grunt-electron-debian-installer

Create a Debian package for your Electron app.

🚨 This package has been renamed to grunt-electron-installer-debian! 🚨

Requirements

This tool requires fakeroot and dpkg to build the .deb package.

I'd recommend building your packages on your target platform, but if you insist on using Mac OS X, you can install these tools through Homebrew:

$ brew install fakeroot dpkg

Getting Started

This plugin requires Grunt ~0.4.0

If you haven't used Grunt before, be sure to check out the Getting Started guide, as it explains how to create a Gruntfile as well as install and use Grunt plugins. Once you're familiar with that process, you may install this plugin with this command:

npm install grunt-electron-debian-installer --save-dev

Once the plugin has been installed, it may be enabled inside your Gruntfile with this line of JavaScript:

grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-electron-debian-installer');

This plugin was designed to work with Grunt 0.4.x. If you're still using grunt v0.3.x it's strongly recommended that you upgrade, but in case you can't please use v0.3.2.

Installer task

Run this task with the grunt electron-debian-installer command.

Task targets, files and options may be specified according to the grunt Configuring tasks guide.

Usage

Say your app lives in path/to/app, and has a structure like this:

$ tree path/to/app/ -L 2
path/to/app/
├── LICENSE
├── index.js
├── main
│   ├── index.js
│   └── squirrel.js
├── node_modules
│   ├── fs-plus
│   └── yargs
├── package.json
└── renderer
    ├── index.css
    ├── index.html
    └── index.js

To create a .deb package from your app, the configuration for your task would look like this:

'electron-debian-installer': {
  app: {
    options: {
      arch: 'i386'
    },
    src: 'path/to/app/',
    dest: 'path/to/out/'
  }
}

The task will try to extract all necessary information from your package.json, and then generate your package at path/to/out.

You can also create different packages for different architectures, while manually overriding certain options:

'electron-debian-installer': {
  options: {
    productName: 'Foo',
    productDescription: 'Bar baz qux.',
    section: 'devel',
    priority: 'optional',
    lintianOverrides: [
      'changelog-file-missing-in-native-package',
      'executable-not-elf-or-script',
      'extra-license-file'
    ],
    categories: [
      'Utility'
    ],
    rename: function (dest, src) {
      return dest + '<%= name %>_<%= version %>-<%= revision %>_<%= arch %>.deb';
    }
  },
 
  linux32: {
    options: {
      arch: 'i386'
    },
    src: 'path/to/linux32/',
    dest: 'path/to/out/linux32/'
  },
 
  linux64: {
    options: {
      arch: 'amd64'
    },
    src: 'path/to/linux64/',
    dest: 'path/to/out/linux64/'
  }
}

Options

src

Type: String Default: undefined

Path to the folder that contains your built Electron application.

dest

Type: String Default: undefined

Path to the folder that will contain your Red Hat installer.

options.name

Type: String Default: package.name

Name of the package (e.g. atom), used in the Package field of the control specification.

According to the Debian Policy Manual:

Package names [...] must consist only of lower case letters (a-z), digits (0-9), plus (+) and minus (-) signs, and periods (.). They must be at least two characters long and must start with an alphanumeric character.

options.productName

Type: String Default: package.productName || package.name

Name of the application (e.g. Atom), used in the Name field of the desktop specification.

options.genericName

Type: String Default: package.genericName || package.productName || package.name

Generic name of the application (e.g. Text Editor), used in the GenericName field of the desktop specification.

options.description

Type: String Default: package.description

Short description of the application, used in the Description field of the control specification.

options.productDescription

Type: String Default: package.productDescription || package.description

Long description of the application, used in the Description field of the control specification.

options.version

Type: String Default: package.version

Version number of the package, used in the Version field of the control specification.

options.revision

Type: String Default: package.revision

Revision number of the package, used in the Version field of the control specification.

options.section

Type: String Default: "utils"

Application area into which the package has been classified, used in the Section field of the control specification.

You can read more about sections, and also check out the list of existing sections in Debian unstable.

options.priority

Type: String Default: "optional"

How important it is that the user have the package installed., used in the Priority field of the control specification.

You can read more about priorities.

options.arch

Type: String Default: undefined

Machine architecture the package is targeted to, used in the Architecture field of the control specification.

For possible values see the output of dpkg-architecture -L.

options.size

Type: Integer Default: size of the folder

Estimate of the total amount of disk space required to install the named package, used in the Installed-Size field of the control specification.

options.depends et al

Type: Array[String] Default: []

Relationships to other packages, used in the Depends, Recommends, Suggests, Enhances and Pre-Depends fields of the control specification.

options.maintainer

Type: String Default: package.author.name (package.author.email)

Maintainer of the package, used in the Maintainer field of the control specification.

options.homepage

Type: String Default: package.homepage || package.author.url

URL of the homepage for the package, used in the Homepage field of the control specification.

options.bin

Type: String Default: package.name

Relative path to the executable that will act as binary for the application, used in the Exec field of the desktop specification.

The generated package will contain a symlink /usr/bin/<%= options.name %> pointing to the path provided here.

For example, providing this configuration:

{
  options: {
    name: 'foo',
    bin: 'resources/cli/launcher.sh'
  },
  src: '...',
  dest: '...'
}

Will create a package with the following symlink:

usr/bin/foo@ -> ../share/foo/resources/cli/launcher/sh

And a desktop specification with the following Exec key:

Exec=foo %U

options.icon

Type: String Default: undefined

Path to the image that will act as icon for the application, used in the Icon field of the desktop specification.

options.categories

Type: Array[String] Default: []

Categories in which the application should be shown in a menu, used in the Categories field of the desktop specification.

For possible values check out the Desktop Menu Specification.

options.lintianOverrides

Type: Array[String] Default: []

You can use these to quieten lintian.

options.rename

Type: Function Default: function (dest, src) { return dest + src; }

Function that renames all files generated by the task just before putting them in your dest folder.

Contributors

Daniel Perez Alvarez (unindented@gmail.com)