WARNING: This hasn't been updated in years, and it depends on ancient NodeJS libraries with security vulnerabilities. DO NOT USE.

TypeScript + Electron + React + Redux + Neon + Rust

This is a "spike", or throwaway project to prove that a particular set of technologies can all actually play together. This is all throwaway code.

Above: A Rust plugin running in Electron, in both the main process and the renderer process.

The technologies involved:

• TypeScript. Type-checking for JavaScript, with nice IDE support (including Emacs via tide).
• Electron. Use JavaScript to write portable apps based on Chromium and NodeJS.
• React. HTML user interfaces expressed as a function which transforms a data model into rendered HTML.
• Redux. A data model and event framework for use with React. Has support for undo, replay, event logs, time travel, etc.
• Rust. A compiled language which is fast, safe and expressive.
• Neon. Build NodeJS addons using Rust.
• webpack. The glue that pieces everything else together.
• Duct tape.

There are binaries!

Binaries for Linux are available on the Releases page. Binaries for MacOS and Windows are presumably just a matter of messing around with the build system and TravisCI/AppVeyor.

To install the binaries on Linux, download an *.AppImage file, put it somewhere useful, run chmod +x on it, and execute it. It will offer to install icons, launcher items, and so forth the first time you run it. See the AppImage site for more details—it's basically a self-running ISO image that gets mounted on /tmp, with a complete Linux environment built into it. Imagine Docker for GUI applications.

Electron also offers an auto-update system, which I haven't looked into.

To run it

Install the React Developer Tools plugin in Chrome if you haven't already.

. env.sh
npm install -g typings
yarn
typings install
npm run install
npm start

To recompile the JavaScript code after making changes, try:

npm run watch

Note that our type definitions for TypeScript are still a bit dodgy. In particular, there are multiple sets of React type definitions, none of which are really great. We use a version installed via package.json that's technically for React 0.14, even though we're running 0.15.

In the browser console the first time:

require('electron-react-devtools').install()

When you're ready to produce a distributable binary, try the following on Linux:

npm run dist
dist/electest-*-x86_64.AppImage