Failing to build for target win32 with electron-forge and electon-winstaller from OpenSuse Leap 15.1

Question

I am trying to make an executable Electron App. I am developing on an OpenSuse Leap 15.1 host platform (Linux). I am trying to build for win32 but, it's giving me the following error:

2020-11-04 08:44:08> Unhandled exception: System.IO.FileNotFoundException: Could not load file or assembly 'PresentationFramework, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35' or one of its dependencies.
File name: 'PresentationFramework, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35'
  at Squirrel.Update.Program.main (System.String[] args) [0x00060] in <9e2ab352f8944769b3794933dd42e8f9>:0 
2020-11-04 08:45:20> Unhandled exception: System.IO.FileNotFoundException: Could not load file or assembly 'PresentationFramework, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35' or one of its dependencies.
File name: 'PresentationFramework, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35'
  at Squirrel.Update.Program.main (System.String[] args) [0x00060] in <9e2ab352f8944769b3794933dd42e8f9>:0 

Here's my package.json file:

{
  "name": "mailer-boy",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "description": "An email client for IMAP server",
  "main": "index.js",
  "scripts": {
    "test": "echo \"Error: no test specified\" && exit 1",
    "start": "electron-forge start",
    "package": "electron-forge package",
    "make": "electron-forge make"
  },
  "keywords": [],
  "author": "",
  "license": "ISC",
  "devDependencies": {
    "@electron-forge/cli": "^6.0.0-beta.54",
    "@electron-forge/maker-deb": "^6.0.0-beta.54",
    "@electron-forge/maker-rpm": "^6.0.0-beta.54",
    "@electron-forge/maker-squirrel": "^6.0.0-beta.54",
    "@electron-forge/maker-zip": "^6.0.0-beta.54",
    "electron": "^10.1.5",
    "electron-winstaller": "^4.0.1"
  },
  "dependencies": {
    "base64-stream": "^1.0.0",
    "electron-squirrel-startup": "^1.0.0",
    "html-to-text": "^6.0.0",
    "node-imap": "^0.9.6",
    "underscore": "^1.11.0"
  },
  "config": {
    "forge": {
      "packagerConfig": {},
      "makers": [
        {
          "name": "@electron-forge/maker-squirrel",
          "config": {
            "name": "mailer_boy"
          }
        },
        {
          "name": "@electron-forge/maker-zip",
          "platforms": [
            "darwin"
          ]
        },
        {
          "name": "@electron-forge/maker-deb",
          "config": {}
        },
        {
          "name": "@electron-forge/maker-rpm",
          "config": {}
        }
      ]
    }
  }
}

And here are the commands I tried:

> npm run make --targets @electron-forge/maker-squirrel
> npm run make --platform linux --targets win32

The commands above kept ignoring the target and just built an application for Linux (after adding the deb and rpm packages). I also tried this:

winstaller.js

const createWindowsInstaller = require('electron-winstaller').createWindowsInstaller
const path = require('path')

getInstallerConfig()
  .then(createWindowsInstaller)
  .catch((error) => {
    console.error(error.message || error)
    process.exit(1)
  })

function getInstallerConfig () {
  console.log('creating windows installer')
  const rootPath = path.join('./')
  const outPath = path.join(rootPath, 'out')

  return Promise.resolve({
    appDirectory: path.join(outPath, 'mailer-boy-linux-x64'),
    authors: 'Abrar H Galib',
    noMsi: true,
    outputDirectory: path.join(outPath, 'windows-installer'),
    exe: 'mailerboy.exe',
    setupExe: 'MailerboyInstaller.exe',
    
  });
}

Running the above with Node.js gives the error given above. How can I target Win32 from my platform? Am I missing any dependencies? I installed dotnet-sdk, dotnet-runtime but that didn't help. Thanks.

Edit

I ended up using a friend's Windows laptop for building the app for Windows. It was somewhat painful. I would very much like to know if building for Windows and MacOS is even possible from Linux. If not, it will be somewhat inconvenient (and also useless) to keep using Electron.

Answer 1

I'm also building an electron app on macOS for cross-platform, I also faced the same problem but after research, I found one way that I would like to share with you,

As of now I don't see any way to build cross-platform distributable from MacOS itself it'll throw an error as below via using this command electron-forge make -- --platform win32

Solutions:

But there is an alternative solution you can try is using electron-builder

You can install electron-builder globally/locally and can use npx electron-builder its strongly recommended via yarn to install, but I choose npm you can go with whatever you prefer

Checkout documentation of electron-builder CLI Options: https://www.electron.build/cli

You can build for cross-platform by using npx electron-builder -mwl where options stand for m for MacOS, w for Windows, and l for Linux

Update v1:

You can make a cross-platform app with npm run make -- --platform but at first your Mac system should be installed with mono and wine package in order to make the app for platform specific.