mirror of
https://github.com/vector-im/element-desktop.git
synced 2024-09-10 06:15:17 +00:00
152 lines
5.2 KiB
Markdown
152 lines
5.2 KiB
Markdown
Element Desktop
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===============
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Element Desktop is a Matrix client for desktop platforms with Element Web at its core.
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First Steps
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===========
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Before you do anything else, fetch the dependencies:
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```
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yarn install
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```
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Fetching Element
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================
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Since this package is just the Electron wrapper for Element Web, it doesn't contain any of the Element Web code,
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so the first step is to get a working copy of Element Web. There are a few ways of doing this:
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```
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# Fetch the prebuilt release Element package from the riot.im GitHub releases page. The version
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# fetched will be the same as the local element-desktop package.
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# We're explicitly asking for no config, so the packaged Element will have no config.json.
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yarn run fetch --noverify --cfgdir ''
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```
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...or if you'd like to use GPG to verify the downloaded package:
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```
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# Fetch the Element public key from the element.io web server over a secure connection and import
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# it into your local GPG keychain (you'll need GPG installed). You only need to to do this
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# once.
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yarn run fetch --importkey
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# Fetch the package and verify the signature
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yarn run fetch --cfgdir ''
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```
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...or either of the above, but fetching a specific version of Element:
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```
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# Fetch the prebuilt release Element package from the riot.im GitHub releases page. The version
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# fetched will be the same as the local element-desktop package.
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yarn run fetch --noverify --cfgdir '' v1.5.6
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```
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If you only want to run the app locally and don't need to build packages, you can
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provide the `webapp` directory directly:
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```
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# Assuming you've checked out and built a copy of riot-web in ../riot-web
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ln -s ../riot-web/webapp ./
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```
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[TODO: add support for fetching develop builds, arbitrary URLs and arbitrary paths]
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Building
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========
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Now you have a copy of Element, you're ready to build packages. If you'd just like to
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run Element locally, skip to the next section.
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```
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yarn run build
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```
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This will do a couple of things:
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* Run the `setversion` script to set the local package version to match whatever
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version of Element you installed above.
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* Run electron-builder to build a package. The package built will match the operating system
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you're running the build process on.
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If you're on Windows, you can choose to build specifically for 32 or 64 bit:
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```
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yarn run build32
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```
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or
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```
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yarn run build64
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```
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This build step will not build any native modules.
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If you'd like to build the native modules (for searching in encrypted rooms):
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This will take 10 minutes or so, and will require a number of native tools
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to be installed, depending on your OS (eg. rust, tcl, make/nmake).
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```
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yarn run build:native
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```
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On Windows, this will automatically determine the architecture to build for based
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on the environment (ie. set up by vcvarsall.bat).
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You can also build using docker, which will always produce the linux package:
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```
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# Run this once to make the docker image
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yarn run docker:setup
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yarn run docker:install
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# if you want to build the native modules (this will take a while)
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yarn run docker:buildnative
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yarn run docker:build
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```
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After running, the packages should be in `dist/`.
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Starting
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========
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If you'd just like to run the electron app locally for development:
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```
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# Install electron - we don't normally need electron itself as it's provided
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# by electron-builder when building packages
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yarn add electron
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yarn start
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```
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Config
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======
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If you'd like the packaged Element to have a configuration file, you can create a
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config directory and place `config.json` in there, then specify this directory
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with the `--cfgdir` option to `yarn run fetch`, eg:
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```
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mkdir myconfig
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cp /path/to/my/config.json myconfig/
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yarn run fetch --cfgdir myconfig
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```
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The config dir for the official Element.im app is in `riot.im`. If you use this,
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your app will auto-update itself using builds from element.io.
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Profiles
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========
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To run multiple instances of the desktop app for different accounts, you can
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launch the executable with the `--profile` argument followed by a unique
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identifier, e.g `element-desktop --profile Work` for it to run a separate profile and
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not interfere with the default one.
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Alternatively, a custom location for the profile data can be specified using the
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`--profile-dir` flag followed by the desired path.
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User-specified config.json
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==========================
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+ `%APPDATA%\$NAME\config.json` on Windows
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+ `$XDG_CONFIG_HOME\$NAME\config.json` or `~/.config/$NAME/config.json` on Linux
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+ `~/Library/Application Support/$NAME/config.json` on macOS
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In the paths above, `$NAME` is typically `Element`, unless you use `--profile
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$PROFILE` in which case it becomes `Element-$PROFILE`, or it is using one of
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the above created by a pre-1.7 install, in which case it will be `Riot` or
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`Riot-$PROFILE`.
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Report bugs & give feedback
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==========================
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If you run into any bugs or have feedback you'd like to share, please let us know on GitHub.
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To help avoid duplicate issues, please [view existing issues](https://github.com/vector-im/riot-web/issues?q=is%3Aopen+is%3Aissue+sort%3Areactions-%2B1-desc) first (and add a +1) or [create a new issue](https://github.com/vector-im/riot-web/issues/new) if you can't find it. Please note that this issue tracker is associated with the [Riot-Web](https://github.com/vector-im/riot-web) repo, but is also applied to the code in this repo as well.
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