Tauri Training

Introduction

To build Iris, Ojos Project is using Tauri. Tauri is a toolkit to build desktop applications using web technologies, like JavaScript or related frameworks. Tauri is very similar to Electron, however the biggest difference is that Electron apps ship with Chromium. Chromium is prone to heavy memory usage and large bundle sizes per application. What Tauri does instead is use the browser you already have installed on your system.

There are cons to this, such as iris#42. Another con is that, because we're using whatever browser is installed, we have to build our program like traditional web development rather than only developing for Chromium. "Traditional web development" means making sure your program works the same across browsers/operating systems. Ever notice how a page on Firefox may not work as well as it does in Chrome?

There are also many benefits to using Tauri. Tauri is built using Rust, so our program will be more efficient than a JavaScript-only application like Electron. Since Iris will eventually be deployed to an embedded system designed by the Engineering team, using a Rust-based toolkit is perfect for us.

Because Ojos Project is using Tauri, that means you should know how to use Tauri as well. This document exists as an "Intro to Tauri" for Ojos Project developers.

Getting Started

important

Before working on anything, please follow the Tauri prerequisites guide. You should also install NodeJS using nvm or nvm-windows if you're using a JavaScript framework.

You will be working with Rust in this training. In fact, most of it will be Rust.

First and foremost, decide what tooling you want to use. Tauri gives us the option of working with practically any web framework that exists. Examples include NextJS, Vite, Svelte, or just plain JavaScript. Choose whatever feels most comfortable for you, but remember that Iris is built using NextJS.

Next, follow the instructions in Tauri's Create a project guide to use the create-tauri-app tool. Then read Tauri's Development guide.

Project Requirements

This is your project, so build it the way you want to build it. However, to cover some of the core concepts for Iris, please do the following:

Concept	Guide	Description
Creating a Tauri command	Tauri docs	Iris is heavily based on Tauri commands written in Rust. Understanding how commands work is important.
Displaying Tauri command data	Tauri docs	Tauri commands can return data, and they often do in Iris. Understand how to get data from commands.
Using arguments with commands	Tauri docs	Sometimes Tauri commands require us to use arguments.
Using the AppHandle to store data in app_data_dir	Tauri docs	Iris uses the app_data_dir a lot. It's a folder that Tauri recommends you store your app data in.

Running/Building

note

Running a program means running it in a development environment. This means resources are allocated towards debugging, not performance.

Building a program takes the code and builds an executable file to use as any other program on your computer. This means resources are allocated towards performance, not debugging.

To run your Tauri project, please use:

npm i
cargo tauri dev

Note that npm is only required if you're using a JavaScript framework. Vanilla JavaScript does not require this.

To build your program, you can run:

cargo tauri build

The terminal will tell you where your executable is located.