Conveyorized version of GitHub Desktop

This repository shows how to package a complex real world Electron app with Conveyor. It features:

• Automatic online updates, checked at each launch.
• Files released via GitHub Releases.
• The generated download page being hosted by GitHub pages.

Conveyor is a tool that makes distributing desktop apps easier. It builds, signs and notarizes self-updating packages for you and offers many useful features, like cross-building/signing of packages, different update modes (silent/background and update-at-launch), and much more.

Packaging

There are three parts. Let's look at them in turn.

Open conveyor.conf where there are extensive comments. The package can be built by installing Conveyor and then running:

conveyor make site

The output directory will now contain packages for Windows, Mac Intel and Mac ARM along with update repository metadata and a generated download page.

The conveyor.conf file imports the raw files to package from the output of a GitHub Actions CI job. This is useful because even though GH Desktop is written in TypeScript the build system picks different node.js extensions and produces customized JS bundles depending on what OS you build it on. Conveyor can make packages for all supported OS' from whatever you choose to run it on, and it would be possible to extend the GH Desktop build system to support the same feature to allow arbitrary cross-builds.

Releasing

To do a release:

• Run conveyor make site --rerun=all.
• Put the output files into a new GitHub release, except for the download.html.
• Put download.html into the docs subdirectory, commit and push.

Packaging features used

This repo demos:

1. Importing package.json files to avoid redundant configuration.
2. Downloading the results of GitHub Actions.
3. Setting which operating systems and CPU architectures are supported.
4. Aggressive updates, which makes these packages check for new versions on every launch. Try downloading the old Mac release and then running it to see the update in action (on Windows the installer EXE will always install the latest version).
5. Registering URL schemes for OAuth logins.
6. Setting custom metadata and entitlements for Mac apps.

These packages are code-signed but you can create self-signed projects if you want.

Comparison to other tools

There are some feature differences vs apps packaged using Electron Forge/Squirrel. On Windows:

• Your app will update itself in the background even when not in use, using the same background transfer service Windows Update uses. As a consequence your app will be always up-to-date even if only used rarely.
• There is no .NET dependency.
• Enterprise rollouts are easier:
  • You don't need to do anything special for IT departments. The MSIX file Conveyor creates is sufficient to give them a good experience.
  • Your app doesn't install itself to the user's home directory, which can cause problems with profile roaming on managed networks.
• Fractional rollouts aren't currently supported. You can have a beta channel though just by creating two different sites.

On macOS the Sparkle 2 framework is used instead of Squirrel.Mac.

Because Sparkle, Windows and Conveyor provide update UI the equivalent code in the app can be deleted, along with the code to drive Electron Packager.

License

MIT

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