`remote` does not exist when app is launched without Electron run-time about electron-about-window

[rhysd]

describe repro

[AxelTerizaki]

Sample code taken from Electron docs :

const { app, BrowserWindow } = require('electron')
const openAboutWindow = require('about-window')

function createWindow () {
  let win = new BrowserWindow({
    width: 800,
    height: 600,
    webPreferences: {
      nodeIntegration: true
    }
  })

  // and load the index.html of the app.
  win.loadFile('index.html')
}

if (app) app.whenReady().then(createWindow);

// Do something else with the app that doesn't require electron

console.log('Yeah');

Here if (app) ensures that we won't try to load the GUI if app is undefined. If it's run with node's runtime (node index.js), app will be undefined, thus the code is avoided, and the code can proceed with stuff that doesn't require Electron.

The problem is that requiring about-window executes the top-level code of the module, which assumes electron is loaded, and thus crashes the main app with an exception. app isn't even the problem here, remote.app is, in about-window code, since remote does not exist in this case.

Hope that helps.

[rhysd]

Thanks for the code. So minimal steps are:

1. Save below code as foo.js
2. Run node foo.js

const openAboutWindow = require('about-window')

If it's run with node's runtime (node index.js), app will be undefined

This package does not support the usage without Electron.

Though I'm still not sure to understand the situation, if you want to write up code which supports both Electron and Node.js, you would need to write code like below:

const { app, BrowserWindow } = require('electron')

function createWindow () {
  // Run only on Electron
  const openAboutWindow = require('about-window')

  let win = new BrowserWindow({
    width: 800,
    height: 600,
    webPreferences: {
      nodeIntegration: true
    }
  })

  // and load the index.html of the app.
  win.loadFile('index.html')
}

if (app) app.whenReady().then(createWindow);

// Do something else with the app that doesn't require electron

console.log('Yeah');

[AxelTerizaki]

I used require for the example with JS, but I'm using import (via typescript) and imports are not conditionnal, they're loaded up no matter what, hence my request.

Version 1.13.2 worked just fine, the bug was introduced in 1.13.3 with the call to remote.app without verifying if remote exists.

[rhysd]

I fixed this in 1.13.4. Please update to the latest

[AxelTerizaki]

Thanks for the quick fix! That works just fine :)