Skip to main content

Packaging & Publishing

Once you've built your desktop extractor, you'll want to create installers that users can easily download and install.

This guide shows you how to package your app for different operating systems and distribute it to users.

Creating an Installer for Your Current OS​

To create an installer for your operating system, run the following command in your project's root directory:

npm run package

After the command completes, you can find the installer for your OS in the release/build folder.

Screenshot of release/build folder with OS-specific installer

Resolving Windows Build Errors​

On Windows, if you encounter the "resource busy or locked" error:

Resource Busy

Follow these steps to resolve it:

  1. Run Command Prompt as Administrator
  2. Navigate to your project directory using cd
  3. Run the package command again: 
    npm run package

This will resolve the error and allow the installer to be created successfully.

Creating Installers for All Platforms​

To reach users on all major operating systems, you'll need to create 4 installers:

  • .dmg for macOS
  • .exe for Windows
  • .deb for Ubuntu/Debian
  • .rpm for Fedora/CentOS/Red Hat

Building each installer requires its native OS, which is challenging because you'd need access to multiple machines running different operating systems.

To solve this problem, we'll use GitHub Actions to automate the process. The workflow will:

  • Build installers for all platforms in parallel
  • Upload them to AWS S3 for distribution
  • Trigger automatically whenever you push code to GitHub

Here's how to set it up:

Step 1: GitHub Repository Setup​

First, create a new repository on GitHub to host your application's source code.

new-repo-bota

Step 2: Create an S3 Bucket​

Next, set up an AWS S3 bucket to store your installers.

  1. Open the AWS Console and navigate to S3.

    aws-s3

  2. Click Create bucket.

    create-bucket

  3. Configure the bucket with these settings:

    1. Bucket name: Enter a unique bucket name like yahoo-finance-extractor. Conventionally, this name matches your product's name in kebab case. For example, if your product's name is "Yahoo Finance Extractor," your bucket name will be yahoo-finance-extractor.
    2. Object Ownership: Select "ACLs enabled"
    3. Block Public Access settings for this bucket: Uncheck "Block all public access"
    Important

    Ensure Object Ownership is set to "ACLs enabled". Otherwise, Electron Builder will fail with "The Bucket does not allow ACLs" error.

    ACL Error

  4. Click Create bucket.

    S3 Bucket Creation

  5. If you don't have an AWS access key and secret key, create them through the IAM service as described in the AWS documentation.

Step 3: Configure GitHub Secrets​

In your GitHub repository, navigate to Settings → Secrets and variables → Actions → Repository secrets and create the following secrets:

AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID            # Your AWS access key
AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY        # Your AWS secret key

GitHub Secrets

Step 4: Configure Electron Builder​

In your project's package.json file, add the following to the build section:

"build": {
  "publish": {
    "provider": "s3",
    "bucket": "your-bucket-name"
  }
}

Replace your-bucket-name with the name of your S3 bucket.

Step 5: Deploy and Build​

  1. Push your code to GitHub.

  2. Go to the repository's Actions tab to see the build process in action.

    GitHub Actions Workflow

  3. After a successful build, the installer files will be available in your S3 bucket. These files are publicly accessible in the following format:

    https://<your-bucket-name>.s3.amazonaws.com/<your-product-name>.<extension>

Example URLs:

✅ You're Ready to Distribute​

With this automated pipeline, you can package and publish your app across all major platforms with just a push of a commit.