I recommend using the prebuilt application releases, but here's how to build from source.
Isolate consists of a UI, built in Typescript on top of Electron, and a backend daemon (go) for heavy lifting. Isolate can fully function without the daemon, which may be easier for Windows.
In addition to the npm dependencies, Isolate's daemon requires:
- go (v1.11 or higher)
- gcc (the daemon uses mattn/sqlite3, a cgo module)
For osx/linux, you can build from source by first cloning and then running npm install . && npm run start. This internally calls build.sh which encodes the build process.
npm run dist-osx, npm run dist-linux will build and package the application locally, which is
what the releases page uses.
On Windows, this process is less polished.
Because installing gcc on Windows is a process in itself, I've used the Windows Subsystem for Linux
(WSL) to cross compile the daemon, using mingw-w64, and build.sh assumes this is how you are
building it on Windows.
From WSL, I use build.sh to cross compile the daemon (with go and mingw-w64 installed)
and compile/package the typescript with webpack.
Afterwards, from a console in Windows land npx electron . will run the application, or npx electron-builder --config build\build.json will package it.