Electron is a framework that allows you to "Build cross platform desktop apps with JavaScript, HTML, and CSS". Scala.js, for its part, compiles Scala code into optimized JavaScript. This project is a demonstration of how to use them both together, in order to get a powerful tool for building desktop applications with HTML, CSS and Scala.
The code presented here is the (slightly modified) result of a live coding presented in a BeScala meetup held at N-Side in Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium, on October 24, 2017.
The project simply translates the Electron Quick Start Guide main.js file into Scala, building on the fly the required facade for used JavaScript modules. Documentation is available in the Scala comments in the source code, into mainprocess/src/main/scala.
The first thing you need to do is having electron installed globally on your machine. For that, you need to have npm installed. Then, in the command shell, simply type in npm install -g electron.
The build.sbt file comes with two custom tasks,
fastOptCompileCopy, andfullOptCompileCopy.
They respectively use the tasks fastOptJS and fullOptJS that compiles your Scala code into JavaScript, and then copy paste the files into the electron/mainprocess directory. They also create the relevant package.json file, targeting to either of the relevant file.
Use either of the two tasks in sbt. Then, once compiled, use electron ./electron in the command line set to the project directory, and your application will launch automatically (note that the dev tools will open only if you use the fast optimization).