uwueviee / Stakkt.Desktop

Official OSX, Windows, and Linux Desktop Clients for Stakkt.

Rocket.Chat.Electron

All of Rocket.Chat's Desktop Apps - for Windows, Mac OSX, and Linux are based on the Elecctron platform from GitHub. This is the source code base for all desktop apps.

IMPORTANT

Please join the community server channel for Rocket.Chat Electron app users for feedback, interactions, and important notification regarding this code:

<<<<<<< HEAD

• Imposing on you any framework (e.g. Angular, React). You can integrate the one which makes most sense for you.

Quick start

The only development dependency of this project is Node.js. So just make sure you have it installed. Then type few commands known to every Node developer...

git clone https://github.com/RocketChat/Rocket.Chat.Electron.git
cd Rocket.Chat.Electron
npm install
npm start

... and boom! You have running desktop application on your screen.

Structure of the project

There are two package.json files:

1. For development

Sits on path: electron-boilerplate/package.json. Here you declare dependencies for your development environment and build scripts. This file is not distributed with real application!

Also here you declare the version of Electron runtime you want to use:

"devDependencies": {
  "electron-prebuilt": "^0.34.0"
}

2. For your application

Sits on path: electron-boilerplate/app/package.json. This is real manifest of your application. Declare your app dependencies here.

OMG, but seriously why there are two package.json?

1. Native npm modules (those written in C, not JavaScript) need to be compiled, and here we have two different compilation targets for them. Those used in application need to be compiled against electron runtime, and all devDependencies need to be compiled against your locally installed node.js. Thanks to having two files this is trivial.
2. When you package the app for distribution there is no need to add up to size of the app with your devDependencies. Here those are always not included (because reside outside the app directory).

Project's folders

• app - code of your application goes here.
• config - place where you can declare environment specific stuff for your app.
• build - in this folder lands built, runnable application.
• releases - ready for distribution installers will land here.
• resources - resources needed for particular operating system.
• tasks - build and development environment scripts. ======= https://demo.rocket.chat/channel/desktopclient

refs/remotes/RocketChat/develop

Development

Installation

npm install

It will also download Electron runtime, and install dependencies for second package.json file inside app folder.

Debian users need to make sure they have the package libxss-dev installed.

Starting the app

npm start

Structure of the project

There are two package.json files:

1. For development

Sits at root of the application. Just used for development dependencies. This file is not distributed with real application!

2. For your application

Sits on path: app/package.json. This is real manifest of your application. App dependencies declared here.

Project's folders

• app - code of your application goes here.
• config - place where you can declare environment specific stuff for your app.
• build - in this folder lands built, runnable application.
• releases - ready for distribution installers will land here.
• resources - resources needed for particular operating system.
• tasks - build and development environment scripts.

Making a release

Note: There are various icon and bitmap files in resources directory. Those are used in installers and are intended to be replaced by your own graphics.

To make ready for distribution installer use command:

npm run release

It will start the packaging process for operating system you are running this command on. Ready for distribution file will be outputted to releases directory.

You can create Windows installer only when running on Windows, the same is true for Linux and OSX. So to generate all three installers you need all three operating systems.

Mac only

App signing

The Mac release supports code signing. To sign the .app in the release image, include the certificate ID in the command as so,

npm run release -- --sign DX85ENM22A

Mac App Store

You should install the Electron build for MAS

export npm_config_platform=mas
rm -rf node_modules
npm install

To sign your app for Mac App Store

npm run release -- --mas --mas-sign "3rd Party Mac Developer Application: Company Name (APPIDENTITY)" --mas-installer-sign "3rd Party Mac Developer Installer: Company Name (APPIDENTITY)"

Or edit the app/package.json, remove the // from //codeSignIdentitiy and update the values with your sign indentities

  "//codeSignIdentitiy": {
    "dmg": "Developer ID Application: Company Name (APPIDENTITY)",
    "MAS": "3rd Party Mac Developer Application: Company Name (APPIDENTITY)",
    "MASInstaller": "3rd Party Mac Developer Installer: Company Name (APPIDENTITY)"
  }

You can change the application category too

  "LSApplicationCategoryType": "public.app-category.productivity"

If you insert your indentities in the package.json you can compile for MAS like

npm run release -- --mas

Windows only

Installer

The installer is built using NSIS. You have to install NSIS version 3.0, and add its folder to PATH in Environment Variables, so it is reachable to scripts in this project. For example, C:\Program Files (x86)\NSIS.

32-bit build on 64-bit Windows

There are still a lot of 32-bit Windows installations in use. If you want to support those systems and have 64-bit OS make sure you've installed 32-bit (instead of 64-bit) Node version. There are versions managers if you feel the need for both architectures on the same machine.