Is there a way to improve the compilation speed of main process code (development)?

[1111mp]

This is my current configuration electron.vite.config.ts:

import { resolve } from "path";
import { defineConfig, externalizeDepsPlugin } from "electron-vite";
import react from "@vitejs/plugin-react";
import del from "rollup-plugin-delete";
import swc from "@rollup/plugin-swc";

const isTest = process.env.TEST === "true";

export default defineConfig({
  main: {
    resolve: {
      alias: {
        "@src": resolve("src")
      }
    },
    build: {
      rollupOptions: {
        input: isTest ? "src/main/main.test.ts" : "src/main/main.ts",
        output: {
          entryFileNames: "main.mjs",
          inlineDynamicImports: true,
          format: "es"
        },
        plugins: [swc()]
      }
    },
    plugins: [del({ targets: ["release/app/dist", "release/build"] })]
  },
  preload: {
    build: {
      rollupOptions: {
        input: isTest ? "src/preload/preload.test.ts" : "src/preload/index.ts",
        output: {
          entryFileNames: "preload.js",
          inlineDynamicImports: true,
          format: "cjs"
        }
      }
    },
    plugins: [externalizeDepsPlugin()]
  },
  renderer: {
    resolve: {
      alias: {
        "@src": resolve("src"),
        "@renderer": resolve("src/renderer/src")
      }
    },
    plugins: [react()]
  }
});

I tried using swc to speed up the build but it didn't work. I also tried swcPlugin.

Currently it takes about two seconds to complete:

> electron-vite dev --watch

vite v5.0.12 building SSR bundle for development...

watching for file changes...

build started...
✓ 990 modules transformed.
out/main/main.mjs  2,047.89 kB
built in 2141ms.

build the electron main process successfully

Maybe I'm using it the wrong way, please feel free to correct me.

I tried using tsup (it is based on esbuild), which can greatly improve the build speed. It only takes about 100 milliseconds in the end. But this would deviate from vite. So I want to know if there is a better way to do the same job as using esbuild. Thanks in advance. 🌹

tsup.config.ts:

import { defineConfig } from "tsup";

export default defineConfig({
  clean: true,
  entry: ["src/main/main.ts"],
  target: "esnext",
  format: ["esm"],
  bundle: true,
  external: ["electron"],
  outDir: "out/main",
  inject: ["cjs-shim.ts"],
  tsconfig: "tsconfig.node.json"
});

[alex8088]

https://electron-vite.org/guide/dev#dependencies-vs-devdependencies
enable the externalizedep plugin

[1111mp]

I have read the documentation and carefully checked the source code. This approach seems to only improve the build speed by reducing the external dependencies that need to be compiled through external, but it is limited when using prod build (only electron & node modules can be excluded).

I think I've found a solution that works for me. I fork a copy of the code locally and successfully rewrote it to use esbuild to compile the code (only relying on vite’s devServer). Maybe I should make the relevant code public in the future so that people with similar needs can view it.

Thank you very much for your reply though. Have a nice day~ 🌹

[alex8088]

no, you should enable externalizedep plugin that will externalize all dependences that you install in deps, like no bundle.

[1111mp]

Yes I know that.

When I enableexternalizeDepsPlugin:

it does get faster. But this doesn't work for compiling the production package,because as the project progresses, some external dependencies must be packaged in.

When I use esbuild:

More importantly, the performance of compiling the production package is also the same.