crossbuilder

Browser App and Extension Boilerplate using Redux Actions

Simple boilerplate and library for building Electron and Chrome apps, and cross-browser extensions that use Redux actions for messaging.

Redux states are synced between background, inject page, app window, extension popup and badge.

The developing is the same as for the web apps with React and Redux, just use the src/app boilerplate.

Structure

• src/app: React cross-browser application (will be imported in the apps bellow).
• src/web: web app sources.
• src/browser: extensions sources.
• src/chromeApp: Chrome app sources
• src/electron: Electron app sources
• test/app: tests for Redux actions and reducers, and for React components (using enzyme).
• test/chrome: tests for Chrome app and extension (using chromedriver, selenium-webdriver).

Boilerplate specific dependencies

• redux-devtools-extension
• redux-notify
• crossmessaging
• chrome-storage-local

Installation

# required node.js/io.js
# clone it
npm install

Development

# build files to './dev'
# watch files change
# start WebpackDevServer
npm run dev

• Open web app in browser at localhost:3000.
• Load unpacked extension's ./dev folder to Chrome.

React/Flux hot reload

This boilerplate uses Webpack and react-transform. You can hot reload by editing related files of ./src/app. If the inject page for the extension is on https (like https://github.com), click the 'shield' icon on the Chrome address bar to allow loading http://localhost there (after making any changes in dev mode), so hot reload can work for that page.

Debug with Redux DevTools

We use Redux DevTools Extension, install it from Chrome store for debugging.

Build web app

# build files to './build/web'
npm run build:web

Build Electron app

# build files to './build/electron'
npm run build:electron

# or to start it
npm run start:electron

Build Chrome app

# build files to './build/app'
npm run build:app

Build Chrome extension

# build files to './build/extension'
npm run build:extension

Build Firefox extension

# build files to './build/firefox'
npm run build:firefox

Note that it's not possible for now to load Firefox extensions from local directories, so use npm run compress:firefox instead to generate an xpi file.

Build & Compress

# build and compress Electron app to [name].dmg, win32-ia32.zip, win32-x64.zip, linux-ia32.zip, linux-x64.zip
npm run compress:electron

# compress Chrome app to app.zip
npm run compress:app

# compress Chrome extension to extension.zip
npm run compress:extension

# compress Firefox extension to firefox.xpi
npm run compress:firefox

Load

• Load the extension to Chrome.
• Launch your Chrome app.
• Firefox: Prerequisites, Installing.

Test

# test app
npm run test:app

# start Chromedriver for testing with Chrome
npm run before:test:chrome

# test Chrome extension
npm run test:chrome:extension

# test Chrome app
npm run test:chrome:app

# test Chrome extension and app
npm run test:chrome

# test everything
npm test

Roadmap

• Web app
• Electron app
• Chrome app
• Chrome extension
• Firefox extension (see the current status)
• Safari extension (based on Chrome to Safari port)

LICENSE

MIT