[discussion]: desktop/renderer-app about flat

[Cyberhan123]

@hyrious
https://github.com/Cyberhan123/flat/blob/feature/render-vite/desktop/renderer-app/scripts/vite-plugin-electron.ts#L27
It's not enough，It still need to reslove events which in https://github.com/netless-io/flat/blob/main/desktop/renderer-app/src/api-middleware/smart-player.ts#L9

[Cyberhan123]

This issue is representative.

As of electron@12, electron no longer recommends the use of nodejs(node / node library) and most electron api's in the renderer process.

So we now have a new task, which is to remove all the node(modules) api and some of the electron api from renderer-app

We can use IPC or contextBridge instead.

cc: @hyrious @Cyberhan123

I can write an new vite plugin to support fs-extra, and next step we can remove all the node(modules) api and some of the electron api from renderer-app, It may cost less

[Cyberhan123]

good news render app has change to vite #1265, but I suggest to keep webpack, we may need reveal all the details

[BlackHole1]

Supporting BundleAnalyzerPlugin is in low priority.

[BlackHole1]

what is vite electron plugin?

[Cyberhan123]

what is vite electron plugin?

vite not support electron-render target by default, we should transform electron package.

[BlackHole1]

okey

[hyrious]

vite not support electron-render target by default

That's true, but it's maybe not a big problem -- see my experimental repo.

The thing I didn't test is electron-builder -- I don't know if it requires some special code format like not using es modules. Having tracked this here: electron/electron#21457.

[Cyberhan123]

Anyother task I missing?

[BlackHole1]

Anyother task I missing?

none

[Cyberhan123]

vite not support electron-render target by default

That's true, but it's maybe not a big problem -- see my experimental repo.

The thing I didn't test is electron-builder -- I don't know if it requires some special code format like not using es modules. Having tracked this here: electron/electron#21457.

I found electron use require to get some file,the problem is more partial,If we use vite ,the building for development env
Spend time may not less than webpack

[hyrious]

If we only want fast bundling time, then we may choose esbuild.
Tree-shaking is even not a significant requirement, since in electron we always bundle all resources.

In fact, we are using vite because it brings really good dev experience.

[Cyberhan123]

If we only want fast bundling time, then we may choose esbuild. Tree-shaking is even not a significant requirement, since in electron we always bundle all resources.

In fact, we are using vite because it brings really good dev experience.

As we all know, vite is esm bunlder,we have three way to reslove the commonjs model (electron,nodeBuildInModel,events), first is write commonjs in code . It's easy but ugly.
second we can write vite plugin to transform the import to require,the last way is we can transform electron node to esm import.
And the last way is my choose, any comments? @hyrious @BlackHole1

[hyrious]

we can transform electron node to esm import

What's that mean? Can you provide some code examples?

[hyrious]

Wow, that sounds promising. I'm upvoting that.

Currently only the electron module needs such hack. We can replace events with eventemitter3 or emittery or even the native EventTarget, that's not a problem.

[Cyberhan123]

Wow, that sounds promising. I'm upvoting that.

Currently only the electron module needs such hack. We can replace events with eventemitter3 or emittery or even the native EventTarget, that's not a problem.

okkk

[Cyberhan123]

fs-extra is an tricky question，I have no idea to solve this problem. Can you guys give some inspiration？

It at: https://github.com/Cyberhan123/flat/blob/feature/render-vite/desktop/renderer-app/src/utils/courseware-preloader.ts

@BlackHole1 @hyrious

[hyrious]

You can treat it as electron, this is intended to write some node.js related logic at renderer side. In other words, we are violating the context isolation rule of electron. Let me tell you why:

• The main reason of using electron, like other guys, is seemingly an easy way to write cross-platform desktop applications. Desktop applications can access the fs or do many other native things. Then why do we have to setup additional IPC to let another process doing some work? That should be a waste of code complexity.

• The doc actually says: prevent the website from accessing Electron internals. You can see the purpose: some people are using electron to wrap websites into it. However, our app has different approaches in implementing native and web.

• Another main reason for using node modules at renderer side, is agora-electron-sdk currently work in this way.

[Cyberhan123]

fs-extra not same as electron .It's not build in model and if we exclude it vite will not handle the import.

[hyrious]

Then we may ask @BlackHole1 .

[BlackHole1]

This issue is representative.

As of electron@12, electron no longer recommends the use of nodejs(node / node library) and most electron api's in the renderer process.

So we now have a new task, which is to remove all the node(modules) api and some of the electron api from renderer-app

We can use IPC or contextBridge instead.

cc: @hyrious @Cyberhan123