One thing I've been having some fun with is the ability to host a REST dotnet core API inside the same application and then calling Javascript functions/updating the UI on an HTTP request.
It's very handy if you have multiple applications on the same machine (or the same application on multiple machines on a LAN) and you want them to talk to each other.
Also, I couldn't find a way to build a normal Windows installer with Electron (if there is please let me know), but was able to use Wix to build one for my WPF/WebView2 app.
Is the source shareable?
We have an enterprise app that was originally built as a UWP application via Xamarin.Forms (Hot mess, I know. But the decision predates me).
We've been prototyping a rebuild in React and Electron but if we could port into WebView2 and reuse a lot of our existing business logic with a port into a local api layer a lot of time could be saved.
I'm a web guy, so not sure how the nuts&bolts of this would work. Does the WPF app bootstrap a REST API on localhost on startup that is callable?
Edit: Here you go - https://github.com/jmkni/HnPocWebview2
https://www.electronforge.io/config/makers
- WiX MSI
- Squirrel.Windows
Are your options here. I had more luck with Squirrel than WiX.
With auto-update support.
Because its under their own control. Using a platform you control is great if you actually have the resources to maintain it.
Teams shipped with incredibly outdated versions of Electron for a very long time.
It takes months/years to get all clients updated. By then you are already running on an outdated version.
But when you are a small app running on a corporate citrix, APP-V, or whatever locked-down environment you are out of luck.
You will be able to update the app running inside electron without much of an issue. But you won't be able to download and execute a new exe.
Microsoft has the network to train, enable and get IT to administer these kind changes. They are after all able to get windows patches in fairly regularly at higher frequency than ever before in windows 10.
Sure there were will be some small minority like still active XP users , you sell extended support or whatever to either enable them or you can stop support.
I like the idea of using a (system-deployed) WebView in general, but this implementation needs more work.