electron-directory

Introduction

When I started using Electron, I came accros some difficulties to work with path/fs because of the three different states of the application: developpement, packaged or asar packed. Each one of them has its own way around with directories. That's how I ended up coding this little module to help unify the way I accessed files.

Initialization

The module is wrapped within a promise, it take the application cwd path as argument as shown here:

var electronDirectory = require('electron-directory')
  , dirHelper
  , electronExecPath
  , applicationJsPath
  ;

electronDirectory(__dirname)
    .then(function(electronDirectoryInstance) {
        dirHelper = electronDirectoryInstance;
        return dirHelper.getElectronPath();
    })
    .then(function(info) {
        electronExecPath = info;        
        return dirHelper.getApplicationPath();
    })
    .then(function(info) {
        applicationJsPath = info;
    });

Read the methods section for more info.

Methods

getElectronPath(path)

Returns the full path relative to the executing Electron directory.

electronDirectoryInstance.getElectronPath('config.json')
    .then(function(path) {
        console.log(path);
    });

getApplicationPath(path)

Returns the full path relative to the application directory, whenever it's within the asar or not.

electronDirectoryInstance.getApplicationPath('/lib/mylib.js')
    .then(function(path) {
        console.log(path);
    });

Usage sample

Here is a use case that illustrate the whole process. We will grab a default JSON config file in the application directory and, if the config.json doesn't exist yet, will create it into the Electron directory.

/app.js

#!/usr/bin/env node

try {
    var app = require('app')
      , BrowserWindow = require('browser-window') 
      , windows = {}
      ;
    app.on('window-all-closed', function() {
        if (process.platform != 'darwin') {
            app.quit();
        }
    });
    app.on('ready', function() {
        windows["main"] = new BrowserWindow({width: 1000, height: 800, title: "Electron Directory Sample", defaultEncoding: "utf8"});
        windows["main"].loadURL('file://' + __dirname + '/app.html');
        windows["main"].toggleDevTools();
        windows["main"].on('closed', function() {
            delete windows["main"];
        });
    });
}
catch(ex) {
    console.log(ex);
    ex.stack && console.log(ex.stack);
}

/js/main.js

try {
    var configHelperModule = require('./js/modules/config-helper.js')
      , configHelper
      , config
      , initConfigHelper = function initConfigHelper() {
            return new Promise(function(resolve, reject) {
                configHelperModule(__dirname)
                    .then(function (helper) {
                        configHelper = helper;
                        return configHelper.getConfig();
                    })
                    .then(function (cfg) {
                        config = cfg;
                        return resolve();
                    })
                    .catch(reject);
            });
        }
      ;
    initConfigHelper()
        .then(function(children_infos) {
            console.log('config loaded');
        })
        .catch(function(err) {
            console.error(err);
            err.stack && console.error(err.stack);
        });
}
catch(ex) {
    console.error(ex);
    ex.stack && console.error(ex.stack);
}

/js/modules/config-helper.js

var path = require('path')
  , fs = require('fs')
  , electronDirectory = require('electron-directory')

  , readFilePromise = function readFilePromise(file, options) {
        return new Promise(function(resolve, reject) {
            fs.readFile(file, options, function (err, data) {
                if(err) {
                    return reject(err);
                }
                return resolve(data);
            });
        });
    }
  , writeFilePromise = function writeFilePromise(file, data, options) {
        return new Promise(function(resolve, reject) {
            fs.writeFile(file, data, options, function (err) {
                if(err) {
                    return reject(err);
                }
                return resolve();
            });
        });
    }

  , configHelper = function configHelper(dirname) {
        return new Promise(function(moduleResolve, moduleReject) {
            var configBase = 'config.json'
              , defaultConfigBase = 'config/config.default.json'
              , defaultConfigPath
              , configPath
              , config
              , dirHelper
              , getConfig = function getConfig() {
                    return new Promise(function(resolve, reject) {
                        if(config) {
                            return resolve(config);
                        }
                        readFilePromise(configPath, { encoding:'utf8'})
                            .then(function(data) {
                                config = JSON.parse(data);
                                return resolve(config);
                            })
                            .catch(function(err) {
                                readFilePromise(defaultConfigPath, { encoding:'utf8'})
                                    .then(function(data) {
                                        data = JSON.parse(data);
                                        return setConfig(data);
                                    })
                                    .then(function() {
                                        return resolve(config);
                                    })
                                    .catch(reject);
                            });
                    });
                }
              , setConfig = function setConfig(newConfig) {
                    return new Promise(function(resolve, reject) {
                        var data = JSON.stringify(newConfig, null, '    ');
                        config = newConfig;
                        writeFilePromise(configPath, data, { encoding:'utf8', flag : 'w+'})
                            .then(resolve)
                            .catch(reject);
                    });
                }
              , modulePublics = {
                    getConfig: getConfig
                  , setConfig: setConfig
                }
              ;
            electronDirectory(dirname)
                .then(function(helper) {
                    dirHelper = helper;
                    return dirHelper.getElectronPath(configBase);
                })
                .then(function(info) {
                    configPath = info;
                    return dirHelper.getApplicationPath(defaultConfigBase);
                })
                .then(function(info) {
                    defaultConfigPath = info;
                    return moduleResolve(modulePublics);
                })
                .catch(moduleReject);
        });
    }
  ;

module.exports = configHelper;