V3 Alpha!

I'm happy to announce the first alpha of v3 is here! This release mainly updates all dependencies and cleans up some legacy code. There are no docs yet and this hasn't been tested thoroughly so be careful when using this in production. Please give me feedback and issue reports so I can promote this to stable ASAP.

Key Features/Fixes

• Latest Electron versions are now supported in the generator
• Spectron is dropped in favor of Playwright which should provide a much better testing experience
• Webpack 5 is now used for the main process
• New native dependency checker is enabled by default (#861)
• A more secure custom protocol implementation is used that prevents path traversal (thanks to https://github.com/moloch--/reasonably-secure-electron for code)

Upgrading/Breaking Changes

• Install this version with vue add electron-builder@alpha
• Using Vue CLI v5 is recommended
• Remove the main field from your package.json
• Make sure your custom main process webpack config works with webpack v5
• background.js shouldn't require any changes, but you can remove the enableRemoteModule setting for Spectron if it's there
• Migrate from Spectron to Playwright: testWithSpectron has been renamed to testWithPlaywright, and doesn't take the Spectron import as an arg. The returned app is now a Playwright ElectronApplication instead of a Spectron instance, and stopServe has been renamed to stop. You don't need to install Playwright, it's a dependency of this plugin.
• In theory, everything else should continue to work as before, open an issue if it doesn't

TODO

• Support Mocha for testing (only Jest is supported for now)
• Update internal testing
• Update docs

V 2.0.0!!!!

This release has been long overdue and this plugin has been in the RC state for way too long, sorry for the delay. Anyways, better late than never, so here it is! If you were running the latest RC previously, there aren't any breaking changes or required migration steps. Thank you to all my supporters who have funded this project and made this release possible ❤️❤️!!

Breaking Changes from v1.x

• The testWithSpectron function requires you pass the spectron module as it's first arg, allowing you to specify the version of spectron to be used. You will need to install spectron as a devDependency
• Jest tests must be run with testEnvironment set to node, see the examples for more details
• Node integration is disabled by default
• Electron devtools installer should be used over the installVueDevtools function

A few major deps were upgraded:

• teser-webpack-plugin ^1.1.0 -> ^2.0.0
• webpack-chain ^5.0.0 -> ^6.0.0
• execa: ^1.0.0 -> ^4.0.0
• electron-builder: ^21.2.0 -> 22.2.0

These upgrades may cause breaking changes depending on your specific application.

The internal tests are now run on vue cli v4, and it is recommended that you update your app to vue cli v4 as well.

Fixes and Features

• Support latest electron versions
• nodeIntegration is now optional (and disabled by default), #610
• electron-builder will now work on macos catalina, #617
• You can now use the proper spectron version, #467
• Removed fonts duplication in build, #694
• You can now bundle preload files with webpack (docs), #613
• New native dep checker, try it out now! (#861)
• Vue devtools enabled by default on Electron v8/9 (#378)
• Support package.json without dependencies field (#828)
• Support electron being listed in dependencies as well as devDependencies (#829)
• Support nested pages (#786)
• And a lot more smaller fixes

Migrating a v1.x Project:

1. Run (yarn add | npm install) -D vue-cli-plugin-electron-builder@latest to install the 2.0 version of the plugin.
2. In your background.(js|ts), replace nodeIntegration:true with:

// Use pluginOptions.nodeIntegration, leave this alone 
// See nklayman.github.io/vue-cli-plugin-electron-builder/guide/security.html#node-integration for more info 
   nodeIntegration: process.env.ELECTRON_NODE_INTEGRATION 

3. If your app requires nodeIntegration, enable it in vue.config.js:

module.exports = {
  pluginOptions: {
    electronBuilder: {
      nodeIntegration: true
    }
  }
}

4. If you used the testWithSpectron function, install the proper version of spectron according to the version map, and pass the spectron import at the first argument of all of your testWithSpectron calls. See the docs for more details.
5. If you used jest, set the test environment to node in each electron test file. See the docs for more details.
6. Update your main process file (src/background.js by default) to use electron-devtools-installer:

import {
  createProtocol,
- installVueDevtools
} from 'vue-cli-plugin-electron-builder/lib'
+ import installExtension, { VUEJS_DEVTOOLS } from 'electron-devtools-installer'

... (around line 77)

-await installVueDevtools()
+await installExtension(VUEJS_DEVTOOLS)

And then run npm i -D electron-devtools-installer/yarn add -D electron-devtools-installer.

After following these steps, your project should be good to go with v2.0!

v2.0.0-rc.4 - Switch to electron-devtools-installer

From now on, whenever you add this plugin to your project, electron-devtools-installer will be used instead of the provided installVueDevtools function. This function was based off of electron-devtools-installer but with some fixes. These fixes have since been merged into electron-devtools-installer (as well as new features like electron v9 support). It is recommended that you switch to electron-devtools-installer as the installVueDevtools function will be removed in the 2.0.0 final release. To do so, edit your background.(js|ts):

import {
  createProtocol,
- installVueDevtools
} from 'vue-cli-plugin-electron-builder/lib'
+ import installExtension, { VUEJS_DEVTOOLS } from 'electron-devtools-installer'

... (around line 77)

-await installVueDevtools()
+await installExtension(VUEJS_DEVTOOLS)

And then run npm i -D electron-devtools-installer/yarn add -D electron-devtools-installer.

v2.0.0-rc.3 - New native dep checker

Features:

• New native dep checker, try it out now! (#861)
• Vue devtools enabled by default on Electron v8/9 (#378)

Fixes:

• Support package.json without dependencies field (#828)
• Support electron being listed in dependencies as well as devDependencies (#829)

v2.0.0-rc.2

This release contains a handful of fixes:

• Static assets from public folder wouldn't load due to incorrect process.env.BASE_URL (#803)
• Type error in background.ts related to process.env.NODE_INTEGRATION (#801)
• Support nested pages (#786)

2.0 Release Candidate!

Breaking Changes

• The testWithSpectron function requires you pass the spectron module as it's first arg, allowing you to specify the version of spectron to be used. You will need to install spectron as a devDependency
• Jest tests must be run with testEnvironment set to node, see the examples for more details
• Node integration is disabled by default

A few major deps were upgraded:

• teser-webpack-plugin ^1.1.0 -> ^2.0.0
• webpack-chain ^5.0.0 -> ^6.0.0
• execa: ^1.0.0 -> ^4.0.0
• electron-builder: ^21.2.0 -> 22.2.0

These upgrades may cause breaking changes depending on your specific application.

The internal tests are now run on vue cli v4, and it is recommended that you update your app to vue cli v4 as well.

Fixes and Features

• Support electron v7 (+ v8 and v9), #555
• nodeIntegration is now optional (and disabled by default), #610
• electron-builder will now work on macos catalina, #617
• You can now use the proper spectron version, #467
• Removed fonts duplication in build, #694
• You can now bundle preload files with webpack (docs), #613

Migrating a v1.x Project:

1. Run (yarn add | npm install) -D vue-cli-plugin-electron-builder@latest to install the 2.0 version of the plugin.
2. In your background.(js|ts), replace nodeIntegration:true with:

// Use pluginOptions.nodeIntegration, leave this alone 
// See nklayman.github.io/vue-cli-plugin-electron-builder/guide/security.html#node-integration for more info 
   nodeIntegration: process.env.ELECTRON_NODE_INTEGRATION 

3. If your app requires nodeIntegration, enable it in vue.config.js:

module.exports = {
  pluginOptions: {
    electronBuilder: {
      nodeIntegration: true
    }
  }
}

4. If you used the testWithSpectron function, install the proper version of spectron according to the version map, and pass the spectron import at the first argument of all of your testWithSpectron calls. See the docs for more details.
5. If you used jest, set the test environment to node in each electron test file. See the docs for more details.

v2.0.0 Beta - new deps, spectron fixes, disabling nodeIntegration

Breaking changes

• The testWithSpectron function requires you pass the spectron module as it's first arg, allowing you to specify the version of spectron to be used. You will need to install spectron as a devDependency
• Jest tests must be run with testEnvironment set to node, see the examples for more details
• Node integration is disabled by default

A few major deps were upgraded:
teser-webpack-plugin ^1.1.0 -> ^2.0.0
webpack-chain ^5.0.0 -> ^6.0.0
execa: ^1.0.0 -> ^3.0.0
electron-builder: ^21.2.0 -> 22.2.0

These upgrades may cause breaking changes depending on your specific application.

The internal tests are now run on vue cli v4, and it is recommended that you update your app to vue cli v4 as well.

Fixes and Features

• Support electron v7, #555
• nodeIntegration is now optional, #610
• electron-builder will now work on macos catalina, #617
• You can now use the proper spectron version, #467
• Removed fonts duplication in build, #694

Known Issues

• #647: stopServe() in testWithSpectron() may throw setTimeout(...).unref is not a function

Migrating a v1.x project:

1. In your background.(js|ts), replace nodeIntegration:true with:

// Use pluginOptions.nodeIntegration, leave this alone 
// See https://github.com/nklayman/vue-cli-plugin-electron-builder/blob/v2/docs/guide/configuration.md#node-integration for more info 
   nodeIntegration: process.env.ELECTRON_NODE_INTEGRATION 

2. If your app requires nodeIntegration, enable it in vue.config.js:

module.exports = {
  pluginOptions: {
    electronBuilder: {
      nodeIntegration: true
    }
  }
}

3. If you used the testWithSpectron function, install the proper version of spectron according to the version map, and pass the spectron import at the first argument of all of your testWithSpectron calls. See the docs for more details.
4. If you used jest, set the test environment to node in each electron test file. See the docs for more details.

1.4.0 - Electron 6 support

This release adds support for electron 6.0.0. However, there are issues with devtools extensions, so vue devtools are disabled by default if electron v6.0.0 is selected.

1.3.0 - Electron 5.0 support, better main process file watching

Features:

• Support for electron 5.0 (#250, 34e80e1)
• Use chokidar for main process file watching to support directory watching (#247, 7e3505b)

Thanks to @Akryum for the Chokidar PR!

1.2.0 - Only include external deps in build, other fixes

With this release, non external deps will not be included in your built app to reduce it's size.

Features:

• Only include external deps (#223, cd3d9ab)
  Fixes:
• rebuild background on change when in debug mode (fb51313)
• multi page configuration using objects fixed (2af978a)