No good way to have one renderer process with Node integration and one renderer process without Node integration

[george-thomas-hill]

Pre-flight checklist

• [X] I have read the contribution documentation for this project.
• [X] I agree to follow the code of conduct that this project uses.
• [X] I have searched the issue tracker for a bug that matches the one I want to file, without success.

Electron Forge version

6.0.0-beta.61

Electron version

v15.2.0

Operating system

Kubuntu 21.04 x64

Last known working Electron Forge version

No response

Expected behavior

I am trying to configure electron-forge to allow me to have one visible renderer window as my UI (with Node integration turned off) and one hidden renderer window as a worker window (with Node integration turned on).

I am doing this because I want to use the Chokidar npm module in my hidden worker renderer window.

I can get this to work in production mode (i.e. with npm run make) but not development mode if I do two things:

• I use const chokidar = require("chokidar") in my worker process.
• I set target: 'electron-renderer' in webpack.renderer.config.

Alternatively, I can get this to work in development mode (i.e. with npm start) but not in production mode if I make the following changes:

• I use const chokidar = window.require("chokidar") in my worker process.
• I remove target: 'electron-renderer' from webpack.renderer.config.

To my knowledge, there is no configuration that works for both production mode and development mode.

Actual behavior

If I configure this to work in production mode, then in development mode I get the following error in my UI window:

Uncaught ReferenceError: require is not defined
    at Object.url (index.js:486)
    at __webpack_require__ (index.js:515)
    at fn (index.js:702)
    at eval (parseURL.js:5)
    at Module../node_modules/webpack-dev-server/client/utils/parseURL.js (index.js:292)
    at __webpack_require__ (index.js:515)
    at fn (index.js:702)
    at eval (index.js?protocol=ws%3A&hostname=0.0.0.0&port=3000&pathname=%2Fws&logging=info:7)
    at Module../node_modules/webpack-dev-server/client/index.js?protocol=ws%3A&hostname=0.0.0.0&port=3000&pathname=%2Fws&logging=info (index.js:206)
    at __webpack_require__ (index.js:515)

If I configure this to work in development mode, then in production mode I get the following error in my worker window:

Uncaught Error: Cannot find module 'chokidar'
Require stack:
- /usr/lib/my-new-app-2/resources/app/.webpack/renderer/worker_window/index.html
    at Module._resolveFilename (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:934)
    at Function.o._resolveFilename (node:electron/js2c/renderer_init:29)
    at Module._load (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:779)
    at Function.c._load (node:electron/js2c/asar_bundle:5)
    at Function.o._load (node:electron/js2c/renderer_init:29)
    at Module.require (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1006)
    at require (node:internal/modules/cjs/helpers:93)
    at worker.js:2

Steps to reproduce

Minimal code configured to work in production mode is available at:

https://github.com/george-thomas-hill/my-new-app-2-works-in-production

Minimal code configured to work in development mode is available at:

https://github.com/george-thomas-hill/my-new-app-2-works-in-development

Additional information

This may be related to the Enhancement request posted at:

https://github.com/electron-userland/electron-forge/issues/2570

However, I believe that this qualifies as a bug because it is an instance of electron-forge not working for a common use case.

[Quelu]

Hello @george-thomas-hill, did you find an other solution to make this works? I could not make this works with your workaround..

[george-thomas-hill]

Hello, @Quelu.

I ended up using Node's child_process.fork() to make a separate Node-powered worker process.

https://nodejs.org/api/child_process.html#child_processforkmodulepath-args-options

I'm sorry for the slow response!

[erickzhao]

closed in https://github.com/electron/forge/pull/2867