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Desktop

The desktop module runs in the main process of Electron. It is used to interface with system-level APIs exposed through Electron and to control external processes.

To start the desktop application run:

$ npm run start

To trigger a locally testable production build (including the bundle from web package) run:

$ npm run pack

the package will be output to ./dist/osx/Deco-$VERSION.pkg

A few things to note:

  • desktop/deco_unpack_lib is a folder of external scripts, binaries, and application metadata that are unpacked into the ~/Library/Application Support/com.decosoftware.Deco folder on install. In the event where you need to change something in deco_unpack_lib and test the new functionality, you will need to run npm run copy-libs to manually install the updated folder into your systems Application Support folder.

  • The npm run start task passes in a 'developer' flag to the main process. Certain things are turned off as a result, paths are changed, etc. depending on whether the __DEV__ variable is set to true. Mainly, __DEV__ turns OFF the update mechanism, turns ON the developer tools, and loads the web code from a localhost webpack server rather than from a static file.

Upgrading the temporary Project template

  1. Create a "temp" RN project on the latest stable release by running react-native init Project somewhere outside of the deco-ide project

  2. Build the iOS app in Xcode (Note: You don’t even need to run the RN packager, we just need the binary.)

  3. Open “Window > Projects” in Xcode and follow the link to the “Derived Data” for the Project. Dig down until you find the Debug-iphonesimulator/Project.app file.

  4. Copy that file into the root of your "temp" RN project: ie. ~/Path/To/Project/Project.app

  5. Navigate to the deco-ide/desktop directory and run:

    npm run upgrade-project-template -- --projectPath ~/Path/To/Project

  6. You may have to enter your password at some point during the last step.

  7. Open Deco, press "New Project"

  8. Enjoy your freshly updated RN template 👍

Architecture Overview

Actions

Actions look similar to how they would in a flux/redux application (ie. functions that return an object with type: ACTION). These are used primarily by "handlers" to respond to ipc requests triggered by the renderer process (web bundle) or to system events that should be sent asynchronously over the bridge for the renderer process to react.

Bridge

The bridge is an abstraction around Electron's ipc module. Both the web and the desktop modules share constants from the deco-ide/shared module. The bridge takes the output from an Action function and sends it to the renderer process, or receives an Action from the renderer process and triggers a listener registered by the handler.

Handlers

Handlers mainly implement desktop functionality required to support the renderer process. Handlers are registered in the handlers/index.js file. The registerHandlers() function is called on startup by the main file. Each handler should implement a register() function which registers Action Type listeners on the bridge. The registered functions should have the form of func(payload, respond) where payload is the Web Action object sent from the renderer and respond is a callback that takes a Desktop Action and sends it back to resolve the promise on the renderer side. actions/genericActions.js can be used if no specific return payload is needed by the Renderer.

Constants

This includes convenience constants for often used paths and dialog constants for popup dialogs.

Menu

Most of the destkop's native menu logic is implemented in the menu/templateBuilder.js file.

Process

Process Controllers manage the external processes necessary to support the Simulator, the React Packager, NPM, and the xcodebuild utility. Generally these will be called by Handlers to perform certain tasks.

Window

The window manager simply initializes and controls the desktop BrowserWindow object.