.requireTaskPool('../../../dist/electron/workers/uploadWorker');)
• possibly other ways that don't come into my mind right now :)

See issue #19

[anaisbetts]

This is a breaking change, I think you should file a bug on webpack to make require.resolve work properly

[Revln9]

Hi @paulcbetts , i think @GiovanniFrigo is right , you should really consider adapting this amazing module for webpack.

you can use https://github.com/chentsulin/electron-react-boilerplate to check since its the most famous boilerplate for electron and react (i use this too) .

And we are all willing to help too , i've just opened an issue at the boilerplate repository , maybe someone dealed with this problem before
electron-react-boilerplate/electron-react-boilerplate#918

@GiovanniFrigo i tried your solution but unfortunately this will bring another error with the message FILE_NOT_FOUND , so in my case , it didn't help.

thank you

[anaisbetts]

I actually think that people shouldn't use Webpack with Electron, because it causes problems like this. Instead, you should use electron-forge with the React template (https://github.com/electron-userland/electron-forge-templates) - with less than 1/10th of the code, you'll still get HMR and a complete build and packaging system

[GiovanniFrigo]

I hear you, this is a breaking change for people already using it. How about I add a method that allows creating a Task Pool from a raw file?
Eg: ElectronRemote.requireTaskPoolFromRawModule(..) with the same specs as above.
Would you accept a PR of this kind?

This way we wouldn't change anything for existing users, but still allow others (like me or @Revln9) to load modules in other ways.
I'd love to keep using this library, but we can't get rid of webpack as it is crucial to the project in some other parts. I have a fork of it right now, but this way we'd lose any future updates to it..

[Revln9]

@GiovanniFrigo 👍 we should also add documentation for webpack users because i don't think its the only change needed to get this module work with webpack .

If you pack your app in an asar file , the module will fail to find the dummy html used to load scripts at the hidden window. now i don't know if its specific to my config but i'm using a pretty well known boilerplate for electron , so i guess i'm not alone.

[GiovanniFrigo]

@paulcbetts Thoughts on my latest comment?

[GiovanniFrigo]

@paulcbetts don't mean to nag you, but could you please just tell me if you'd consider a PR allowing for the raw module loading, as described above? That makes an huge difference for me in whether we can use this library or not :/

Again that would be an alternative method of loading modules, not changing the current one.

[alexcroox]

+1 for webpack support, it's incredibly popular these days

[eranimo]

Is there a fork of electron-remote that works with webpack?

[Revln9]

Got it working somehow after endless trials , but it's not guaranteed that this will work for you ,
here's how ;

replace this

electron-remote/src/renderer-require.js

Lines 57 to 59 in 0559f78

	let preloadFile = path.join(__dirname, 'renderer-require-preload.html');
	bw.loadURL(`file:///${preloadFile}?module=${encodeURIComponent(fullPath)}`);
	await ready;

with this

let preloadFile
   if (process.env.NODE_ENV === 'development') {
    preloadFile = _path2.default.join( __dirname , './renderer-require-preload.html');
   }
   if (process.env.NODE_ENV === 'production') {
   preloadFile = _path2.default.join( __dirname , './node_modules/electron-remote/lib/renderer-require-
   preload.html');
   }

let loadFile = 'file://' + preloadFile  + '?module=' + encodeURIComponent(fullPath)
bw.loadURL(loadFile);
await ready; 

the if statement is an easy fix for the production deployment directory issue (not found).

Hope it helps.