Electron package

[josueBulle]

I love this project, it becomes so easy to develop beautiful GUI for python apps and the abstraction is great. In my last project, I switched from the Chrome browser to Electron so I could customise the windows appearance and behaviour. It works almost flawlessly; I can't package the app anymore.

I also tried to use a local Electron release and use relative paths

# eel.browsers.set_path('electron', 'node_modules/electron/dist/Electron.app/Contents/MacOS/electron')
eel.browsers.set_path('electron', 'Electron.app/Contents/MacOS/electron')

And tried adding the Electron app to the pyinstaller command:

python3 -m eel main.py web --noconfirm --noconsole --onefile \
--add-data /AbsolutePathTo/Electron.app:Electron.app \
--add-data electron_main.js:Electron.app/Contents/Resources/app

My different tries result in different errors such as FileNotFoundError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: 'Electron.app/Contents/MacOS/electron': 'Electron.app/Contents/MacOS/electron' () or Cannot find module '/Users/xyz'. Require stack: /usr/local/lib/node_modules/electron/dist/Electron.app/Contents/Resources/default_app.asar/main.js

I started from the Eelectron example with macOS 10.15 / python 3.7.7 / pyinstaller 3.6

Has anyone achieved this and is willing to help me?

[luciferamji]

did you reach somewhere regarding packaging??

[roomm]

Same here but in windows. When packaging (without --onefile), there exists a file in \node_modules\electron\dist\resources\ named default_app.asar with ~100kb. If I remove that file and then create a folder with the same name with the main.js inside, the app neither run nor any message is shown nor in windows cmd.

[connor-john]

Getting similar issues.

I can get the distributed exe --onefile to run from the cmd line on my personal computer, let me know if this is more luck than you've had and I can reproduce my steps.

My issues are:

• unable to run directly from the distributed exe --onefile
  • I get the Require stack:... ...main.js error
• unable to run .exe on another system
  • Can't find Electron error

Trying to solve this currently, will update. Any help appreciated too.

[mrsachou]

Getting similar issues.

I can get the distributed exe --onefile to run from the cmd line on my personal computer, let me know if this is more luck than you've had and I can reproduce my steps.

My issues are:

• unable to run directly from the distributed exe --onefile

  • I get the Require stack:... ...main.js error

• unable to run .exe on another system

  • Can't find Electron error

Trying to solve this currently, will update. Any help appreciated too.

hello i know this is long time but did you find the solution for this?

[connor-john]

@mrsachou ended up have no luck with the electron implementation, ended up using the chromium approach with Eel, I would definitely recommend trying that out if you're not locked into Electron.

Packaging up and distributing was easily done with just pyinstaller

[lucasadsouza]

Some lucky here, I was able to package it using python -m eel --add-data="main.js;." --add-data="node_modules;node_modules" --add-data="package-lock.json;." --add-data="package.json;." --noconfirm main.py web this error you guys are getting because it's missing package-lock.json and package.json

but when I try use --onefile I get this error when executing the exe :v

[PrematureDeer8]

I was able to get a working distributable app on MacOS. I had to add data to my spec file so that eel's node_modules would be included as mentioned above.

My spec file looks like this:

import sys ; sys.setrecursionlimit(sys.getrecursionlimit() * 5)


block_cipher = None


a = Analysis(
    ['main.py'],
    pathex=[],
    binaries=[],
    datas=[('/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.11/lib/python3.11/site-packages/eel/eel.js', 'eel'), ('web', 'web'), ('node_modules', 'node_modules'), ("package.json", "."), ("package-lock.json", ".")],
    hiddenimports=['bottle_websocket'],
    hookspath=[],
    hooksconfig={},
    runtime_hooks=[],
    excludes=[],
    win_no_prefer_redirects=False,
    win_private_assemblies=False,
    cipher=block_cipher,
    noarchive=False,
)
pyz = PYZ(a.pure, a.zipped_data, cipher=block_cipher)

exe = EXE(
    pyz,
    a.scripts,
    [],
    exclude_binaries=True,
    name='main',
    debug=False,
    bootloader_ignore_signals=False,
    strip=False,
    upx=True,
    console=True,
    disable_windowed_traceback=False,
    argv_emulation=False,
    target_arch=None,
    codesign_identity=None,
    entitlements_file=None,
)
coll = COLLECT(
    exe,
    a.binaries,
    a.zipfiles,
    a.datas,
    strip=False,
    upx=True,
    upx_exclude=[],
    name='main',
)

The datas=[('/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.11/lib/python3.11/site-packages/eel/eel.js', 'eel'), ('web', 'web'), ('node_modules', 'node_modules'), ("package.json", "."), ("package-lock.json", ".")] allows for pyinstaller to include the node_module, package.json, and package-lock.json inside the app.

To run the spec file enter pyinstaller name.spec in the CLI.

After pyinstaller finished, I ran my app ./dist/main/main in the CLI.

I got an error message saying the app couldn't find the file libffmpeg.dylib and the different paths it tried to look for the file.

So then I found the file, libffmpeg.dylib, in the path node_modules/electron/dist/Electron.app/Contents/Frameworks/Electron Framework.framework/Libraries/libffmpeg.dylib and copy pasted it to the one of the paths the app was searching for. Which was the Frameworks directory (node_modules/electron/dist/Electron.app/Contents/Frameworks/libffmpeg.dylib)

Ran the app again and it worked.