astro-electron

Astro-Electron is an integration designed to seamlessly incorporate Electron into Astro projects. It simplifies the process of setting up Electron, providing a streamlined development experience for building cross-platform desktop applications with Astro and Electron.

Features

• Effortless integration of Electron with Astro projects.
• Automatic setup of the Electron environment during package installation.
• Customizable Electron configuration with sensible defaults.

Installation

To install astro-electron, run the following command in your Astro project:

npm install astro-electron electron --save

yarn add astro-electron electron

pnpm add astro-electron electron

Setup

App won't run in Electron without some additional setup. Follow the steps below to get started.

Update astro.config.js

Modify your astro.config.js to include the astro-electron integration:

import { defineConfig } from "astro/config";
import electron from "astro-electron";

export default defineConfig({
  integrations: [electron()],
});

Update package.json

{
  "main": "dist-electron/main.js"
}

Update .gitignore

# Electron
dist-electron/

Electron main and preload files

Crete directory src/electron and add main.ts and preload.ts files.

Please note this is just an minimal example, refer to Electron docs for more information.

// src/electron/main.ts
import * as url from "url";
import { app, BrowserWindow } from "electron";

app.whenReady().then(() => {
  const win = new BrowserWindow({
    title: "Main window",
    webPreferences: {
      preload: url.fileURLToPath(new URL("preload.mjs", import.meta.url)),
    },
  });

  // You can use `process.env.VITE_DEV_SERVER_URL` when the vite command is called `serve`
  if (process.env.VITE_DEV_SERVER_URL) {
    win.loadURL(process.env.VITE_DEV_SERVER_URL);
    win.webContents.openDevTools();
  } else {
    // Load your file
    win.loadFile("dist/index.html");
  }
});

// src/electron/preload.ts
console.log("preload.ts");

Customizing Electron Configuration

astro-electron allows for customization of the Electron setup. You can pass specific configuration options to tailor the integration to your project's needs:

export default defineConfig({
  integrations: [
    astroElectron({
      main: {
        entry: "src/electron/main.ts", // Path to your Electron main file
        vite: {}, // Vite-specific configurations (by default we use the same config as your Astro project)
      },
      preload: {
        input: "src/electron/preload.ts", // Path to your Electron preload file
        vite: {}, // Vite-specific configurations (by default we use the same config as your Astro project)
      },
      renderer: {
        // Renderer-specific configurations (if needed)
      },
    }),
  ],
});

For more information on the available configuration options, refer to the vite-plugin-electron docs.

Static assets

Most likely you app gonna need some static assets like fonts, videos etc. (for images you should use Image from astro:assets) To make them available in Electron you need to explicitly use /public directory in your paths, against what you would do in a regular Astro project.

Building and publishing your Electron app

This integration does not include any build or publish, it's up to you to choose the best option for your project, but we recommend using Electron Forge.

License

astro-electron is open-source software licensed under the MIT License.