Can Visual Studio Code be configured to launch electron

Question

Since Visual Studio Code was created using Electron, I'm guessing that launch.json might be configured to properly launch an app using Electron. But I've not figured out how to do it yet.

Also since Electron is based on io.js, itself based on Node.js, I'm thinking maybe... it can be done, but haven't found the magic yet.

Tried something along these lines... snippet from launch.json:

"configurations": [
    {
        // Name of configuration; appears in the launch configuration drop down menu.
        "name": "Launch Electron",
        // Type of configuration. Possible values: "node", "mono".
        "type": "node",
        // Workspace relative or absolute path to the program.
        "program": "Y:\\dev\\electron\\electron.exe",
        // Automatically stop program after launch.
        "stopOnEntry": false,
        // Command line arguments passed to the program.
        "args": ["CrawlSpace_Electron\\"],
        // Workspace relative or absolute path to the working directory of the program being debugged. Default is the current workspace.
        "cwd": ".",
        // Workspace relative or absolute path to the runtime executable to be used. Default is the runtime executable on the PATH.
        "runtimeExecutable": null,
        // Environment variables passed to the program.
        "env": { }
    }, 

It does start Electron, but fails (window vanishes too fast to see exactly why).

Any thoughts?

Answer 1

If you specify electron.exe as the runtimeExecutable (as previously suggested) you can pass the main.js file as the program and it will work. Electron allows you to specify the directory OR the main.js file since that is pretty much what the package.json points to. Using the configuration below in my launch.json file, pressing F5 both launched Electron with my app and connected the debugger to the main process (eventually)...

{
    "name": "Launch Electron",
    "type": "node",
    "program": "${workspaceRoot}/app/main.js", // ensure this is path to main.js file
    "stopOnEntry": false,
    "args": [], 
    "cwd": "${workspaceRoot}",
    // as you have noted, this is also important:
    "runtimeExecutable": "${workspaceRoot}/node_modules/.bin/electron.cmd"
}, 

My main.js file is in the app folder I normally would pass to Electron.