Packaging Electron + Puppeteer to a .exe - node.js

Question

Hi I have an Electron app that's running Puppeteer (To be specific it is puppeteer-cluster). I want to be able to package this app into a .exe that I can distribute with.
One requirement though is that I have to be able to pack it with --asar.
Here's some stuff I tried but failed:
I tried setting the executable path :
let ChromiumPath = path.join(__dirname, "..", "..", "..",".local-chromium", "win64-809590", "chrome-win","chrome.exe");
const cluster = await Cluster.launch({
puppeteer,
concurrency: Cluster.CONCURRENCY_BROWSER,
maxConcurrency: arg.length,
timeout: 340000,
puppeteerOptions: {
args: browserArgs,
headless: false,
ignoreHTTPSErrors: true,
executablePath : ChromiumPath
},
perBrowserOptions: perBrowserOptions,
});
I tried specifying the unpack directory in package.json
"config": {
"forge": {
"packagerConfig": {
"asar": {
"unpack": "**/node_modules/puppeteer/.local-chromium/**/*"
}
}.....
Here's how i package my app:
electron-packager . --asar
And if needed, here's my package.json:
{
"name": "testBrowsers",
"productName": "testBrowsers",
"version": "1.0.0",
"description": "IDk",
"main": "src/index.js",
"scripts": {
"start": "electron-forge start",
"package": "electron-packager ./ testBrowsers --platform=win32 --arch=x64 --icon=./tool.ico --out=./dist --electron-version=10.1.4 --overwrite",
"make": "electron-forge make",
"publish": "electron-forge publish",
"lint": "echo \"No linting configured\""
},
"keywords": [],
"author": "Otter",
"license": "MIT",
"config": {
"forge": {
"packagerConfig": {
"asar": {
"unpack": "**/node_modules/puppeteer/.local-chromium/**/*"
}
},
"makers": [
{
"name": "#electron-forge/maker-squirrel",
"config": {
"name": "testBrowsers"
}
},
{
"name": "#electron-forge/maker-zip",
"platforms": [
"darwin"
]
},
{
"name": "#electron-forge/maker-deb",
"config": {}
},
{
"name": "#electron-forge/maker-rpm",
"config": {}
}
]
}
},
"dependencies": {
"electron-squirrel-startup": "^1.0.0",
"proxy-chain": "^0.4.5",
"puppeteer": "^5.4.1",
"puppeteer-cluster": "^0.22.0",
"puppeteer-extra": "^3.1.15",
"puppeteer-extra-plugin-stealth": "^2.6.5",
"puppeteer-page-proxy": "^1.2.8",
"taskkill": "^3.1.0"
},
"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": "10.1.4"
}
}
Thanks I really hope someone can help me out with this issue! :)

Answer 1

You will probably need to package chromium separately from your application. At least that's what you would do when trying to package a node application using something like pkg.
You can load chromium in puppeteer from a custom install path when launching a browser instance. So in code you will need to specify that path and make sure that your packaged app has the ability to read that path.
Your distribution file (probably an archive) will then have the chromium build that puppeteer needs separate from the actual app exe
have a look at a similar discussion here
https://github.com/vercel/pkg/issues/204