electron-builder VS cross-env

The last step for each platform's build process is to upload the app to our GitHub releases repository. We automated this step from the beginning, but when we started creating builds for the new M1 chip Macs, we had to add a manual step. This involved merging files needed for the auto-updater to work with the M1 builds.

https://github.com/electron-userland/electron-builder/issues... that issue kinks to the PR that adds the automation.

It's a non-trivial thing to test, since it involves so many secrets and the notarization step can take over an hour, so I don't expect anyone here to actually want to look into it.

My original comment really was just venting my frustration, not a cry for help (but I might be crying soon if I can get to the bottom of this!).

> The ‘autoupdater’ does three things,

>

> - check the app for updates (using Sparkle)

> - report any crashes (using Sentry)

> - start a local HTTP proxy on port 40701 (this can be changed using the configuration json file in the app bundle).

>

> The latter is of course, not to be expected of any app on the machine, especially not one that just claims to be an auto updater.

Well, yes. And no.

For example, electron-builder [^0], a popular framework used for Electron app packaging and auto-updates, uses a local update server on Mac [^1] to add a more sane system backed by a more insane system, Squirrel.

[^0]: https://github.com/electron-userland/electron-builder

[^1]: https://github.com/electron-userland/electron-builder/blob/m...

The Project uses Electorn-Builder to package the app and Electorn-Updater to update.

You can read about this issue here: https://github.com/electron-userland/electron-builder/issues/7114

Ostara is based off of electron-react-boilerplate and uses electron-builder to package the application.

Install electron and electron-builder

I believe Visual Studio Code uses Electron and posts releases on a regular basis. Maybe check their A quick Google search for "electron build github release" turns up "Electron Builder" https://www.electron.build/ I don't really know though; I've never used Electron.

I also would like to have an NSIS installer so if it happens to package the Chromium executable along with my app, how can I accomplish that? I am using electron-builder.

We use electron-builder at work.

cross-env

or if we care about cross-platform compatibility (i.e. Windows support), we can use cross-env (which I also recommend to install as a dev dependency):

i like to use dotenv-flow and dynamically load it into node process. it's framework agnostic and can be combined with vaious other strategies, like explicitly set NODE_ENV with cross-env. all you need is the right command in your package.json, see a sample here.

Cross-env runs scripts that set and use environment variables across various platforms.

You will also need to disable the url-loader in your Docusaurus build which transforms images into base64 strings, as this will conflict with the plugin. There isn't a first class way to do this in Docusaurus at present. However by setting the environment variable WEBPACK_URL_LOADER_LIMIT to 0 you can disable it. You can see an implementation example in this pull request. It amounts to adding the cross-env package and then adding the following to your package.json:

Using the cross-env library, you'll tell the React Testing Library to skip auto cleanup after each test. More info and ways to configure here: Skipping Auto Cleanup. Now your configuration is enough to start writing tests, let's get started.

Now we need to load the files during the bootup. Windows environments sometimes face issues with loading the environments. To take care of that, let's install a package named cross-env

build; sets and enviroment valiable of NODE_ENV=production using cross-env lib and builds the production bundle, minified and without source-maps as set in the webpack.config.js file.

I'd suggest the cross-env NPM package which is used a lot (4M downlaods/week). Then you can just change it to the following:

Debugging Cypress tests using Visual Studio Code was possible earlier but with the latest version of Cypress, there is no direct way to do so. Even with the latest version of Cypress, a workaround was possible using Debugger for Chrome – a Visual Studio Code Extension and cross-env npm package. However, the Debugger for Chrome Extension for Visual Studio Code is deprecated and the cross-env npm package has gone into maintenance mode.