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Is there a reason it’s not done as a runtime, i.e. have a single, electron-modified, backwards compatible install of chromium which all the electron apps run on
by jf- 8y ago
Is there a reason it’s not done as a runtime, i.e. have a single, electron-modified, backwards compatible install of chromium which all the electron apps run on? Then ship each app with the installer for that electron-chromium which gets installed if it’s not already present.
Though I feel like even if that happened people would still complain about it, mostly motivated by web technologies encroaching on the desktop space, threatening other developers “turf”, so to speak.
- megous 8y agoNo there isn't. For example on Arch Linux, you can do pacman -S electron and share the same runtime for all your electron apps. Though, I don't use any third party ones.
- jf- 8y agoThat’s interesting. Is there something specific to arch that allows this? It would definitely help to alleviate people’s concerns about electron if this could be replicated on other platforms.
- megous 8y agoNothing specific. You can do it with electron executables downloaded from the official website. Just run them, and drag'n'drop directories with the application's source code onto the electron window, or create desktop shortcuts that run "C:\somewhere\electron.exe C:\your\app\dir".
- simion314 8y agoThis would work only for packaged apps from the repos right? Better then nothing.
- megous 8y agoI didn't find any apps in the repository. This works for apps you write yourself. You just run "electron ." in the directory with the app's source code. You can probably unbundle thirdparty apps, becuase what electron apps are, are basically "electron" + "other code/resources". But I've never even seen someone else's electron app distribution package, so I don't know how hard/easy it would be. And I wouldn't trust it anyway, if the code is transpiled/minified/unreadable. I run all my electron apps using a shared runtime.
- simion314 8y agoThanks for the response, then we need to ask developers to offer a download option without electron, If I remember right when I download Intellij products there is an option to download with or without a bundled Java.
- megous 8y agoDevelopers would not probably like it, because they would have to care for backwards compatibility and more uncertainty.