Hey everyone, I’m trying to build an Electron app for web automation. I want users to input commands through a GUI, and the app should handle the rest. I’ve looked into Phantom and Selenium with Chromedriver, but they need extra setup.
My goal is to make an app that anyone can download and use right away. No fuss with adding stuff to PATH or installing other things. Is this even possible?
I’m wondering if there’s a way to package everything together or if I should look at different tools. Any ideas or suggestions would be awesome. I’m pretty new to this, so I’d love to hear from folks who’ve done similar projects.
Has anyone found a good solution for making a user-friendly web automation tool? What worked for you? Thanks for any help!
I’ve worked on a similar project recently. One approach you might consider is using Playwright with Electron. It’s cross-browser compatible and can be bundled directly into your app. This eliminates the need for users to install additional components.
Playwright offers a high-level API that’s easier to work with than Selenium, in my experience. You can automate Chromium, Firefox, and WebKit with a single API. For packaging, electron-builder can help you create a distributable that includes all necessary dependencies.
Remember to handle potential security concerns, as web automation tools can be misused. Implementing rate limiting and user authentication might be wise. Hope this helps point you in a useful direction for your project.
I’ve actually been down this road before, and I can tell you it’s definitely possible to create a standalone web automation tool with Electron. One approach that worked well for me was using Puppeteer-core instead of regular Puppeteer. The core version doesn’t download Chromium automatically, which is perfect for bundling with Electron since it already includes a Chromium runtime.
To package everything together, I used electron-builder with a custom configuration to include Puppeteer-core and its dependencies. This way, users get a single executable with everything they need baked in. No PATH shenanigans or extra installs required.
One thing to watch out for is keeping your app size reasonable. Web automation tools can get pretty hefty, so you might want to look into compression techniques or consider offering a “lite” version with limited features for users who are tight on disk space.
Also, don’t forget to build in some error handling and logging. Web automation can be finicky, and you’ll want to give users (and yourself) a way to troubleshoot when things go wrong. Good luck with your project!
hey ryan, i’ve dabbled in similar stuff. have u looked into puppeteer? it’s built on chromium and can be bundled with electron pretty easily. no extra setup for users. might be worth checkin out. good luck with ur project!