CODEWITHSUNDEEP
visual-studio-codeelectron
nsxdavid
nsxdavid

Reputation: 485

Can Visual Studio Code be configured to launch electron

Since Visual Studio Code was created using Electron, I'm guessing that launch.json might be configured to properly launch an app using Electron. But I've not figured out how to do it yet.

Also since Electron is based on io.js, itself based on Node.js, I'm thinking maybe... it can be done, but haven't found the magic yet.

Tried something along these lines... snippet from launch.json:

"configurations": [
    {
        // Name of configuration; appears in the launch configuration drop down menu.
        "name": "Launch Electron",
        // Type of configuration. Possible values: "node", "mono".
        "type": "node",
        // Workspace relative or absolute path to the program.
        "program": "Y:\\dev\\electron\\electron.exe",
        // Automatically stop program after launch.
        "stopOnEntry": false,
        // Command line arguments passed to the program.
        "args": ["CrawlSpace_Electron\\"],
        // Workspace relative or absolute path to the working directory of the program being debugged. Default is the current workspace.
        "cwd": ".",
        // Workspace relative or absolute path to the runtime executable to be used. Default is the runtime executable on the PATH.
        "runtimeExecutable": null,
        // Environment variables passed to the program.
        "env": { }
    },

It does start Electron, but fails (window vanishes too fast to see exactly why).

Any thoughts?

Upvotes: 13

Views: 15513

Answers (5)

Andrew
Andrew

Reputation: 1

I know this is just 1 link but it's the answer everyone needs...

https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/editor/debugging#_launchjson-attributes

Here are the attributes documented for launch.json. Unsure if the list is currently complete, but it should at least help...

Upvotes: 1

Shawn Rakowski
Shawn Rakowski

Reputation: 5714

If you specify electron.exe as the runtimeExecutable (as previously suggested) you can pass the main.js file as the program and it will work. Electron allows you to specify the directory OR the main.js file since that is pretty much what the package.json points to. Using the configuration below in my launch.json file, pressing F5 both launched Electron with my app and connected the debugger to the main process (eventually)...

{
    "name": "Launch Electron",
    "type": "node",
    "program": "${workspaceRoot}/app/main.js", // ensure this is path to main.js file
    "stopOnEntry": false,
    "args": [], 
    "cwd": "${workspaceRoot}",
    // as you have noted, this is also important:
    "runtimeExecutable": "${workspaceRoot}/node_modules/.bin/electron.cmd"
},

My main.js file is in the app folder I normally would pass to Electron.

Upvotes: 23

octref
octref

Reputation: 6801

Yes, it could. Not only could VSCode launch Electron, it could also debug it.

Using node you can debug Electron's Main process, but with Debugger for Chrome you can also debug Electron's Renderer process. I wrote a blog post on this topic: http://code.matsu.io/1.

The current highest upvoted answer is a bit outdated.

Here are two pre-configured projects: https://github.com/octref/vscode-electron-debug.

Here is the launch.json for the first project. To run the target "Debug Renderer Process", you need to install Debugger for Chrome. But "Debug Main Process" works fine on vanilla VSCode.

{
  "version": "0.2.0",
  "configurations": [
    {
      "name": "Debug Main Process",
      "type": "node",
      "request": "launch",
      "cwd": "${workspaceRoot}",
      "runtimeExecutable": "${workspaceRoot}/node_modules/.bin/electron",
      // Use the following for Windows
      // "runtimeExecutable": "${workspaceRoot}/node_modules/.bin/electron.cmd",
      "program": "${workspaceRoot}/main.js"
    },
    {
      "name": "Debug Renderer Process",
      "type": "chrome",
      "request": "launch",
      "runtimeExecutable": "${workspaceRoot}/node_modules/.bin/electron",
      // Use the following for Windows
      // "runtimeExecutable": "${workspaceRoot}/node_modules/.bin/electron.cmd",
      "runtimeArgs": [
        "${workspaceRoot}/main.js",
        "--remote-debugging-port=9222"
      ],
      "webRoot": "${workspaceRoot}"
    }
  ]
}

Upvotes: 3

carcus88
carcus88

Reputation: 137

On OSX the path to electron is 

"runtimeExecutable": "${workspaceRoot}/node_modules/electron-prebuilt/dist/Electron.app/Contents/MacOS/Electron",

Upvotes: 0

Andre Weinand
Andre Weinand

Reputation: 1977

In theory the following should work: Specify the electron.exe as the "runtimeExecutable" (since it replaces the node runtime). The electron program ("CrawlSpace_Electron\") becomes the "program". VSCode automatically passes a "--debug-brk" or "--debug" to electron.exe. In practice VSCode does not yet support this setup because the preview version of VSCode tries to verify that the "program" attribute is a file that exists on disk. But for electron the "program" must be a directory. I have created a bug on our side and will make sure it’s fixed with the next release.

Upvotes: 1

Related Questions