Are there instructions for packing an electron Theia application

[caraya]

Question

I've searched everywhere for instructions to package the Theia electron app into a desktop executable.

What I found still refers to Yarn and a non-existent electron build command (https://theia-ide.org/docs/blueprint_documentation/) and I can't find anything that tells me how to build the code from this repo into a desktop app I can test.

Am I missing the docs somewhere? Is there a specific site I can go to for instructions or am I missing a plugin to install that will help me with the installation process?

[github-actions[bot]]

Hi @caraya, thanks for starting this discussion! 👋

The Theia community will take a look soon. In the meantime, you might find helpful information in:

• 📖 Theia Documentation
• ❓ FAQ
• 💬 Previous Discussions

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[ndoschek]

Hi, thanks for reaching out!

The Theia framework repository (this current one: https://github.com/eclipse-theia/theia) primarily provides runtime examples for the browser and Electron that are meant for development and testing purposes. They are not intended to be packaged as standalone desktop applications.

If you are looking for a fully packaged desktop application built on top of Theia, you should check out the Theia IDE repository: https://github.com/eclipse-theia/theia-ide. That is where we maintain the actual product built on the Theia framework, and it includes the full Electron packaging and build setup you are looking for.

You may also notice that the documentation page you found, https://theia-ide.org/docs/blueprint_documentation/, points to the Theia IDE repository as well. This documentation is specifically written for building and packaging the Theia IDE product, not the framework examples in this repository.
We should probably review this part to make the distinction clearer.

I hope that helps! Feel free to ask if you have any further questions.

[caraya]

just to make sure we're on the same page...

I cloned https://github.com/eclipse-theia/theia since I want to create my own editor based on Theia and not download the full packaged desktop app.

The documentation page https://theia-ide.org/docs/blueprint_documentation/#building-a-product-and-installers provides incorrect information. If I understand it correctly, the project no longer uses Yarn and when I run npm run there are no electron tasks as defined in the page

[ndoschek]

To clarify: the Theia IDE repository does still use Yarn and includes the Electron packaging/installer setup described in the documentation. That documentation is specifically about building the Theia IDE product, not the framework repo Theia.

This repository (eclipse-theia/theia) is the framework it provides the building blocks for creating your own IDE-like application. The Electron example here is just a development/testing scaffold, not a packaged product. We don't offer built-in packaging for the framework itself.

If you want to build your own custom editor on Theia, you'd use the framework as a dependency in your own project and set up your own Electron packaging (e.g. using electron-builder or electron-forge). The Theia IDE repo is a good reference for how to do that in practice.