Vitrine electron-hot-reloader

Simple auto-reloading for Electron apps during development using webpack

It just works. When files used in the main process are changed, the app is restarted, and when files used in the browser window are changed, the page is reloaded.

Note that it will only work if you bundle your codebase in a single file using webpack or another bundler.

Install

$ npm install --save-dev electron-reloader

Requires Electron 5 or later.

Usage

The following must be included in the app entry file, usually named index.js:

try {
	require('@vitrine/electron-hot-reloader')(module);
} catch (_) {}

You have to pass the module object so we can read the module graph and figure out which files belong to the main process.

The try/catch is needed so it doesn't throw Cannot find module '@vitrine/electron-hot-reloader' in production.

API

reloader(watchedPath, appDirectory, electronPath, options?)

watchedPath

Type: string

The path of files that are watched for reloading.

appDirectory

Type: string

The directory where your package.json is.

electronPath

Type: string

The path of the Electron binary used to spawn child processes.

options

Type: object

debug

Type: boolean
Default: false

Prints watched paths and when files change. Can be useful to make sure you set it up correctly.

ignore

Type: Array<string | RegExp>

Ignore patterns passed to chokidar. By default, files/directories starting with a ., .map files, and node_modules directories are ignored. This option is additive to those.

argv

Type: Array<string>

Args passed to Electron child process when spawned.