ionic-team/electron-builder

Build installers for Electron apps the easy way

electron-builder (WIP)

The electron-builder project is used to create installers for the platforms Windows and OS X. It's built to work together with the electron-packager.

If you are looking for a complete set up on how to use the electron-packager and electron-builder check the "How we use it section below".

The project has currently only been executed on OS X machines. Any support or help for Windows is welcome.

Install

You can go the global installation route. ;)

$ npm install -g electron-builder

Oooooor... You can wrap electron-builder with npm scripts to not have a global dependency.

# install electron builder as a dependency of your project
$ npm install --save electron-builder

After that you can easily use the electron-builder binary in your npm scripts.

part of package.json

{
  "scripts" : {
    "pack:osx": "npm run build:osx && electron-builder \"dist/osx/Loopline Systems.app\" --platform=osx --out=\"dist/osx\" --config=packager.json"
  }
}

Pre-requisites

If you're on OS X/Linux and want to build for Windows, you need Wine installed. Wine is required in order to set the correct icon for the exe.

You will also need the nullsoft scriptable install system for all platforms.

On OS X via brew

$ brew install wine makensis

On linux via apt-get

$ add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-wine/ppa -y
$ apt-get update
$ apt-get install wine nsis -y

On Windows download the nullsoft scriptable installer

If you're on OS X/Linux and want to build for Windows, make also sure you're running at least v0.12.0 of node.js.

$ node --version
v0.12.0

Build OS X installer

$ electron-builder dist/osx/someFancy.app --platform=osx --out=/some/path/ --config=config.json

Build Windows installer

$ electron-builder dist/win/someFancy-win32 --platform=win --out=/some/path/ --config=config.json

Parameters

Usage
  $ electron-builder <sourcedir> --platform=<platform> --config=<configPath> --out=<outputPath>

  Required options:
    platform:          win, osx
    config:            path to config file

  Optional options:
    out:               path to output the installer (must exist)

Because the configuration is fairly complex we decided to go with a good old config file for now. You will find a sample config file below.

config.json.sample:

{
  "osx" : {
    "title": "Loopline Systems",
    "background": "assets/osx/installer.png",
    "icon": "assets/osx/mount.icns",
    "icon-size": 80,
    "contents": [
      { "x": 438, "y": 344, "type": "link", "path": "/Applications" },
      { "x": 192, "y": 344, "type": "file" }
    ]
  },
  "win" : {
    "title" : "Loopline Systems",
    "icon" : "assets/win/icon.ico"
  }
}

How we use it so far

When you run npm run pack it will create executables for the platforms Windows and OS X inside of the dist directory. It grabs the generated executables afterwards to create the installers out of it.

directory structure

desktop
  |-- app                               // actual electron application
  |
  |-- assets                            // build related assets
    |-- osx                             // build assets for OS X
      |-- installer.png                 //   -> referenced in packager.json ( dmg mount icon )
      |-- mount.icns                    //   -> use by electron-packager ( actual app icon )
      |-- loopline.icns                 //   -> referenced in packager.json ( dmg background )
    |-- win                             // build assets for OS X
      |-- icon.ico                      //   -> referenced in packager.json
  |
  |-- dist                              // out put folder
    |-- osx                             // generated executables for OS X
      |-- Loopline Systems.app
      |-- Loopline Systems.dmg
    |-- win                             // generated executables for Windows
      |-- Loopline Systems-win32
      |-- Loopline Systems Setup.exe
  |-- package.json
  |-- packager.json

package.json

{
  "name": "loopline-desktop",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "description": "",
  "main": "index.js",
  "scripts": {
    "dev": "electron ./app",

    "clean": "rm -rf ./dist",
    "clean:osx": "rm -rf ./dist/osx",
    "clean:win": "rm -rf ./dist/win",

    "build": "npm run clean && npm run build:osx && npm run build:win",
    "build:osx": "npm run clean:osx && electron-packager ./app \"Loopline Systems\" --out=dist/osx --platform=darwin --arch=x64 --version=0.25.3 --icon=assets/osx/loopline.icns",
    "build:win": "npm run clean:win && electron-packager ./app \"Loopline Systems\" --out=dist/win --platform=win32 --arch=ia32 --version=0.25.3 --icon=assets/win/icon.ico",

    "pack": "npm run pack:osx && npm run pack:win",
    "pack:osx": "npm run build:osx && electron-builder \"dist/osx/Loopline Systems.app\" --platform=osx --out=\"dist/osx\" --config=packager.json",
    "pack:win": "npm run build:win && electron-builder \"dist/win/Loopline Systems-win32\" --platform=win --out=\"dist/win\" --config=packager.json"
  },
  "dependencies": {
    "electron-packager": "^4.0.2",
    "electron-prebuilt": "^0.25.2",
    "electron-builder": "^1.0.0"
  }
}

packager.json

{
  "osx" : {
    "title": "Loopline Systems",
    "background": "assets/osx/installer.png",
    "icon": "assets/osx/mount.icns",
    "icon-size": 80,
    "contents": [
      { "x": 438, "y": 344, "type": "link", "path": "/Applications" },
      { "x": 192, "y": 344, "type": "file" }
    ]
  },
  "win" : {
    "title" : "Loopline Systems",
    "icon" : "assets/win/icon.ico"
  }
}

Contribution

You want to help out and have ideas to make it better? Great!

Create an issue and we will tackle it.

If you decide to propose a pull request ( even better ) make sure npm test is succeeding.

Releases

For releases we like to give release names via adj-noun. You'll find proper release notes here.