General

Electron is a framework which allows to create desktop apps with HTML, CSS and Javascript. It's basically a Chrome browser with less features. It can also access the file system, whilst web apps cannot.

The HTML, CSS and Javascript can compile to executables for Windows, Mac or Linux.

Some notable apps that are built with it are Atom, VS Code and Slack.

Try and keep in mind that Electron is simply a "manager" for a browser instance. It's the glue between the OS and the BrowserWindow.

As soon as you're working in a renderer process, you're writing standard javascript and Electron really doesn't matter any longer.

Install

Don't install Electron as a global because then other people have to set stuff up to run your app (i.e. they now have to micromanage which version of Electron they have installed globally).

npm install electron --save-dev

All tools should be installed as dev dependencies.

Errors

When running npm install electron, some users occasionally encounter installation errors.

In almost all cases, these errors are the result of network problems and not actual issues with the electron npm package. Errors like ELIFECYCLE, EAI_AGAIN, ECONNRESET, and ETIMEDOUT are all indications of such network problems.

The best resolution is to try reconnecting, switching networks, or just waiting for a bit before trying to install again.

Run

Before anything, make sure that package.json is updated with the relevant entry file. Default is index.js.

"main": "main.js"

The electron library is not used in the final app build.

If electron was installed locally in node_modules.

./node_modules/.bin/electron .
npm start # We use the above command inside package.json.

If electron was installed globally.

electron main.js
electron . # Same as above. Looks for main.js inside current directory.
npm start # We use the above command inside package.json.

Using the wrong one will result in an ELIFECYCLE error.

ENOSPC error

Listen uses inotify by default on Linux to monitor directories for changes. It's not uncommon to encounter a system limit on the number of files you can monitor. For example, Ubuntu Lucid's (64bit) inotify limit is set to 8192.

When this limit is not enough to monitor all files inside a directory, the limit must be increased for Listen to work properly. Set a permanent limit with:

echo fs.inotify.max_user_watches=524288 | sudo tee -a /etc/sysctl.conf && sudo sysctl -p

Simple app

main.js

const electron = require("electron");
const { app, BrowserWindow } = electron;

let mainWindow;

function createWindow() {
    mainWindow = new BrowserWindow({ width: 800, height: 600 });
    mainWindow.loadURL(`file://${__dirname}/index.html`);
    mainWindow.on("closed", function() {
        mainWindow = null;
    });
}

app.on("ready", createWindow);

We keep the mainWindow variable in the global scope in order to prevent it from being garbage collected, thus losing the window.

index.html

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
  <head>
    <title>Window</title>
  </head>
  <body>
    <p>Some content</p>
  </body>
  <script>
    // We can put our logic here, or offload it with require("./renderer.js")
  </script>
</html>

Main vs Renderer Process

Electron operates in two runtime contexts i.e. processes.

Main (one) / Node.js / Server / main.js
- File system access.
- Compiled module support.
- CommonJS modules.

Renderer (many) / Chromium browser / Client side
- HTML and CSS renderer.
- DOM access.
- Web API.

The main process can create many renderer processes (browser windows), but there is only one main process handling this.

IPC (Inter Process Communication)

It allows us to send messages (with a payload) between the Main and Renderer processes. To use this, we need:

The ipcMain module in the Main process.
The ipcRenderer module in the Renderer processes.

By default, these modules send messages asynchronously, which is recommended.

ipcMain

ipcMain can only listen for Renderer messages and reply to them by using webContents.send().

// Main
var ipcMain = require("electron").ipcMain;

win = new BrowserWindow();

ipcMain.on("asynchronous-message", (e, args) => {
    console.log(args); // prints "ping"
    event.sender.send("asynchronous-reply", "pong");
});

win.webContents.send("channel", "foo!");

ipcRenderer

ipcRenderer can send messages to the Main process. It also listens to messages sent from it.

You can have 2 windows communicate via the HTML5 messaging API. Again, when ipc is not required for sending something to The main process which is OS related, there's no need.

// Renderer
var ipcRenderer = require("electron").ipcRenderer;

ipcRenderer.send("asynchronous-message", "ping");

ipcRenderer.on("asynchronous-reply", (e, args) => {
    console.log(args); // prints "pong"
});

ipcRenderer.on("channel", (e, args) => {
    console.log(args); // Prints 'foo!'
});

Remote

Basically the remote module makes it easy to do stuff normally restricted to the main process in a render process without lots of manual ipc messages back and forth.

In Electron, GUI-related modules (such as dialog, menu etc.) are only available in the main process, not in the renderer process. In order to use them from the renderer process, the ipc module is necessary to send inter-process messages to the main process.

With the remote module, you can invoke methods of the main process object without explicitly sending inter-process messages, similar to Java's RMI. An example of creating a browser window from a renderer process:

const remote = require("electron").remote;
const BrowserWindow = remote.BrowserWindow;

var win = new BrowserWindow();
win.loadURL("https://github.com");

Examples

Developer Tools

// Add this line in the createWindow main process.
mainWindow.webContents.openDevTools();

const electron = require("electron");
// We need to pull menu.
const { app, BrowserWindow, Menu } = electron;

let mainWindow;

function createWindow() {
    mainWindow = new BrowserWindow({ width: 800, height: 600 });
    mainWindow.loadURL(`file://${__dirname}/index.html`);

    // Build menu
    const mainMenu = Menu.buildFromTemplate(mainMenuTemplate);
    // Set Menu
    Menu.setApplicationMenu(mainMenu);
}

app.on("ready", createWindow);

// Array of menu objects
const mainMenuTemplate = [
    {
        label: "Menu item",
        submenu: [{ label: "Submenu item 1" }, { label: "Submenu item 2" }]
    }
];

New Window

const electron = require("electron");
// We need to pull menu.
const { app, BrowserWindow, Menu } = electron;

let mainWindow;

// Main window.
function createWindow() {
    mainWindow = new BrowserWindow({ width: 800, height: 600 });
    mainWindow.loadURL(`file://${__dirname}/index.html`);

    // Build menu
    const mainMenu = Menu.buildFromTemplate(mainMenuTemplate);
    // Set Menu
    Menu.setApplicationMenu(mainMenu);
}

// Create new window.
function createNewWindow() {
    newWindow = new BrowserWindow({
        width: 600,
        height: 400,
        title: "New Window"
    });
    newWindow.loadURL(`file://${__dirname}/newWindow.html`);
}

app.on("ready", createWindow);

// Array of menu objects
const mainMenuTemplate = [
    {
        label: "New window",
        click() {
            // Make the menu item clickable.
            createNewWindow(); // Call this in the main process.
        }
    }
];

Shortcuts (Accelerators)

Electron Reload

An npm library used for tracking changes in .html and .js rederer files, to avoid closing/starting electron to refresh.

npm install electron-reload --save-dev

// main.js
require("electron-reload")(__dirname);

Packaging

The app's general information is contained in package.json. We should always package the app from a copy, instead of the working file.

The dev-dependencies should also be removed before packaging, along with the code requiring them.

Electron Packager

sudo npm install -g electron-packager

There are two ways of packaging the app.

# Electron as a dev-dependency, to avoid packaging the module as well.
electron-packager .

# Electron version as a flag. The version will be downloaded.
electron-packager . --electron-version="1.8.2"

Platform

If we don't specify a platform, the app will be packaged in the host OS.

# Linux
electron-packager . --platform=linux --arch=x64

# Windows
electron-packager . --platform=win32 --arch=ia32

asar

We can see the source files via Contents/Resources/app. We can hide these by packaging them in an .asar archive. This is similar to a .tar file, but without compression. This archive can be easily unpacked, but it does provide an extra layer of security.

# Use asar to hide the source code.
electron-packager . --asar=true

The source code would now be in Contents/Resources/app.asar.

icon

The icon should be a square picture in several formats. .png for Linux, .ico for Windows, and .icns for Mac. A simple tool for these conversions is http://iconverticons.com. The icons need to be located in the source folder.

electron-packager . --icon=icon

Flags

# Overwrites the previous packaging with the new one.
--overwrite

Full commands

Source

# Linux
electron-packager . electron-tutorial-app --overwrite --asar=true --platform=linux --arch=x64 --icon=assets/icons/png/1024x1024.png --prune=true --out=release-builds

# Windows
electron-packager . electron-tutorial-app --overwrite --asar=true --platform=win32 --arch=ia32 --icon=assets/icons/win/icon.ico --prune=true --out=release-builds --version-string.CompanyName=CE --version-string.FileDescription=CE --version-string.ProductName="Electron Tutorial App"

Electron Builder

Compared to electron-packager, this has many more features and allows us to package, sign and release the app as a part of a highly configurable workflow. The main use is the ability to publish versions automatically.

sudo npm install -g electron-builder

In order to use this module for efficiently, we can add it as a dev-dependency and run the commands as npm scripts in package.json.

Updating

Electron Updater

Use autoUpdater from electron-updater instead of electon. It allows to listen for various update events after checking a URL.

npm install electron-updater

import { autoUpdater } from "electron-updater";

autoUpdater.on("update-available", () => {});

Native Node Modules

This mostly applies to C based libraries such as bcrypt and ffi.

Electron is a pre-built library, and it is often built against a different version of the V8 node binary than your system. Installing native npm packages normally would result in an error like this...

App threw an error during load.
Error: Module version mismatch. Expected 50, got 46.

In order to use native modules, we need to manually specify the location of the electron headers. To simplify this, we can use a custom script electron-npm, which we can call instead of npm install for native modules.

# electron-npm script
export npm_config_target=1.7.10 # Electron's version. Find with ./node_modules/.bin/electron -v
export npm_config_arch=x64 # The architecture.
export npm_config_disturl=https://atom.io/download/atom-shell # Download headers.
export npm_config_runtime=electron # Tell node-pre-gyp we are building for Electron.
export npm_config_build_from_source=true # Tell node-pre-gyp to build module from source code.
npm install $1 # Replace with the first argument passed.

Now, we can install the npm packages with...

./electron-npm package # Instead of "npm install package"

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electron.md

electron.md

General

Install

Errors

Run

ENOSPC error

Simple app

Main vs Renderer Process

IPC (Inter Process Communication)

ipcMain

ipcRenderer

Remote

Examples

Developer Tools

Menu

New Window

Shortcuts (Accelerators)

Electron Reload

Packaging

Electron Packager

Platform

asar

icon

Flags

Full commands

Electron Builder

Updating

Electron Updater

Native Node Modules

Files

electron.md

Latest commit

History

electron.md

File metadata and controls

General

Install

Errors

Run

ENOSPC error

Simple app

Main vs Renderer Process

IPC (Inter Process Communication)

ipcMain

ipcRenderer

Remote

Examples

Developer Tools

Menu

New Window

Shortcuts (Accelerators)

Electron Reload

Packaging

Electron Packager

Platform

asar

icon

Flags

Full commands

Electron Builder

Updating

Electron Updater

Native Node Modules