Introduction to electron-is-dev

electron-is-dev is a simple utility package for Electron applications. It helps in determining whether your Electron app is running in development mode or production mode. This can be extremely useful for debugging and setting environment-specific configurations.

Basic Usage

To use electron-is-dev, first, you need to install it:

  npm install electron-is-dev

Now you can use it in your main Electron process:

  const { app } = require('electron');
  const isDev = require('electron-is-dev');

  if (isDev) {
      console.log('Running in development mode');
  } else {
      console.log('Running in production mode');
  }

Real-world Examples

Below are some practical examples of how to utilize electron-is-dev in different scenarios:

Loading Developer Tools

  const { BrowserWindow } = require('electron');
  const isDev = require('electron-is-dev');

  const createWindow = () => {
      const win = new BrowserWindow({
          width: 800,
          height: 600,
      });

      win.loadURL('http://localhost:3000');

      if (isDev) {
          win.webContents.openDevTools();
      }
  };

  app.whenReady().then(createWindow);

Setting Different API Endpoints

  const isDev = require('electron-is-dev');

  const apiUrl = isDev ? 'http://localhost:5000/api' : 'https://api.yourapp.com';

  console.log('API URL:', apiUrl);

Disabling Analytics During Development

  const isDev = require('electron-is-dev');

  if (!isDev) {
      // Initialize analytics only in production
      initAnalytics();
  }

Full Application Example

Here’s a simple example of an Electron application leveraging electron-is-dev to conditionally load developer tools and set different configurations:

  const { app, BrowserWindow } = require('electron');
  const isDev = require('electron-is-dev');

  const createWindow = () => {
      const win = new BrowserWindow({
          width: 800,
          height: 600,
      });

      const startUrl = isDev ? 'http://localhost:3000' : 'http://yourproductionurl.com';
      win.loadURL(startUrl);

      if (isDev) {
          win.webContents.openDevTools();
      }
  };

  app.whenReady().then(createWindow);

  app.on('window-all-closed', () => {
      if (process.platform !== 'darwin') {
          app.quit();
      }
  });

  app.on('activate', () => {
      if (BrowserWindow.getAllWindows().length === 0) {
          createWindow();
      }
  });

This example runs a local server during development and a production server otherwise, while also opening developer tools when in development mode.

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