bundling precompiled binary into electron app

Question

Is there a good solution on how to include third party pre compiled binaries like imagemagick into an electron app? there are node.js modules but they are all wrappers or na

Answer 1

The above answers helped me figure out how it is done. But there is a much efficient way to distribute binary files.

Taking cues from tsuriga's answer, here is my code:

Note: replace or add OS path accordingly.

• Create a directory ./resources/mac/bin
• Place you binaries inside this folder
• Create file ./app/binaries.js and paste the following code:

'use strict';

import path from 'path';
import { remote } from 'electron';
import getPlatform from './get-platform';

const IS_PROD = process.env.NODE_ENV === 'production';
const root = process.cwd();
const { isPackaged, getAppPath } = remote.app;

const binariesPath =
  IS_PROD && isPackaged
    ? path.join(path.dirname(getAppPath()), '..', './Resources', './bin')
    : path.join(root, './resources', getPlatform(), './bin');

export const execPath = path.resolve(path.join(binariesPath, './exec-file-name'));

• Create file ./app/get-platform.js and paste the following code:

'use strict';

import { platform } from 'os';

export default () => {
  switch (platform()) {
    case 'aix':
    case 'freebsd':
    case 'linux':
    case 'openbsd':
    case 'android':
      return 'linux';
    case 'darwin':
    case 'sunos':
      return 'mac';
    case 'win32':
      return 'win';
  }
};

• Add the following code inside the ./package.json file:

"build": {
....

 "extraFiles": [
      {
        "from": "resources/mac/bin",
        "to": "Resources/bin",
        "filter": [
          "**/*"
        ]
      }
    ],

....
},

• import binary file path as:

import { execPath } from './binaries';

#your program code:
var command = spawn(execPath, arg, {});

Why this is better?

• The above answers require an additional package called app-root-dir

• tsuriga's answer doesn't handle the (env=production) build or the pre-packed versions properly. He/she has only taken care of development and post-packaged versions.