asv

Electron / Atom Shell version manager

Installation

$ npm install -g asv

or

$ git clone git://github.com/omnidan/asv.git && cd asv && make install

Quickstart

$ asv latest
$ atoms

Installing Binaries

Install a few versions, the version given becomes the active electron/atom-shell binary once installation is complete.

$ asv 0.20.5
$ asv 0.20.4

Run atoms to run the selected version of electron/atom-shell.

List installed binaries:

$ asv

  0.20.3
ο 0.20.4
  0.20.5

Use or install the latest official release:

$ asv latest

Use or install the stable official release (Note: Right now there is no stable version of electron, this will use the latest release):

$ asv stable

Install a custom or patched version of electron/atom-shell from a zipball:

$ asv custom 0.20.5-me https://github.com/atom/atom-shell/zipball/v0.20.5

Install a version of electron/atom-shell from source:

$ asv 0.20.5 source

Removing Binaries

Remove some versions:

$ asv rm 0.20.5 0.20.4 0.20.3

Note that you cannot remove the actively running version. Change to a different version before removing.

Binary Usage

When running multiple versions of electron/atom-shell, we can target them directly by asking asv for the binary path:

$ asv bin 0.20.5
/usr/local/asv/versions/0.20.5/bin/

Start up electron/atom-shell 0.20.5 regardless of the active version:

$ asv use 0.20.5

When installing or changing the active version we might want to run custom scripts:

$ asv pre install /path/to/my/script
$ asv post install /path/to/script
$ asv pre change /path/to/my/script
$ asv post change /path/to/script

Multiple scripts may be added for any event. To add two pre change scripts:

$ asv pre change /path/to/script1
$ asv pre change /path/to/script2

Scripts are executed in the order they were added.

List all pre change hooks:

$ asv pre change

/path/to/script1
/path/to/script2

List all post install hooks:

$ asv post install

/path/to/scriptA
/path/to/scriptB
/path/to/scriptC

To remove a post install hook:

$ asv post install rm /path/to/scriptB

Remove all post install hooks:

$ asv post install rm

Automatically keeping electron / atom-shell up-to-date

In order to automatically keep electron / atom-shell up-to-date, run asv -y latest in a cronjob.

Passing -y will skip the question asv asks you when installing a new version.

Usage

Output from asv --help:

  Usage: asv [options] [COMMAND] [config]

  Commands:

    asv                            Output versions installed
    asv latest [config ...]        Install or activate the latest electron release
    asv stable [config ...]        Install or activate the latest stable electron release
    asv <version> [config ...]     Install and/or use electron <version>
    asv custom <version> <zipball> [config ...]  Install custom electron <zipball> with [args ...]
    asv use <version> [args ...]   Execute electron <version> with [args ...]
    asv bin <version>              Output bin path for <version>
    asv rm <version ...>           Remove the given version(s)
    asv --latest                   Output the latest electron version available
    asv --stable                   Output the latest stable electron version available
    asv ls                         Output the versions of electron available
    asv src <version>              Output the url for source used for the given <version>
                                     (useful if installed from source)
    asv pre <event> [script]       Declare one or list scripts to execute before <event>
                                     (scripts must use absolute paths)
    asv post <event> [script]      Declare one or list scripts to execute after <event>
                                     (scripts must use absolute paths)
    asv pre <event> rm [script]    Remove pre <event> script
    asv post <event> rm [script]   Remove post <event> script

  Events:

    change   Occurs when switching electron versions
    install  Occurs when installing a previously uninstalled electron version

  Options:

    -v, -V, --version   Output current version of asv
    -h, --help          Display help information
    -y                  Skips the question when installing a new version (useful for scripts that automatically update electron)

  Aliases:

    which   bin
    use     as
    list    ls
    custom  c

Does this work with electron AND atom-shell?

Yes, asv checks the version string you passed, for versions <=0.23.0, atom-shell is downloaded and installed instead of electron, for newer versions, electron is downloaded and installed.

The command atoms works just like before. There is also an electron command, which is an alias to atoms.

Everything else should work just like nothing happened. If you do run into an issue, first make sure you have the latest asv version (>=1.1) installed, or update asv by running npm install -g asv - if it still doesn't work, please report your issue on github, it could be related to the fact that atom-shell was renamed to electron.

Details

asv by default installs electron/atom-shell to /usr/local/asv/versions, from which it can see what you have currently installed, and activate previously installed versions of electron/atom-shell when asv <version> is invoked again.

Activated electron/atom-shell versions are then installed to the prefix /usr/local, which may be altered via the ASV_PREFIX environment variable.

To alter where asv operates simply export ASV_PREFIX to whatever you prefer.

License

MIT

Inspiration

This is based on m by aheckmann. Thanks a lot for that, it's a great tool! Because of that, it's also nearly identical to n. Thanks to tj too!