Creating new Imba Electron app doesn't work with a lot of issues

[taw]

Starting a new one:

$ npx imba create test-app
✔ Choose your template · electron-template
✔ Configure package.json? (y/N) · false
✔ Create project in directory: /Users/twegrzanowski/Downloads/repro/test-app? (Y/n) · true
ℹ Generating files from template

Cloning into '/Users/twegrzanowski/Downloads/repro/test-app'...
ℹ Installing dependencies
✔ Finished setting up project!

  Install the vscode extension for the optimal experience:
    https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=scrimba.vsimba

  Join the imba community on discord for help and friendly discussions:
    https://discord.gg/mkcbkRw

  Get started:

    > cd test-app
    > npm start

(node:56957) [DEP0147] DeprecationWarning: In future versions of Node.js, fs.rmdir(path, { recursive: true }) will be removed. Use fs.rm(path, { recursive: true }) instead
(Use `node --trace-deprecation ...` to show where the warning was created)

Now running it:

$ npm run watch

And:

$ npm run start

That already has two minor issues:

• printed instructions when creating new app are incorrect, that would not work, you need to npm run watch first
• that deprecation would be nice to get fixed

But the real problem starts when I actually run the code, as preload doesn't seem to run, and console is full of errors:

That's a long list:

• preload script crashed somehow - it's definitely compiled to js at path it's trying to load, so not sure what is the crash - I think this is the core problem
• really strange error "Electron failed to install correctly, please delete node_modules/electron and try installing again" - it does not go away after reinstalling, and other Electron apps work just fine, so it's maybe caused by preload crash?
• index.html expects __hmr__.js which is not there (separate from preload issue)
• DevTools failed to load SourceMap: Could not parse content for file:///__assets__/app/preload.js.map: Unexpected end of JSON input - those paths are wrong (separate from preload issue)
• because preload did not run, those version spans it was trying to replace were not replaced
• Uncaught (in promise) TypeError: Cannot read property 'invoke' of undefined - because preload did not run, button does this

I think figuring out why preload is crashing and fixing it would be the main thing. Bad parts to hmr, source maps, and minor things are probably not blocking development.

[stale]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.

[taw]

The issue is still there, nothing changed.

[codeluggage]

@taw I wonder if https://github.com/tauri-apps/tauri would work instead?

[taw]

@codeluggage That doesn't seem related to it at all.

[codeluggage]

@taw Yes, I meant to offer an alternative, not address the current Electron issues.

I've been curious about Tauri so I gave it a try - looks like it's working well: https://github.com/codeluggage/imba-tauri

If the Electron issues are blocking you, you could go this direction instead. I'll see about adding this as an alternative template for imba create.

EDIT: Added feature request here: #658

[somebee]

The electron template should probably be removed from imba create until we have a decent one that works. Will get back to this soon.