electron-serve

Static file serving for Electron apps

Normally you would just use win.loadURL('file://…'), but that doesn't work when you're making a single-page web app, which most Electron apps are today, as history.pushState()'ed URLs don't exist on disk. It serves files if they exist, and falls back to index.html if not, which means you can use router modules like react-router, vue-router, etc.

Install

$ npm install electron-serve

Usage

const {app, BrowserWindow} = require('electron');
const serve = require('electron-serve');

const loadURL = serve({directory: 'renderer'});

app.on('ready', () => {
    mainWindow = new BrowserWindow();

    loadURL(mainWindow);

    // The above is equivalent to this:
    mainWindow.loadURL('app://-');
    // The `-` is just the required hostname
});

API

serve(options)

directory

Required
Type: string

The directory to serve, relative to the app root directory.

scheme

Type: string
Default: app

Custom scheme. For example, foo results in your directory being available at foo://-.

Related

• electron-util - Useful utilities for developing Electron apps and modules
• electron-reloader - Simple auto-reloading for Electron apps during development
• electron-debug - Adds useful debug features to your Electron app
• electron-context-menu - Context menu for your Electron app
• electron-dl - Simplified file downloads for your Electron app
• electron-unhandled - Catch unhandled errors and promise rejections in your Electron app

License

MIT © Sindre Sorhus