How to use electron-nightly with typescript properly?

Question

I'm novice and can't understand how to use electron-nightly package properly. And I can't find any information about it. But I need electron-nightly due it has support of ESM.

I use typescript 5.1.3

main.ts:

`import { app } from 'electron';`

package.json:

"devDependencies": {
    "@types/node": "^20.5.9",
    "electron-nightly": "^28.0.0-nightly.20230908",
    "typescript": "~5.1.3"
}

tsconfig.json:

{
  "compilerOptions": {
    "types": [
      "node",
      "electron-nightly"
    ],
  ...
}

Compile from ts to js done without any errors, but if I try to run compiled app by electron . I get error

Error: Cannot find module 'C:\Program Files\nodejs\node_modules\electron\cli.js'
    at Function.Module._resolveFilename (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:933:15)
    at Function.Module._load (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:778:27)
    at Function.executeUserEntryPoint [as runMain] (node:internal/modules/run_main:77:12)
    at node:internal/main/run_main_module:17:47 {
  code: 'MODULE_NOT_FOUND',
  requireStack: []
}

I tried:

1. import { app } from 'electron-nightly' but got error:

`File 'c:/WORKSPACE/MyProject/node_modules/electron-nightly/electron.d.ts' is not a module.ts(2306)`

2. npm i electron and import { app } from 'electron' but got error of definitions duplicate in electron and electron-nightly:

Definitions of the following identifiers conflict with those in another file...

3. rename package electron-nightly into electron in my node_modules folder (please don't laugh so loud I was so desperate :))) but got error:

Error: Cannot find module 'C:\Program Files\nodejs\node_modules\electron\cli.js'

So my questions:

• Should I install electron package with npm i electron in addition? And how should I bind my code with electron-nightly in this case?
• Which package should be imported in main.ts? And If it's electron-nightly so how to resolve ...is not a module.ts?
• Further I would package my app with electron-forge, so would any problems with it?

Thanks!

Answer 1

You probably didn't define in the environment variables the path of the node in your windows.

That's why the nodejs module is not found as the initial error says

Error: Cannot find module 'C:\Program Files\nodejs\node_modules\electron\cli.js'

Try setting it like this on your windows, run this in the command line.

 SET PATH=C:\Program Files\Nodejs;%PATH%

1 - You don't need to install the electron package separately if you're using electron-nightly.

2 - The "duplicate definitions" error you are experiencing occurs because you are trying to import Electron modules from two different sources: 'electron' and 'electron-nightly'. Only use Electron Nightly

3 - Electron Forge should work fine with Electron Nightly if you have it set up correctly.

Answer 2

Had the same problem. E.g. I am using webpack-electron, which directly references electron, so no easy way to change that. Solved it using the alias functionality of npm and yarn:

npm:

npm install electron@npm:electron-nightly --save

yarn:

yarn add electron@npm:electron-nightly

Has the extra benefit you can just change to nightly versions without updating your code...