CasparCG FrontEnd Application

The application is designed to make interacting with the CasparCG server more straight forward by providing a GUI with configuration and console options.

Packaging the Application for Production

1. Ensure you have installed all the dependencies by running npm install.
2. If you plan on moving the packaged application folder to a subdirectory of your casparcg.exe file, then ensure that CASPARCG_EXE_PATH is commented out with a # in the .env file. If not, CASPARCG_EXE_PATH should equal the path to the folder containing your casaprcg.exe file.
3. Run npm run-script package

The console will provide green messages for successful operations and red for failed operations.

The packaged application will be in the root directory inside the build folder.

Setting Up For Development

1. Clone the project and open a command prompt in the root directory of the project.
2. Run npm install
3. If you do not need any debugging, run npm start to begin developing.

To develop the application with NodeJS debugging, you must run the React and NodeJS instances separately. The following two commands do not copy any non-typescript files so it is recommended to use npm start at least once.

1. Run npm run-script start-react. This starts the React Dev Server.
2. Then use VSCode to run the Debug Main Process task. (In the debug tab).

The .env file

Below is a breakdown of all the .env variables within the application. The .env file controls how the application loads and what files are used when serving windows. You can find the .env file in src/server/.env.

Variable	Definition
ENV	Required - The environment to run the app in. DEVELOPMENT or PROD
REACT_URL	Required for Development - The URL used to load the React front end
REACT_DEV_EXTENSION	Optional - Where the React Dev Tools Extension is located
CASPARCG_EXE_PATH	Optional - Value to be used if the application folder is not in a subdirectory of the casaprcg.exe file

Known Development Bugs

If you are using React Dev Tools Extension within the electron application, then you may experience an Electron bug where app.on('ready') will never fire. To fix this do the following.

1. Navigate to %AppData%/Electron/.
2. Then open DevTools Extensions
3. Remove all the items within the array. This will force electron to reinstall all the extensions.
4. Re-build and run the application. It should launch normally.