Introduction

In this lesson, you will learn how to build native desktop apps with SAP UI5 and Electron. You might be surprised how easy it is to start building high-quality desktop apps for any platform, or even port your existing SAP UI5 app to native desktop platforms.

About Electron

Electron is an open source library developed by GitHub for building cross-platform desktop applications with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Electron accomplishes this by combining Chromium and Node.js into a single runtime and apps can be packaged for Mac, Windows, and Linux.

Prerequisites

In this blog I would like to go with a Windows 10 machine, so I’m going to show you how to install all the needed tools for SAPUI5 Desktop application development. We will go through the installation of the following components:

• Node.js v8.9.2

• SAP UI5 Runtime v1.48.11 (Optional)

Others

• Windows 10

• UI5 App: ztest_emp_prfl v1.48

  
  

Installation/Setup

• Node.js Setup

  Download Node.js version 8 or lower from the link https://nodejs.org/en/ and install.

  Once installation is done. Open Command Prompt (Windows+R then type “cmd” press Enter) and type “npm –v“. It returns node version if the installation is successful.

  

• SAP UI5 Runtime Libraries (Optional).

  Note: This library setup is only required while developing offline application.
  
  Download SAP UI5 Runtime libraries from the link Click here . Once download is finished open the zip file and extract “resources” folder into your application to “WebContent” folder.

  

Setting Up Electron Environment and Testing the app

1. Open Command Prompt

   press Windows+R, type “cmd” press Enter

2. Navigate to app directory

   Run command

   cd <path to root folder of your app>
   // Example 
   cd C:\XXX\XXX\ztest_emp_prfl

3. Initialize the npm and create “package.json”

   Run command
   

   npm init

   It will ask few questions and creates package.json file. Enter following details.

   description: Employee Profile
   entry point: (index.js) main.js
   author: Irfan G

   at the end type “yes” and hit Enter.

   

   A package.json file offers you a lot of great things:

   • It serves as documentation for what packages your project depends on.
   • It allows you to specify the versions of a package that your project can use using semantic versioning rules.
   • It makes your build reproducible, which means that it’s much easier to share with other developers.

4. Create entry point – main.js

   Open app folder ie. ztest_emp_prfl and create a file main.js

   Create a new file named main.js in the root of your project – this is the Electron NodeJS backend. This is the entry point for Electron and defines how our desktop app will react to various events performed via the desktop operating system. Paste the following code.

   const {app, BrowserWindow} = require('electron');
   
   // Global reference of the window object.
   let mainWindow;
   
   // When Electron finish initialization, create window and load app index.html with size 800x600
   app.on('ready', () => {
       	mainWindow = new BrowserWindow({ 
   		width: 800, 
   		height: 600,
                   webPreferences: {
   			nodeIntegration: false   
   		} 
           });
   	// Path to your index.html
   	mainWindow.loadURL('file://' + __dirname + '/WebContent/index.html');
   });
   

5. Modify index.html

   Open index.html file and replace resource path like below. Only change “src” property value.

   <script id="sap-ui-bootstrap"
       src="https://sapui5.netweaver.ondemand.com/resources/sap-ui-core.js"
       data-sap-ui-libs="sap.m"
       data-sap-ui-theme="sap_bluecrystal"
       data-sap-ui-compatVersion="edge"
       data-sap-ui-resourceroots='{"com.empprfl": ""}'>
   </script>

   Note: If you’re using SAP UI5 Runtime libraries do the following changes.

   <script id="sap-ui-bootstrap" 
   	src="./resources/sap-ui-core.js"
   	data-sap-ui-libs="sap.m"
   	data-sap-ui-theme="sap_bluecrystal"
   	data-sap-ui-compatVersion="edge"
   	data-sap-ui-resourceroots='{"com.empprfl": ""}'>
   </script>
   

6. Install Electron and modify package.json file

   Open Command Prompt and Run

   npm install electron --save-dev

   Once finished. Open package.json and replace the line inside “script” node.

   "start": "electron ." 
   

   this tells npm to run electron from root(“.”) folder. Now your package.json looks like this.

   

7. Testing your application by electron.

   Open Command Prompt and Run

   npm start

   It will run your application in a window.

   

   You can also open developer tools to check for errors. In menu select Window-> Toggle Developer Tools or press Ctrl+Shift+I.

Creating Build

1. Open Command Prompt

   Press Windows+R, type “cmd” press Enter).

2. Navigate to app directory

   Run command

   cd <path to root folder of your app>
   // Example 
   cd C:\XXX\XXX\ztest_emp_prfl​

3. Install Electron Packager

   Run below commands in sequence

   // for use in npm scripts
   npm install electron-packager --save-dev
   
   // for use from cli (Command Line Interface)
   npm install electron-packager –g
   
   // for creating prebuild
   npm install --save-dev electron-prebuilt​

4. Add Icon for the App

   Create a folder in root directory to add icon(WinIcon.ico) to your application. I’ll create folder as below

   Xxx/xxx/ztest_emp_prfl/assets
   Xxx/xxx/ztest_emp_prfl/icons
   Xxx/xxx/ztest_emp_prfl/WinIcon.ico

   Please make sure your icon type. It varies from different platforms.

   // For windows = XXX.ico
   
   // For Mac = XXX.icns
   
   // For Linux = XXX.png

   Download all 3 types of icon from http://www.iconarchive.com

5. Setting productname and electron version

   open up package.json and add a productname after the “name” node.

   "productName": "Employee Profile App",

   And use below command line to build the app for particular platform.

   // For Mac
   electron-packager . --overwrite --platform=darwin --arch=x64 --icon=assets/icons/WinIcon.ico --prune=true --out=release-builds
   
   // For Windows
   electron-packager . ztest_emp_prfl --overwrite --asar=true --platform=win32 --arch=ia32 --icon=assets/icons/WinIcon.ico --prune=true --out=release-builds --version-string.CompanyName=CE --version-string.FileDescription=CE --version-string.ProductName=\"Employee Profile App\"
   
   // For Linux
   electron-packager . ztest_emp_prfl --overwrite --asar=true --platform=linux --arch=x64 --icon=assets/icons/WinIcon.ico --prune=true --out=release-builds

   Note: In the command, change your application name, package name and path to the icon. And also it’s syntax is different for different platforms.

   Now pick the windows command and you can execute this command directly from command line or we can place this command in package.json and execute it using npm. Open package.json and add this command as following inside “script” node. At the end package.json look like this.

   {
     "name": "ztest_emp_prfl",
     "productName": "Employee Profile App",
     "version": "1.0.0",
     "description": "Employee Profile",
     "main": "main.js",
     "scripts": {
       "start": "electron .",
       "package-win": "electron-packager . ztest_emp_prfl --overwrite --asar=true --platform=win32 --arch=ia32 --icon=assets/icons/WinIcon.ico --prune=true --out=release-builds --version-string.CompanyName=CE --version-string.FileDescription=CE --version-string.ProductName=\"Employee Profile App\""
     },
     "author": "Irfan G",
     "license": "ISC",
     "devDependencies": {
       "electron": "^1.7.9",
       "electron-packager": "^10.1.0",
       "electron-prebuilt": "^1.4.13"
     }
   }

6. Now run the build command.

   npm run package-win

   Here package-win is the property which is specified under “script” node of package.json. Like wise you can add particular name for other platforms, specify the particular command and execute it.

   

   Once it’s success, Congrats!!! Your desktop application is ready. Go to your app folder inside that new folder will be created as “release-builds” under that look for file created with the app name with extension as “.app” as “ztest_emp_prfl.app”.  Double click on it to run the application.

   

   Final Desktop App

   

That’s it!!!

Debugging/Error Solving.

1. In Developer Tools – JQuery is not found.

   Add webPreferences property inside main.js like below

   mainWindow = new BrowserWindow({
     width: 800,
     height: 600,
     webPreferences: {
       nodeIntegration: false  
     }
   });

   

2. Command Options –verbose

   Check for the what’s happening while executing any command by adding –verbose option at the end of every command. It will show all the background processes while running the command.

   // Example
   npm start –verbose​

3. Failed to parse json

   Check for extra commas and braces in package.json

   

That’s it!!! Hope my concept is clear and easy to understand

Thank You!!! 🙂