[feat] Electron to Tauri

[anonymouscatcher]

Describe the problem

I am interested in finding a solution for migrating a live application from Electron to Tauri, in order to provide a seamless experience for current users and eliminate the need for manual downloads. Is this something that can be easily achieved?

Describe the solution you'd like

I think Tauri should make the transition from Electron easier for the current applications which uses Electron with auto update.

Alternatives considered

No response

Additional context

This is the auto update package for most of the Electron applications https://www.electron.build/auto-update.html

[nothingismagick]

This is a really exciting challenge, and I wonder if the initial bottleneck would be the different codesigners...

[anonymouscatcher]

yea then we can say goodbye to Electron.

[simonhyll]

I've toyed around a bit with this today here https://github.com/simonhyll/electron-to-tauri/ And it was surprisingly easy to get it to download a Tauri .msi file. You just have to put a latest.yaml file in the release with the proper values.

Where I'm struggling atm is that it downloads it and offers to update on exit, but when I click ok to install the update, nothing happens. So yea it doesn't work yet, but I can definitely see it downloading the latest version as long as the yaml file is there in the latest release

[simonhyll]

Some progress on this issue:

On Linux I've verified that AppImage updating works flawlessly if you just set the values in latest-linux.yml correctly! And since .deb packages should really be distributed through some form of PPA where you'd just upload the new version to, I'd say that switching from Electron to Tauri on Linux at least can be considered fully supported and as simple as editing the .yml file 😄

On Windows I'm still struggling getting it to work, in no small part because I'm having issues finding a way to get proper debugging information for the installation process. It's verifying the file is downloaded and everything, it just doesn't want to work. HOWEVER: all the information required to download it manually is available, so in theory making the app update is as simple as writing a tiny Javascript function that downloads and executes the .msi file. I would prefer not having to go that route but it's certainly looking like the best option currently since the updater is being such a b****.

I can't try switching from Electron to Tauri on Mac unfortunately because I do not own a Mac. :\

[simonhyll]

Here's a snippet I cooked up that's capable of downloading the .msi and executing it. It's a very basic variant without things like checksum checking and it doesn't download to a temp path, but it works during testing at least.

autoUpdater.on("update-available", (info) => {
  console.log(info);

  const https = require("https");
  const fs = require("fs");
  const { spawn } = require("child_process");

  const url =
    "https://github.com/simonhyll/electron-to-tauri/releases/download/v0.11.0/electron-updater-example_0.11.0_x64_en-US.msi";

  const filePath = "installer.msi";
  const file = fs.createWriteStream(filePath);

  const request = https
    .get(url, function (response) {
      if (response.statusCode === 302) {
        // Follow the redirect
        https.get(response.headers.location, function (newResponse) {
          if (newResponse.statusCode !== 200) {
            console.error(
              "Error downloading file: HTTP",
              newResponse.statusCode
            );
            file.close();
            fs.unlinkSync(filePath);
            return;
          }
          newResponse.pipe(file);
        });
      } else if (response.statusCode !== 200) {
        console.error("Error downloading file: HTTP", response.statusCode);
        file.close();
        fs.unlinkSync(filePath);
        return;
      } else {
        response.pipe(file);
      }

      file.on("finish", function () {
        file.close();
        console.log("Download completed.");

        const install = spawn("msiexec", ["/i", `${filePath}`], {
          detached: true,
        });
        install.unref();
        app.exit(0);
      });
    })
    .on("error", function (err) {
      console.error("Error downloading file:", err);
      fs.unlinkSync(filePath);
    });
});

[simonhyll]

Steps

1. Build your Tauri app
2. Take the appropriate latest-*.yml file from your Electron build
3. Change the filename and version nr
4. Remove blockMapSize if it's there, you don't need it
5. Run sha512sum FILE to get the value to put in the sha512 field
6. Set the release date field

Tauri supported distribution methods and their status:

• ✅ "deb": Not required for electron-builder since you just upload the updated version to your PPA
• ✅ "appimage": Works!! Just do the steps above and it will automagically download and install the AppImage
• ✅ "msi": You'll need a tiny custom javascript function for downloading and running the .msi, but it's a fairly small snippet and it works. You still update the latest.yml file so that the updater can take care of finding whether or not a new version is available.
• ❓ "app": I don't have a Mac
• ❓ "dmg": I don't have a Mac

[Stanzilla]

A tauri equivalent of electron-builder would be fantastic and definitely increase adoption.

[FabianLars]

We may not advertise it well enough, but Tauri had an electron-builder equivalent built-in from the start. To be fair, Tauri doesn't support as many bundle types yes but we're getting there. There's also a modified version of tauri's bundler called cargo-packager which also works for non-Tauri projects.