Cordova & Electron App Installation on Win10

I made a small testapp to play with Cordova and Electron. For Electron I have the question, if it is possible to install the app on another location than AppData/local etc.. for example on Harddisk d: (if I am logged in as admin) ?

And the second question regarding Electron: is it possible to reduce the size of the app, which is quite large (400MB) ?

With Cordova I have the problem, that I have not installed Visual Studio 2019 but the Win 10 SDK, which is located at "C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\". How do I get Cordova to look in this location?

All the best,

Hello Peter,

I made a small testapp to play with Cordova and Electron. For Electron I have the question, if it is possible to install the app on another location than AppData/local etc.. for example on Harddisk d: (if I am logged in as admin) ?

I must recognize my leak of knowledge about Electron, however, you can made a search around the web for something like "Electron Installer" and you can see some results that may you can take in consideration. A possible solution can be to use a program like Inno Setup, so, you can prepare the installer as you wanted, that is, out of the Electron default installer. But probably there is some stuff specifically designed for Electron that you can use. too.

And the second question regarding Electron: is it possible to reduce the size of the app, which is quite large (400MB) ?

If I am not wrong, when you run the "release" BAT, you can get an executable without debug information, so, smaller. Are you try with the "release" BAT instead of the "debug" one? Again, I will refer you to the Electron documentation: maybe you can do something using the configuration that you can set from App Builder: the configuration of Electron is quite large, that is, there is lot of options that can be used: and it's documented in the Electron website. The Electron Cordova documentation refers to the Electron documentation too. You may can also use an executable compression program like UPX, but, probably with the "release" instead of the "debug" you can get an executable smaller than you refer, and, enough, that is, maybe something like UPX is not required. The installer can also compress the executable files, so, if the installer can be smaller, in my opinion, it's not important that the executable begin "big" after the installation.

With Cordova I have the problem, that I have not installed Visual Studio 2019 but the Win 10 SDK, which is located at "C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\". How do I get Cordova to look in this location?

I am not sure if can understand this question, since, apparently, Visual Studio 2019 is not needed here, but just the SDK, according to the Cordova Electron documentation. On the other hand, if you can compile the app, is not this a signal that Cordova already uses the SDK in the location that you have it? Maybe you refer to something that I can't understand well, so, please, don't hesitate to post here some more details about what you wanted and what you get.

Regarding my electron questions, the installation location is not so critical because you can use the x86 or x64 version and copy them to the needed destination. I used the release bat, but the complete chromium framework has to be installed, so it takes allways nearly 400mB - but it works pretty well!! One wish on my list: if it would be possible to compile only x86 or x64 or the installer, this would save a lot of space on the HD. You can modify the config files with an editor, but it would be great to have an option in AppBuilder (like for the electron json)...

The last question was about Win Cordova, not Electron - but you are right this makes no sense because Electron runs smooth and is easy to compile. I tried Cordova for Android and, if everything is well installed, it runs fine. By the way, what happened to the Calculator Program, you used in the video - it is no more in the samples, I like it very much!!

kind regards, Peter

Hello Peter,

There are various things to consider here. Honestly I think that compile for 32 and 64 bits can be good "as is", because, except for the disk space, probably that can be what we wanted: get both 32 and 64 bits builds ready to be deployed and used. Yes; I can place some option in order to prepare only the 32 or the 64 bits releases, but, I am not sure about... honestly...

Another thing to consider is to take in consideration this issue of Cordova Electron. As you can see, there is certain issue which causes that the app builders be a bit larger than the possible: I supose this can be enhanced by the Cordova's team in the near future, but, certainly you can follow the instructions of that issue / link in order to get an smaller releases of the app.

About the Calculator sample app, the point is that that sample is included in the previous generation of DecSoft App Builder: the new one do not include a sample like that. Maybe I can include it in the future, however.