nairod/electron-angular2-quickstart

Angular 2 QuickStart with Electron shell

Electron Angular 2 Quick start

This repository holds the TypeScript source code of the angular.io quickstart, the foundation for most of the documentation samples and potentially a good starting point for your application.

This fork has added support for the Electron shell, which is very useful when what you are building is targetting native platforms (Windows, OS X and Linux).

Prerequisites

Node.js and npm are essential to Angular 2 development.

Get it now if it's not already installed on your machine.

Verify that you are running at least node v4.x.x and npm 3.x.x by running node -v and npm -v in a terminal/console window. Older versions produce errors.

We recommend nvm for managing multiple versions of node and npm.

Install npm packages

See npm and nvm version notes above

Install the npm packages described in the package.json and verify that it works:

Attention Windows Developers: You must run all of these commands in administrator mode.

npm install
npm start

If the typings folder doesn't show up after npm install please install them manually with:

npm run typings -- install

The npm start command first compiles the application, then simultaneously re-compiles and runs the lite-server. Both the compiler and the server watch for file changes.

Shut it down manually with Ctrl-C.

You're ready to write your application.

npm scripts

We've captured many of the most useful commands in npm scripts defined in the package.json:

• npm start - runs the compiler and a server at the same time, both in "watch mode". Also starts the Electron shell.
• npm run tsc - runs the TypeScript compiler once.
• npm run tsc:w - runs the TypeScript compiler in watch mode; the process keeps running, awaiting changes to TypeScript files and re-compiling when it sees them.
• npm run lite - runs the lite-server, a light-weight, static file server, written and maintained by John Papa and Christopher Martin with excellent support for Angular apps that use routing.
• npm run typings - runs the typings tool.
• npm run postinstall - called by npm automatically after it successfully completes package installation. This script installs the TypeScript definition files this app requires. Here are the test related scripts:
• npm test - compiles, runs and watches the karma unit tests
• npm run e2e - run protractor e2e tests, written in JavaScript (*e2e-spec.js)

Testing

The QuickStart documentation doesn't discuss testing. This repo adds both karma/jasmine unit test and protractor end-to-end testing support.

These tools are configured for specific conventions described below.

It is unwise and rarely possible to run the application, the unit tests, and the e2e tests at the same time. We recommend that you shut down one before starting another.

Unit Tests

TypeScript unit-tests are usually in the app folder. Their filenames must end in .spec.

Look for the example app/app.component.spec.ts. Add more .spec.ts files as you wish; we configured karma to find them.

Run it with npm test

That command first compiles the application, then simultaneously re-compiles and runs the karma test-runner. Both the compiler and the karma watch for (different) file changes.

Shut it down manually with Ctrl-C.

Test-runner output appears in the terminal window. We can update our app and our tests in real-time, keeping a weather eye on the console for broken tests. Karma is occasionally confused and it is often necessary to shut down its browser or even shut the command down (Ctrl-C) and restart it. No worries; it's pretty quick.

The HTML-Reporter is also wired in. That produces a prettier output; look for it in ~_test-output/tests.html.

End-to-end (E2E) Tests

E2E tests are in the e2e directory, side by side with the app folder. Their filenames must end in .e2e-spec.ts.

Look for the example e2e/app.e2e-spec.ts. Add more .e2e-spec.js files as you wish (although one usually suffices for small projects); we configured protractor to find them.

Thereafter, run them with npm run e2e.

That command first compiles, then simultaneously starts the Http-Server at localhost:8080 and launches protractor.

The pass/fail test results appear at the bottom of the terminal window. A custom reporter (see protractor.config.js) generates a ./_test-output/protractor-results.txt file which is easier to read; this file is excluded from source control.

Shut it down manually with Ctrl-C.