How do you view error messages and console logs in Electron during development? Also, is it possible for the logs to be written directly into a file?
Edit: Kind of like the errors and console logs displayed by Chrome's dev tools:
Except in Electron rather than Chrome.
On your BrowserWindow call the function openDevTools()
this will open the same dev tools you find in Chrome. I wrote about this on my blog at http://www.mylifeforthecode.com/debugging-renderer-process-in-electron/.
Here is a simple main.js file that includes openDevTools:
var app = require('app');
var BrowserWindow = require('browser-window');
var mainWindow = null;
app.on('window-all-closed', function() {
if (process.platform != 'darwin')
app.quit();
});
app.on('ready', function() {
mainWindow = new BrowserWindow({width: 800, height: 600});
mainWindow.loadUrl('file://' + __dirname + '/index.html');
mainWindow.openDevTools();
mainWindow.on('closed', function() {
mainWindow = null;
});
});
You can also access this via a renderer process using the remote module. For the apps I have been tinkering with I bind the function toggleDevTools
to F12. Something like this:
var remote = require('remote');
document.addEventListener("keydown", function (e) {
if (e.keyCode === 123) { // F12
var window = remote.getCurrentWindow();
window.toggleDevTools();
}
});
Note that I have only tested the above with Electron in Windows. I am assuming the Linux and Mac versions work the same. If you are running Mac or Linux please let me know if they do not.
The previous answer is a bit outdated today, but almost perfect.
mainWindow = new BrowserWindow({width: 800, height: 600});
mainWindow.webContents.openDevTools();
It opens dev tools automatically when app is running in electron.
I am using Electron on Windows
Source https://electronjs.org/docs/tutorial/application-debugging