irt_client

Uses [ES6] and [React] with [Electron]. It uses [Babel] to automatically transpile ES6 and JSX code, without depending on any package manager besides npm. Some work started in [TypeScript], goal is to convert all JS to TypeScript.

How?

The Node and Electron binaries both take a parameter -r that automatically requires a module before the rest of the code. The npm start script is modified using this, which registers Babel and loads the entry point main.js.

The renderer entry point index.html does basically the same, but loads the scripts/main.js file, which renders the views/main.jsx component into the body.

Installation

1. git clone repo
2. install node globally a. Upgrade npm: npm install npm@latest -g
3. install windows-build-tools (not sure how this works on mac yet) npm install --global --add-python-to-path --production windows-build-tools
4. install install type script globally npm install -g typescript
5. install electron-forge globally npm install -g electron-forge
6. npm install
7. npm start

Top Level Library Dependencies

[node.js] Node v6.10.0 installed globally [npm] Is installed with node, but you'll need to upgrade npm > 4 for electron-forge package to work. [ES6]: http://exploringjs.com/ [React]: https://facebook.github.io/react/ [Electron]: http://electron.atom.io/ [Babel]: http://babeljs.io (hoping to remove this dependency and just use electron-forge) [TypeScript]: http://www.typescriptlang.org [Electron-Forge]: https://www.npmjs.com/package/electron-forge (Packages electron app for distribution)

Note

You cannot use the bash shell on Windows for npm install, likely because it compiles native libraries.

Make sure that git is in your path, i.e. "c:\program files\git\bin\"

## Using Native Libraries
#ffi is used to talk to the native ANT libraries.
    This requires electron-rebuild
        Which requires windows-build-tools to be installed (globally), run as admin: 
            npm install --global --add-python-to-path --production windows-build-tools
        This will then run the postinstall script which rebuilds native libraries: 
            .\node_modules\.bin\electron-rebuild.cmd

# Add "build pipline" using webpack?
    tried using this, but got an err:
        Not allowed to load local resource
        http://blog.scottlogic.com/2017/06/06/typescript-electron-webpack.html

# Update 11/1/2018
 when trying to build on OSX, had all sorts of errors.  Needed to downgrade node to 8.8.1
 also needed to *upgrade* node-gyp: 
 [sudo] npm explore npm -g -- npm install node-gyp@latest
 as per this: https://github.com/nodejs/node-gyp/wiki/Updating-npm's-bundled-node-gyp