Next generation Electron build tooling based on Vite

Documentation | Getting Started | create-electron

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• ⚡️ Inherit all the benefits of Vite and use the same way as Vite.
• 📦The main process, renderers and preload scripts are all built with Vite.
• 🛠The main process, renderers and preload scripts Vite configuration combined into one file.
• 💡Pre-configured for Electron, don't worry about configuration.
• 🚀HMR for renderer processes.
• 🔥The main process and preload scripts support hot reloading.
• 🔌Easy to debug.
• 🔒Compile to v8 bytecode to protect source code.
• 🔋Out-of-the-box support for TypeScript, Vue, React, Svelte, SolidJS and more.

npm i electron-vite -D

In a project where electron-vite is installed, you can use electron-vite binary directly with npx electron-vite or add the npm scripts to your package.json file like this:

{
  "scripts": {
    "start": "electron-vite preview",
    "dev": "electron-vite dev",
    "prebuild": "electron-vite build"
  }
}

When running electron-vite from the command line, electron-vite will automatically try to resolve a config file named electron.vite.config.js inside project root. The most basic config file looks like this:

// electron.vite.config.js
export default {
  main: {
    // vite config options
  },
  preload: {
    // vite config options
  },
  renderer: {
    // vite config options
  }
}

In order to use the renderer process HMR, you need to use the environment variables to determine whether the window browser loads a local html file or a local URL.

function createWindow() {
  // Create the browser window
  const mainWindow = new BrowserWindow({
    width: 800,
    height: 600,
    webPreferences: {
      preload: path.join(__dirname, '../preload/index.js')
    }
  })

  // Load the remote URL for development or the local html file for production
  if (!app.isPackaged && process.env['ELECTRON_RENDERER_URL']) {
    mainWindow.loadURL(process.env['ELECTRON_RENDERER_URL'])
  } else {
    mainWindow.loadFile(path.join(__dirname, '../renderer/index.html'))
  }
}

Hot reloading refers to quickly rebuilding and restarting the Electron app when the main process or preload scripts module changes. In fact, it's not really hot reloading, but similar. It also brings a good development experience to developers.

There are two ways to enable it:

1. Use CLI option -w or --watch, e.g. electron-vite dev --watch. This is the preferred way, it's more flexible.

2. Use configuration option build.watch and set to {}. In addition, more watcher options can be configured, see WatcherOptions.

Add a file .vscode/launch.json with the following configuration:

{
  "version": "0.2.0",
  "configurations": [
    {
      "name": "Debug Main Process",
      "type": "node",
      "request": "launch",
      "cwd": "${workspaceRoot}",
      "runtimeExecutable": "${workspaceRoot}/node_modules/.bin/electron-vite",
      "windows": {
        "runtimeExecutable": "${workspaceRoot}/node_modules/.bin/electron-vite.cmd"
      },
      "runtimeArgs": ["--sourcemap"]
    }
  ]
}

Then, set some breakpoints in main.ts (source code), and start debugging in the VSCode Debug View.

Use the plugin bytecodePlugin to enable it:

import { defineConfig, bytecodePlugin } from 'electron-vite'

export default defineConfig({
  main: {
    plugins: [bytecodePlugin()]
  },
  preload: {
    plugins: [bytecodePlugin()]
  },
  renderer: {
    // ...
  }
})

bytecodePlugin only works in production and supports the main process and preload scripts.

Also, you can learn more by playing with the example.

Clone the electron-vite-boilerplate or use the create-electron tool to scaffold your project.

npm init @quick-start/electron

See Contributing Guide.

MIT © alex.wei