7/18/2020 Multi Platform Build - electron-builder

Multi Platform Build

 Info

Don’t expect that you can build app for all platforms on one platform.

If your app has native dependency, it can be compiled only on the target
platform unless prebuild [https://www.npmjs.com/package/prebuild] is not
used.

prebuild [https://www.npmjs.com/package/prebuild] is a solution, but most

node modules don’t provide [https://github.com/atom/node-
keytar/issues/27] prebuilt binaries.

macOS Code Signing works only on macOS. Cannot be fixed

[http://stackoverflow.com/a/12156576].

Free public Electron Build Service [https://github.com/electron-

userland/electron-build-service] is used to build Electron app for Linux on
Windows. On macOS/Linux you can build Electron app for Windows locally,
except Appx for Windows Store (in the future (feel free to file issue) electron-
build-service will support Appx target).

You can use build servers — e.g. Travis [https://travis-ci.org] to build

macOS/Linux apps and AppVeyor [http://www.appveyor.com/] to build Windows
app.

By default build for current platform and current arch. Use CLI flags --mac , --
win , --linux to specify platforms. And --ia32 , --x64 to specify arch.

For example, to build app for MacOS, Windows and Linux:

electron-builder -mwl

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Build performed in parallel, so, it is highly recommended to not use npm task per
platform (e.g. npm run dist:mac && npm run dist:win32 ), but specify multiple
platforms/targets in one build command. You don’t need to clean dist output
before build — output directory is cleaned automatically.

Sample .travis.yml to Build Electron App for

macOS, Linux and Windows

 sample .travis.yml

matrix:
include:
- os: osx
osx_image: xcode10.2
language: node_js
node_js: "10"
env:
- ELECTRON_CACHE=$HOME/.cache/electron
- ELECTRON_BUILDER_CACHE=$HOME/.cache/electron-builder

- os: linux
services: docker
language: generic

cache:
directories:
- node_modules
- $HOME/.cache/electron
- $HOME/.cache/electron-builder

script:
- |
if [ "$TRAVIS_OS_NAME" == "linux" ]; then
docker run --rm \
--env-file <(env | grep -iE
'DEBUG|NODE_|ELECTRON_|YARN_|NPM_|CI|CIRCLE|TRAVIS|APPVEYOR_|CSC_|_TOKEN|_KEY|AWS_
\
-v ${PWD}:/project \
-v ~/.cache/electron:/root/.cache/electron \
-v ~/.cache/electron-builder:/root/.cache/electron-builder \
electronuserland/builder:wine \
/bin/bash -c "yarn --link-duplicates --pure-lockfile && yarn release --
linux --win"
else
yarn release
fi
before_cache:
- rm -rf $HOME/.cache/electron-builder/wine

branches:
except:
- "/^v\\d+\\.\\d+\\.\\d+$/"

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Sample appveyor.yml to Build Electron App for

Windows
Use AppVeyor only if: you need to build AppX, or your app has native dependency
and prebuilt binary is not provided.

Otherwise see above sample .travis.yml to build Windows on Linux using

provided Docker [#docker] image.


 sample appveyor.yml

image: Visual Studio 2017

platform:
- x64

cache:
- node_modules
- '%USERPROFILE%\.electron'

init:
- git config --global core.autocrlf input

install:
- ps: Install-Product node 10 x64
- yarn

build_script:
- yarn dist

test: off

macOS
All required system dependencies (except rpm) will be downloaded
automatically on demand on macOS 10.12+ (macOS Sierra). On Travis, please
add osx_image: xcode10.2 (see above sample .travis.yml ).

To build rpm: brew install rpm (brew [https://brew.sh]).

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Linux
You can use Docker [#docker] to avoid installing system dependencies.

To build app in distributable format for Linux:

sudo apt-get install --no-install-recommends -y libopenjp2-tools

To build rpm: sudo apt-get install --no-install-recommends -y rpm (or

sudo yum install rpm-build ).

To build pacman: sudo apt-get install --no-install-recommends -y

bsdtar .

To build snap if and only of you have custom stage packages (if you don’t have
custom snap build configuration, you don’t need to install). See snapcraft
[https://snapcraft.io/snapcraft] in Store.

sudo snap install snapcraft --classic

sudo snap install multipass --beta --classic

To build app for Windows on Linux:

Docker [#docker] ( electronuserland/builder:wine ) is recommended to avoid

installing system dependencies.

Install Wine (2.0+ is required) — see WineHQ Binary Packages

[https://www.winehq.org/download#binary].

Install Mono [http://www.mono-project.com/download/#download-lin] (4.2+

is required) if you want to use Squirrel.Windows (NSIS, default target, doesn’t
require mono).

To build app in 32 bit from a machine with 64 bit:

sudo apt-get install --no-install-recommends -y gcc-multilib g++-

multilib

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Travis Linux
Xenial [https://docs.travis-ci.com/user/trusty-ci-environment/] is required.

sudo: required
dist: xenial

Travis macOS

macOS 10.14+ [https://docs.travis-ci.com/user/osx-ci-environment/#OS-X-

Version] is required.

osx_image: xcode10.2

Docker
To build Linux or Windows on any platform.

 Warning

You cannot build for Windows using Docker if you have native dependencies and native
dependency doesn’t use prebuild [https://www.npmjs.com/package/prebuild].

See example Docker usage on a CI server in the sample .travis.yml

[https://github.com/develar/onshape-desktop-shell/blob/master/.travis.yml].

 Note

Do not use Docker Toolbox on macOS. Only Docker for Mac [https://docs.docker.com/docker-
for-mac/install/] works.

Build Electron App using Docker on a Local Machine

1. Run docker container:

docker run --rm -ti \

--env-file <(env | grep -iE

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'DEBUG|NODE_|ELECTRON_|YARN_|NPM_|CI|CIRCLE|TRAVIS_TAG|TRAVIS|TRAV
\
--env ELECTRON_CACHE="/root/.cache/electron" \
--env ELECTRON_BUILDER_CACHE="/root/.cache/electron-builder" \
-v ${PWD}:/project \
-v ${PWD##*/}-node-modules:/project/node_modules \
-v ~/.cache/electron:/root/.cache/electron \
-v ~/.cache/electron-builder:/root/.cache/electron-builder \
electronuserland/builder:wine

2. Type in yarn && yarn dist

If you don’t have dist npm script in your package.json , call

./node_modules/.bin/electron-builder directly.

Or to avoid second step, append to first command /bin/bash -c "yarn &&

yarn dist" You can use /test.sh to install dependencies and run tests.

 Tip

If you don’t need to build Windows, use image electronuserland/builder (wine is not installed
in this image).

Provided Docker Images

electronuserland/builder or electronuserland/builder:12 — NodeJS

10 and required system dependencies. Based on builder:base . Use this
image if you need to build only Linux targets.

electronuserland/builder:wine — Wine, NodeJS 10 and required system

dependencies. Based on builder:10 . Use this image if you need to build
Windows targets.

electronuserland/builder:wine-mono — Mono for Squirrel.Windows.

Based on builder:wine . Use this image if you need to build
Squirrel.Windows target.

electronuserland/builder:wine-chrome — google-chrome-stable and

xvfb are available — you can use this image for headless testing of Electron
application. Based on builder:wine .

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electronuserland/builder:base — Required system dependencies. Not

supposed to be used directly.

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