The boilerplate code to get started creating Cross-platform Desktop Apps with Electron and Eleventy as front-end technology.

    

      

✒️ Overview

The aim of this project is to provide Web Developers using eleventy the power to create cross-platform desktop apps using electron.

🧐 What packages does the project use?

electron enables you to create desktop applications with pure JavaScript by providing a runtime with rich native (operating system) APIs. You could see it as a variant of the Node.js runtime that is focused on desktop applications instead of web servers.

electron-builder is used as a complete solution to package and build a ready for distribution (supports Numerous target formats) Electron app with "auto update" support out of the box.

electron-serve is used for Static file serving for Electron apps.

eleventy is a simpler static site generator. An alternative to Jekyll. Written in JavaScript. Transforms a directory of templates (of varying types) into HTML. Works with HTML, Markdown, Liquid, Nunjucks, Handlebars, Mustache, EJS, Haml, Pug, and JavaScript Template Literals.

concurrently is used to run multiple commands concurrently.

wait-on is used as it can wait for sockets, and http(s) resources to become available.

🚀 Getting Started

Note: If you wish to use npm over yarn then modify package.json by replacing yarn with npm in electron-dev and preelectron-pack scripts. But I strongly recommend using yarn as it is a better choice when compared to npm.

🤓 Use this boilerplate

# Clone the Project

# Use degit scaffolding tool
$ npx degit soulehshaikh99/create-eleventy-electron-app create-eleventy-electron-app
# or GitHub CLI Users
$ gh repo clone https://github.com/soulehshaikh99/create-eleventy-electron-app.git
# or Normal Git Users
$ git clone https://github.com/soulehshaikh99/create-eleventy-electron-app.git

# Switch location to the cloned directory
$ cd create-eleventy-electron-app

# Install dependencies
$ yarn # or npm install

# Run your app
$ yarn electron-dev # or npm run electron-dev

# Package Your App
$ yarn electron-pack # or npm run electron-pack

💫 Create this boilerplate from scratch (Manual Setup)

1) Start by installing eleventy globally

$ yarn global add eleventy
# npm i -g eleventy

2) Create a project directory and switch location to it.

$ mkdir create-eleventy-electron-app
$ cd create-eleventy-electron-app

3) Initialize project with your favorite package manager

# set entry point to main.js
# set name to create-eleventy-electron-app
$ yarn init # or npm init

4) Download the starter eleventy project.

Just download this src.zip and extract this to your project directory create-eleventy-electron-app

5) Install Development Dependencies

$ yarn add --dev clean-css html-minifier electron electron-builder wait-on concurrently
# npm i -D clean-css html-minifier electron electron-builder wait-on concurrently

6) Install Production Dependency

$ yarn add electron-serve # or npm i electron-serve

7) Your dependencies should look something like this

"dependencies": {
  "electron-serve": "^1.0.0"
},
"devDependencies": {
  "clean-css": "^4.2.3",
  "concurrently": "^5.3.0",
  "electron": "^9.2.1",
  "electron-builder": "^22.8.0",
  "html-minifier": "^4.0.0",
  "wait-on": "^5.2.0"
}

8) Create .eleventy.js file (eleventy configuration file)

# Windows Users
$ fsutil file createnew .eleventy.js 0
# notepad .eleventy.js 

# Linux and macOS Users
$ touch .eleventy.js

9) Paste the below code in .eleventy.js file

// Imports useful for minifying functionality
const cleancss = require("clean-css");
const htmlmin = require("html-minifier");

module.exports = function (eleventyConfig) {
    // The directory to copy while building the eleventy app
    eleventyConfig.addPassthroughCopy("src/assets");

    // Configuration responsible for minifying html
    eleventyConfig.addTransform("htmlmin", function (content, outputPath) {
        if (outputPath.endsWith(".html")) {
            let minified = htmlmin.minify(content, {
                useShortDoctype: true,
                removeComments: true,
                collapseWhitespace: true
            });
            return minified;
        }
        return content;
    });

    // Configuration responsible for minifying css
    eleventyConfig.addFilter("cssmin", function (code) {
        return new cleancss({}).minify(code).styles;
    });

    // Configuration responsible for specifying the input and output directories to eleventy build command
    return {
        dir: {
            input: "src",
            output: "build"
        }
    };
};

10) Create main.js file (serves as entry point for Electron App's Main Process)

# Windows Users
$ fsutil file createnew main.js 0
# notepad main.js 

# Linux and macOS Users
$ touch main.js

11) Paste the below code in main.js file

// Modules to control application life and create native browser window
const { app, BrowserWindow } = require("electron");
const path = require("path");
const serve = require("electron-serve");
const loadURL = serve({ directory: "build" });

// Keep a global reference of the window object, if you don't, the window will
// be closed automatically when the JavaScript object is garbage collected.
let mainWindow;

function isDev() {
  return !app.isPackaged;
}

function createWindow() {
  // Create the browser window.
  mainWindow = new BrowserWindow({
    width: 800,
    height: 600,
    webPreferences: {
      nodeIntegration: true,
    },
    // Use this in development mode.
    icon: isDev()
      ? path.join(process.cwd(), "src/assets/favicon.png")
      : path.join(__dirname, "build/assets/favicon.png"),
    // Use this in production mode.
    // icon: path.join(__dirname, 'build/assets/favicon.png'),
    show: false,
  });

  // This block of code is intended for development purpose only.
  // Delete this entire block of code when you are ready to package the application.
  if (isDev()) {
    mainWindow.loadURL("http://localhost:8080/");
  } else {
    //Do not delete this statement, Use this piece of code when packaging app for production environment
    loadURL(mainWindow);
  }

  // Uncomment the following line of code when app is ready to be packaged.
  // loadURL(mainWindow);

  // Open the DevTools and also disable Electron Security Warning.
  // process.env['ELECTRON_DISABLE_SECURITY_WARNINGS'] = true;
  // mainWindow.webContents.openDevTools();

  // Emitted when the window is closed.
  mainWindow.on("closed", function () {
    // Dereference the window object, usually you would store windows
    // in an array if your app supports multi windows, this is the time
    // when you should delete the corresponding element.
    mainWindow = null;
  });

  // Emitted when the window is ready to be shown
  // This helps in showing the window gracefully.
  mainWindow.once("ready-to-show", () => {
    mainWindow.show();
  });
}

// This method will be called when Electron has finished
// initialization and is ready to create browser windows.
// Some APIs can only be used after this event occurs.
app.on("ready", createWindow);

// Quit when all windows are closed.
app.on("window-all-closed", function () {
  // On macOS it is common for applications and their menu bar
  // to stay active until the user quits explicitly with Cmd + Q
  if (process.platform !== "darwin") app.quit();
});

app.on("activate", function () {
  // On macOS it's common to re-create a window in the app when the
  // dock icon is clicked and there are no other windows open.
  if (mainWindow === null) createWindow();
});

// In this file you can include the rest of your app's specific main process
// code. You can also put them in separate files and require them here.

12) Add scripts in package.json

"scripts": {
  "dev": "eleventy --serve",
  "build": "eleventy",
  "electron": "wait-on http://localhost:8080 && electron .",
  "electron-dev": "concurrently \"yarn run dev\" \"yarn run electron\"",
  "preelectron-pack": "yarn run build",
  "electron-pack": "electron-builder"
}

13) Add the following configuration in package.json

Note: build configuration is used by electron-builder, modify it if you wish to add more packaging and native distribution options for different OS Platforms.

"name": "create-eleventy-electron-app",
"main": "main.js",  # Application Entry Point, please verify entry point is set to main.js 
"build": {
  "icon": "src/assets/favicon.png",
  "productName": "Eleventy and Electron App",
  "files": [
      "build/**/*",
    "main.js"
  ],
  "win": {},  # Windows Specific Configuration
  "linux": {},  # Linux Specific Configuration
  "mac": {}  # MacOs Specific Configuration
}

14) Test drive your app

# Run your app
$ yarn electron-dev # or npm run electron-dev

# Package Your App
$ yarn electron-pack # or npm run electron-pack

💯 Result

😍 Made with ❤️ from Souleh

📋 License:

Licensed under the MIT License.