interprocess: 💬 A scalable and type-safe Electron IPC management tool with enhanced DX
Tags: electron, dx, typescript, javascript
Published: 2022-11-21 22:31:51

> Electron IPC is good, but difficult to maintain and scale, either because of the numerous channels you have to remember, or because of the inconsistent API between processes and the absence of inferred types of your channels and handlers. These are some of the things that interprocess comes to solve!

## 💬 Features
- 🚀 Best-in-class DX with a fully-typed API
- 🧠 Enchanced and consistent API
- 🔥 Type-safe and scalable
- 🪄 Code splitting support
- 🕸️ All edges connected (APIs to handle all processes)
- 💖 `invoke` and `handle` methods in both processes with the same expected behavior

## 💬 Installation
In your terminal, run:
```bash
yarn add interprocess

# OR

npm i interprocess
```

## 💬 Usage

Let's build something simple that can show you some of the interprocess's power!

First, create the following folders at `src`:

- `shared/ipcs` (this folder structure is optional)

Then, create a file named as `index.ts` in the `ipcs` folder with the following content:

```ts
import { createInterprocess } from 'interprocess'

export const { ipcMain, ipcRenderer, exposeApiToGlobalWindow } =
  createInterprocess({
    main: {
      async getPing(_, data: 'ping') {
        const message = `from renderer: ${data} on main process`
        
        console.log(message)

        return message
      },
    },

    renderer: {
      async getPong(_, data: 'pong') {
        const message = `from main: ${data} on renderer process`
        
        console.log(message)

        return message
      },
    },
  })
```

On the **main process**:

```ts
import { BrowserWindow, app } from 'electron'

import { ipcMain } from 'shared/ipcs'

const { handle, invoke } = ipcMain

app.whenReady().then(() => {
  const mainWindow = new BrowserWindow({
    webPreferences: {
      preload: path.join(__dirname, '../preload/index.js'),
      sandbox: false, // sandbox must be false
    },
  })

  handle.getPing()

  mainWindow.webContents.on('dom-ready', () => {
    invoke.getPong(mainWindow, 'pong')
  })
})
```

In the **preload script**:

```ts
import { exposeApiToGlobalWindow } from 'shared/ipcs'

const { key, api } = exposeApiToGlobalWindow({
  exposeAll: true, // expose handlers, invokers and removers
})

declare global {
  interface Window {
    [key]: typeof api
  }
}
```

On the **renderer process**:

```ts
const { invoke, handle } = window.api

invoke.getPing('ping')
handle.getPong()
```
This is a simple way to work with interprocess, but there's a lot of more cool features you can take advantage, like overrides, code splitting, invoker's response (for renderer and main process 🎉) and more. See the Knowledge section for more!

## 💬 Knowledge
- [Site](https://daltonmenezes.github.io/interprocess/)
- [GitHub](https://github.com/daltonmenezes/interprocess)
- [Docs](https://daltonmenezes.github.io/interprocess/docs/getting-started/overview)

- Examples
  - [Executable](https://github.com/daltonmenezes/interprocess/tree/main/apps/desktop)
  - [CodeSandbox (simple)](https://codesandbox.io/s/simple-607b6h?file=/src/ipcs.ts)
  - [CodeSandbox (advanced)](https://codesandbox.io/s/advanced-4qh0xb?file=/src/ipcs/index.ts)