OpenAsar

Open-source alternative of Discord desktop's app.asar OpenAsar is currently made of ~80% own code, with the rest being from Discord as it hasn't been rewritten yet or because of compatibility reasons.

Goals

• Hotpluggable - just swap the asar file, nothing else needed
• Lightweight - it should be at least as fast or lightweight, hopefully more
• No Tracking - no crash reporting or error tracking (in normal Discord)
• Minimal - generally only doing what is needed (see: implementation)
• Patch Platform - provide a platform for future patching

Implementation

Below is a list in order of priority, marked as complete when finished:

• Bootstrapping
• Splash screen
• Error handling
• A bunch of specific minor fixes / features
  • Handle hardware acceleration
• Auto start
• First run
• Self-write some small parts of internals
• Patch updater to survive host updates
• Self-write updater code (currently mostly copied)

Custom Patches

Custom patches are another main goal of OpenAsar, patching enhancements where otherwise impossible to do so with traditional mods. Our current ideas for patches to do:

• Skipping checking for updates on startup
• Linux host app updating

Install Guide

OpenAsar is heavily disrecommened due to it being in early development.

1. Clone repo
2. NPM install in src dir (cd src; npm i)
3. Pack into app.asar via asar NPM package - asar pack src app.asar
4. Backup your original app.asar (rename to app.asar.backup / etc)
5. Install OpenAsar app.asar into the original path