electron reload

This is (hopefully) the simplest way to load contents of all active BrowserWindows within electron when the source files are changed.

Installation

npm install electron-reload

Usage

Just initialize this module with desired glob or file path to watch and let it refresh electron browser windows as targets are changed:

'use strict';

const {app, BrowserWindow} = require('electron');

const electronReload = require('@millyc/electron-reload');

// Standard stuff
app.on('ready', () => {
  let mainWindow = new BrowserWindow({width: 800, height: 600});

  mainWindow.loadUrl(`file://${__dirname}/index.html`);
  // the rest...
});

Note that the above code only refreshes WebContents of all BrowserWindows. So if you want to have a hard reset (starting a new electron process) you can just pass the path to the electron executable in the options object:

const path = require('path');

require('electron-reload')(__dirname, {
  electron: path.join(__dirname, 'node_modules', '.bin', 'electron'),
});

If your app overrides some of the default quit or close actions (e.g. closing the last app window hides the window instead of quitting the app) then the default electron-reload hard restart could leave you with multiple instances of your app running. In these cases you can change the default hard restart action from app.quit() to app.exit() by specifying the hard reset method in the electron-reload options:

const path = require('path');

require('@millyc/electron-reload')(__dirname, {
  electron: path.join(__dirname, 'node_modules', '.bin', 'electron'),
  hardResetMethod: 'exit',
});

API

electronReload(paths, options)

• paths: a file, directory or glob pattern to watch

• options (optional) containing:

  • chokidar options
  • electron property pointing to electron executables.
  • electronArgv string array with command line options passed to the Electron executable. Only used when hard resetting.
  • appArgv: string array with command line options passed to the Electron app. Only used when hard resetting.
  • forceHardReset: enables hard reset for every file change and not only the main file

  options will default to {ignored: /node_modules|[\/\\]\./, argv: []}.

Why this module?

Simply put, I was tired and confused by all other available modules which are so complicated* for such an uncomplicated task!

* e.g. start a local HTTP server, publish change events through a WebSocket, etc.!

Changelog

• 3.0.0:
  • Fix #9: Support webpack.
• 3.0.0-alpha.0:
  • Initial release of @millyc/electron-reload package.
  • Forked from electron-reload v2.0.0-alpha.1.
  • Update dependencies.
  • Fix yan-foto/electron-reload#110: Changed electronArgv and appArgv types to array.
  • Fix yan-foto/electron-reload#114: Allow readonly string array in glob.
  • Fix #4: Add JSDoc to electronReload().