Desktop application for Rocket.Chat available for macOS, Windows and Linux using Electron.
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You can download the latest version from the Releases page.
Launch the installer and follow the instructions to install.
On Windows you can run a silent install by adding the /S
flag. You can also add the options below:
/S
- Silent install/allusers
- Install for all users (requires admin)/currentuser
- Install only the for current user (default)/disableAutoUpdates
- Disable automatic updatesPrerequisites:
Now just clone and start the app:
git clone https://github.com/RocketChat/Rocket.Chat.Electron.git
cd Rocket.Chat.Electron
yarn
yarn start
The source is located in the src
folder. Everything in this folder will be built automatically when running the app with yarn start
.
The build process compiles all stuff from the src
folder and puts it into the app
folder, so after the build has finished, your app
folder contains the full, runnable application.
Following the ongoing changes in Rocket.Chat codebase, the app was rewritten in TypeScript 4 to address issues regarding maintainability.
The build process is founded upon rollup bundler. There are three entry files for your code:
src/main.ts
, the script running at the main Electron process, orchestrating the whole application;
src/rootWindow.ts
, the script that renders the UI of the root window, the app's main window;
and src/preload.ts
, which runs in a privileged mode to connect the app and the webviews rendering Rocket.Chat's web client.
Remember to respect the split between dependencies
and devDependencies
in package.json
file. Only modules listed in dependencies
will be included into distributable app.
Follow the installation instruction on node-gyp readme.
You will need to install the following packages:
build-essential
libevas-dev
libxss-dev
You will need to install the following packages:
libX11
libXScrnSaver-devel
gcc-c++
On Windows 7 you may have to follow option 2 of the node-gyp install guide and install Visual Studio.
yarn test
We use Jest testing framework with the Jest electron runner. It searches for all files in src
directory that match the glob pattern *.(spec|test).{js,ts,tsx}
.
To package your app into an installer use command:
yarn release
It will start the packaging process for operating system you are running this command on. Ready for distribution file will be outputted to dist
directory.
All packaging actions are handled by electron-builder. It has a lot of customization options.
The servers.json
file will define what servers the client will connect to and will populate the server list in the sidebar. It contains a list of default servers which will be added the first time the user runs the app (or when all servers are removed from the list). The file syntax is as follows:
{
"Demo Rocket Chat": "https://demo.rocket.chat",
"Open Rocket Chat": "https://open.rocket.chat"
}
You can bundle a servers.json
with the install package, the file should be located in the root of the project application (same level as the package.json
). If the file is found, the initial "Connect to server" screen will be skipped and it will attempt to connect to the first server in the array that has been defined and drop the user right at the login screen. Note that the servers.json
will only be checked if no other servers have already been added, even if you uninstall the app without removing older preferences, it will not be triggered again.
If you can't (or don't want to) bundle the file inside the app, you can create a servers.json
in the user preferences folder which will overwrite the packaged one. The file should be located in the %APPDATA%/Rocket.Chat/
folder or the installation folder in case of an installation for all users (Windows only).
For Windows, the full paths are:
~\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Rocket.Chat\
~\Program Files\Rocket.Chat\Resources\
On macOS, the full path is:
~/Users/<username>/Library/Application Support/Rocket.Chat/
/Library/Preferences/Rocket.Chat/
On Linux, the full paths are:
/home/<username>/.config/Rocket.Chat/
/opt/Rocket.Chat/resources/
You can override the user settings by creating an overridden-settings.json
in the user preferences folder. The file should be located in the %APPDATA%/Rocket.Chat/
folder or the installation folder in case of an installation for all users (Windows only).
Every setting set on the file will override the default and user settings. Then you can use it for disabling the default features like auto-update and even create a single server mode.
Setting | Description |
---|---|
"isReportEnabled": true, | Sets if the bugs will be reported to developers. |
"isInternalVideoChatWindowEnabled": true, | Sets the video calls will be opened in an internal window. |
"isFlashFrameEnabled": true, | Sets if the flash frame will be enabled. |
"isMinimizeOnCloseEnabled": false, | Sets if the app will be minimized on close. |
"doCheckForUpdatesOnStartup": true, | Sets if the app will check for updates on startup. |
"isMenuBarEnabled": true, | Sets if the menu bar will be enabled. |
"isTrayIconEnabled": true, | Enables Tray Icon, the app will be hidden to the tray on close. Overrides "isMinimizeOnCloseEnabled" |
"isUpdatingEnabled": true, | Sets if the app can be updated by the user. |
"isAddNewServersEnabled": true, | Sets if the user can add new servers. |
Single server mode
If the setting "isAddNewServersEnabled": false
is set, the user will not be able to add new servers. The buttons and shortcuts will be disabled. Then you will have to add the server to the servers.json
file. With this, you can create a single server mode or just don't let the user to add new servers by his own.
Example configuration
overridden-settings.json
file:
{
"isTrayIconEnabled": false,
"isMinimizeOnCloseEnabled": false
}
When isTrayIconEnabled
is enabled, the app will be hidden on close. When isMinimizeOnCloseEnabled
is enabled, the app will be minimized on close. When both are disabled, the app will quit on close.
Author: RocketChat
Source Code: https://github.com/RocketChat/Rocket.Chat.Electron
License: MIT license