iohook

# Manual Build

INFO

This is not required for regular users. You should follow this page only if you want to build the source files yourself.

WARNING

When you run npm run build, it will try to download a prebuilt for your platform/target, and sometime fail if you are building for a recent target. You can safely ignore this step and the associated warning.

You can build own modules directly in your node_modules under the project. Go to ~/my_project/node_modules/iohook path via terminal. Or you can just clone iohook repository and working on it, then copy binnary files to project's node_modules or change download path in iohook and make you own version of module.

Before start, you need install required dependencies for build:

# Linux

  • sudo apt-get install -y libx11-dev libx11-xcb-dev libxkbcommon-dev libxkbcommon-x11-dev
  • sudo apt-get install libxtst-dev libpng++-dev
    • These dependencies belong to [robotjs]. You would only need them if there is no robotjs prebuilt for your platform. If so, the npm install command will fail without these dependencies.
  • npm install
  • npm run build

# macOS

  • Install: Xcode Command Line Tools. It is required for robotjs
  • npm install
  • npm run build

# Windows

  • Install: msys2 with autotools, pkg-config, libtool, gcc, clang, glib, C++ Build Tools
  • npm install
  • npm run build

# Building for specific versions of node

Running npm run build will detect your platform and build into ./builds. You can also use build.js which features the following command line arguments:

  • --runtime specifies whether to build for Electron or plain node.
  • --version specifies which version of Electron/node to build for.
  • --abi specifies which ABI version (opens new window) of Electron/node to build against.

For example, to build for Electron v4.0.4, you would run:

node build.js --runtime electron --version 4.0.4 --abi 69

To see more examples of what values to use, view iohook's package.json file (opens new window), under supportedTargets. The three values in each block are runtime, version and abi respectively.

--runtime, --version and --abi must all be supplied to build for a specific node version. If they are not supplied, build.js will build for the versions specified under supportedTargets in your package.json (again, see iohook's package.json file (opens new window) for details).

  • --upload=false tells the script not to attempt to upload the built files to GitHub afterwards.

  • --all tells the script to build all supported targets. Useful for CI.

Typically build.js is used as part of iohook's CI in order to upload newly-built binaries to NPM. This is thus the default behavior of the script. To prevent this, supply the --upload=false flag:

node build.js --upload=false

# Testing

iohook uses Jest for automated testing. To execute tests, run npm run test in your console.

::: WARNING It is important you don't press any buttons on your keyboard, don't use your mouse, or the scroll wheel. Tests depend on native events fired by the real keyboard and mouse. Interrupting them will cause tests to fail. :::

← FAQ →