Ionic Cordova Electron: How to get access to ipcRenderer

Question

I am investigating the use of Cordova Electron so I can move away from Windows UWP (which sees me stuck at Ionic 4)

So, I need to be able to call native code from the "web app", and the way appears to be via the ipcRenderer.

However, I just cannot seem to get a reference to this.

First following another post, I have the nodeIntegration included in the Election Browser window options.

 {
 "browserWindow": {
  "autoHideMenuBar": true,
  "plugins": true,
  "webPreferences": {
    "nodeIntegration": true
   }
  }
}

After this, I have gone through many other posts (for example this one, or this one, but none work at all.

Any attempt to get to require either by itself or on the window object, I always get require is not defined.

Or, another example, if I have the following:

import { Component } from '@angular/core';
declare function require(name: string);
....

 onClick(): void {
    try {      
        const ipc = require('electron').ipcRenderer;      
        console.log('sending');
        ipc.send('test', 'google');
        console.log('sent');
    } catch (error) {
        console.error(error);
    }
}

I get errors such as

    Warning: D:\dev\ionic\electron-ionic\src\app\tab1\tab1.page.ts depends on 'electron'. CommonJS or AMD dependencies can cause optimization bailouts.
    For more info see: https://angular.io/guide/build#configuring-commonjs-dependencies

    ./node_modules/electron/index.js:1:11-24 - Error: Module not found: Error: Can't resolve 'fs' in 'D:\dev\ionic\electron-ionic\node_modules\electron'

    ./node_modules/electron/index.js:2:13-28 - Error: Module not found: Error: Can't resolve 'path' in 'D:\dev\ionic\electron-ionic\node_modules\electron'

I really have tried every combination I can find, but nothing works.

What is the correct syntax to get to the ipcRenderer in this context (ie an Ionic Angular Cordova Electron application)?

Update 1

I tried the "more natural" importing of ipcRenderer as follows:

import { ipcRenderer } from 'electron';
...
ipcRenderer.send('test', 'google')

But same errors as above (fs and path modules) when doing the ionic build

I then did an:

npm i fs --save-dev
npm i path --save-dev

and now down to one error when doing the ionic build:

./node_modules/electron/index.js:1:11-24 - Error: Module not found: Error: Can't resolve 'fs' in 'D:\dev\ionic\electron-ionic\node_modules\electron'

Strangely I don't see either fs or path folder in node_modules.

Update 2

Putting a breakpoint in the Ionic code, so I can examine then Global and window object, I don't see require, electron, nor cordova anywhere.