Seeking clarifications using the Electron provider

[Luke Westfall (lwestfall)]

Hi all,

I'm looking to implement the Electron provider into an existing application. Going through the tutorial on MSDN and the sample, I'm running into some issues.

1. I get errors trying to build after installing the dependencies, it seems that there are conflicts between types. I'll paste the error messages below as to try and declutter this post. I can get past the definition conflicts by adding "skipLibCheck": true, to my tsconfig.json, but this seems like more of a band-aid versus an ideal solution.
2. After the workaround, I get an error where I have an existing webContents.getPrintersAsync() call. The error message reads Property 'getPrintersAsync' does not exist on type 'WebContents'. Did you mean 'getPrinters'? I believe this has to do with the Electron MSAL provider using a very old Electron version. For reference I'm on 24.8.1, which is itself outdated for reasons. The provider uses ^11.0.2 which is presumably older than the appearance of getPrintersAsync().

My questions:

1. Is there another way to get around the type definition conflicts without the use of skipLibCheck?
2. Is there a way I can force the provider to work with newer versions of electron (while not forcing me to upgrade to the latest LTS)?

Unfortunately the app I'm working with is proprietary so I can't share the source here, however I could probably whip up a repro if it will help, just let me know.

Type definition conflict errors (there are many more than this, but this is one sample):

node_modules/@microsoft/mgt-electron-provider/node_modules/electron/electron.d.ts:8:1 - error TS6200: Definitions of the following identifiers conflict with those in another file: NodeEventEmitter, Accelerator, Event, BrowserView, BrowserWindow, ClientRequest, CommandLine, Cookies, Debugger, Dock, DownloadItem, IncomingMessage, Menu, MenuItem, MessageChannelMain, MessagePortMain, NativeImage, Notification, ServiceWorkers, Session, TouchBar, TouchBarButton, TouchBarColorPicker, TouchBarGroup, TouchBarLabel, TouchBarOtherItemsProxy, TouchBarPopover, TouchBarScrubber, TouchBarSegmentedControl, TouchBarSlider, TouchBarSpacer, Tray, WebContents, WebRequest, clipboard, crashReporter, nativeImage, shell, AboutPanelOptionsOptions, AddRepresentationOptions, AnimationSettings, AppDetailsOptions, ApplicationInfoForProtocolReturnValue, AuthenticationResponseDetails, AuthInfo, AutoResizeOptions, BeforeSendResponse, BitmapOptions, BlinkMemoryInfo, BrowserViewConstructorOptions, CertificateTrustDialogOptions, ClearStorageDataOptions, ClientRequestConstructorOptions, Config, ConsoleMessageEvent, ContextMenuParams, CookiesGetFilter, CookiesSetDetails, CrashReporterStartOptions, CreateFromBitmapOptions, CreateFromBufferOptions, CreateInterruptedDownloadOptions, Data, DefaultFontFamily, Details, DidChangeThemeColorEvent, DidFailLoadEvent, DidFrameFinishLoadEvent, DidNavigateEvent, DidNavigateInPageEvent, DisplayBalloonOptions, EnableNetworkEmulationOptions, FeedURLOptions, FileIconOptions, FindInPageOptions, FocusOptions, FoundInPageEvent, FromPartitionOptions, HeadersReceivedResponse, HeapStatistics, IgnoreMouseEventsOptions, ImportCertificateOptions, Info, Input, InsertCSSOptions, IpcMessageEvent, Item, JumpListSettings, LoadCommitEvent, LoadExtensionOptions, LoadFileOptions, LoadURLOptions, LoginItemSettings, LoginItemSettingsOptions, MenuItemConstructorOptions, MessageBoxOptions, MessageBoxReturnValue, MessageBoxSyncOptions, MessageDetails, MessageEvent, MoveToApplicationsFolderOptions, NotificationConstructorOptions, OnBeforeRedirectListenerDetails, OnBeforeRequestListenerDetails, OnBeforeSendHeadersListenerDetails, OnCompletedListenerDetails, OnErrorOccurredListenerDetails, OnHeadersReceivedListenerDetails, OnResponseStartedListenerDetails, OnSendHeadersListenerDetails, OpenDevToolsOptions, OpenDialogOptions, OpenDialogReturnValue, OpenDialogSyncOptions, OpenExternalOptions, Options, PageFaviconUpdatedEvent, PageTitleUpdatedEvent, Parameters, Payment, PermissionCheckHandlerHandlerDetails, PermissionRequestHandlerHandlerDetails, PluginCrashedEvent, PopupOptions, PreconnectOptions, PrintToPDFOptions, Privileges, ProgressBarOptions, Provider, ReadBookmark, RelaunchOptions, Request, ResizeOptions, ResourceUsage, Response, Result, SaveDialogOptions, SaveDialogReturnValue, SaveDialogSyncOptions, Settings, SourcesOptions, StartLoggingOptions, SystemMemoryInfo, TitleOptions, ToBitmapOptions, ToDataURLOptions, ToPNGOptions, TouchBarButtonConstructorOptions, TouchBarColorPickerConstructorOptions, TouchBarConstructorOptions, TouchBarGroupConstructorOptions, TouchBarLabelConstructorOptions, TouchBarPopoverConstructorOptions, TouchBarScrubberConstructorOptions, TouchBarSegmentedControlConstructorOptions, TouchBarSliderConstructorOptions, TouchBarSpacerConstructorOptions, TraceBufferUsageReturnValue, UpdateTargetUrlEvent, UploadProgress, VisibleOnAllWorkspacesOptions, WebContentsPrintOptions, WebviewTagPrintOptions, WillNavigateEvent, EditFlags, FoundInPageResult, LaunchItems, Margins, MediaFlags, PageRanges, BluetoothDevice, BrowserWindowConstructorOptions, Certificate, CertificatePrincipal, Cookie, CPUUsage, CrashReport, CustomScheme, DesktopCapturerSource, Display, Extension, ExtensionInfo, FileFilter, FilePathWithHeaders, GPUFeatureStatus, InputEvent, IOCounters, IpcMainEvent, IpcMainInvokeEvent, IpcRendererEvent, JumpListCategory, JumpListItem, KeyboardEvent, KeyboardInputEvent, MemoryInfo, MemoryUsageDetails, MimeTypedBuffer, MouseInputEvent, MouseWheelInputEvent, NotificationAction, Point, PostBody, PrinterInfo, ProcessMemoryInfo, ProcessMetric, Product, ProtocolRequest, ProtocolResponse, ProtocolResponseUploadData, Rectangle, Referrer, RenderProcessGoneDetails, ScrubberItem, SegmentedControlSegment, ServiceWorkerInfo, SharedWorkerInfo, ShortcutDetails, Size, Task, ThumbarButton, TraceCategoriesAndOptions, TraceConfig, Transaction, UploadData, UploadFile, UploadRawData, WebPreferences, WebSource, app, autoUpdater, contentTracing, dialog, globalShortcut, inAppPurchase, ipcMain, nativeTheme, net, netLog, powerMonitor, powerSaveBlocker, protocol, screen, session, systemPreferences, webContents, contextBridge, ipcRenderer, webFrame, desktopCapturer, export=, fs