Desktop applications are great, but it's painful and time consuming to use different languages and frameworks for each platform. You could build web applications, but they can't access file systems or native APIs. Electron can help. Electron is a framework for building cross-platform desktop applications with web technologies. It combines Google Chrome's content module with Node.js, letting you use your web development skill set to build applications that run natively on all major platforms.

Electron in Action guides you, step-by-step, as you learn to build desktop applications that run on Windows, OSX, and Linux. You'll begin by getting the big picture of Electron, what it is, and how it works. Then you'll learn to use OS-specific features like the file system, menus, and clipboards as you build your first desktop project, a notes application. Along the way, you'll debug errors and diagnose performance bottlenecks with Chrome's developer tools, package your application as a standalone executable for each OS, and even distribute it to app stores. By the end, you'll be ready to build your own professional desktop applications using the web tools and technologies you already know.

Part 1: Getting Started with Electron

1. Introducing Electron

1.1. What is Electron?

1.1.1. What is the Chromium Content Module?

1.1.2. What is Node.js?

1.2. Who is using Electron?

1.3. What do I need to know?

1.4. Why should I use Electron?

1.4.1. Leveraging your existing skill set

1.4.2. Access to native operating system APIs

1.4.3. Enhanced privileges and looser restrictions

1.4.4. Accessing Node from the browser context

1.4.5. Offline First

1.5. How does Electron work?

1.5.1. The main process

1.5.2. Renderer processes

1.6. Electron vs. NW.js

1.7. Summary

2. Your first Electron application

2.1. Building a Bookmark List Application

2.1.1. Structuring Our Electron Application

2.1.2. package.json

2.1.3. Downloading and Installing Electron in Our Project

2.2. Working with the Main Process

2.3. Creating a Renderer Process

2.3.1. Loading Code from the Renderer Process

2.3.2. Requiring Files in the Renderer Process

2.3.3. Adding Styles in the Renderer Process

2.4. Implementing the User Interface

2.4.1. Making Cross-Origin Requests in Electron

2.4.2. Parsing Responses

2.4.3. Storing Responses With Web Storage APIs

2.4.4. Displaying Request Results

2.4.5. The Unhappy Path

2.4.6. An Unexpected Bug

2.5. Summary

Part 2: Building Cross-Platform Applications with Electron

3. Building a Notes Application

3.1. Defining our application

3.2. Laying the foundation

3.3. Bootstrapping the application

3.3.1. Implementing the user interface

3.3.2. Gracefully Displaying the Browser Window

3.4. Implementing the base functionality

3.5. Debugging an Electron application

3.5.1. Debugging renderer processes

3.5.2. Debugging the main process

3.5.3. Debugging the main process with Visual Studio Code

3.6. Summary

4. Using Native File Dialogs and Facilitating Inter-Process Communication

4.1. Triggering Native File Dialogs

4.2. Reading Files Using Node

4.2.1. Scoping the File Open Dialog

4.2.2. Implementing Dialog Sheets in macOS

4.3. Facilitating Inter-Process Communication

4.3.1. Introducing the remote module

4.4. Triggering the Open File Function Using Inter-Process Communication

4.4.1. Understanding the CommonJS Require System

4.4.2. Requiring Functionality from Another Process

4.5. Sending Content from the Main to the Renderer Process

4.5.1. Sending the File Contents to the Renderer Contents

4.6. Summary

5. Working with Multiple Windows

5.1. Creating and Managing Multiple Windows

5.1.1. Communicating Between the Main Process and Multiple Windows

5.1.2. Passing a Reference to the Current Window to the Main Process

5.2. Improving the User Experience of Creating New Windows

5.3. Integrating with macOS

5.4. Summary

6. Working with Files

6.1. Keeping Track of the Current File

6.1.1. Updating the Window Title Based on the Current File

6.1.2. Determining If the Current File Has Changed

6.1.3. Enabling the Save and Revert Buttons in the User Interface

6.1.4. Updating the Represented File on macOS

6.2. Keeping Track of Recently Opening Files

6.3. Saving Files

6.3.1. Exporting the Rendered HTML Output

6.3.2. Common Paths

6.3.3. Saving Files from the Renderer Process

6.3.4. Saving the Current File

6.3.5. Reverting Files

6.4. Opening Files Using Drag and Drop

6.4.1. Ignoring Dropped Files Everywhere Else

6.4.2. Providing Visual Feedback

6.4.3. Opening Dropped Files

6.5. Watching Files for Changes

6.6. Prompting the User Before Discarding Changes

6.7. Summary

7. Building Application and Context Menus

7.1. Replacing and Replicating the Default Menu

7.1.1. macOS and the Case of the Missing Edit Menu

7.1.2. The Hidden Cost of Replacing Electron's Default Menu

7.1.3. Implementing the Edit and Window Menus

7.1.4. Defining Menu Item Roles and Keyboard Shortcuts

7.1.5. Restoring the Application Menu on macOS

7.1.6. Adding a Help Menu

7.2. Adding Application-Specific Menu Functionality

7.2.1. Handling the Edge Case of Having No Focused Window

7.3. Building Context Menus

7.4. Summary

8. Further Operating System Integration and Dynamically Enabling Menu Items

8.1. Using the Shell Module from the User Interface in the Renderer Process

8.2. Using the Shell Module in the Application Menu

8.2.1. Additional Features of Electron?s Shell Module

8.3. Accessing the Shell Module from a Context Menu

8.3.1. Deciding Between Putting Functionality in a Menu or in the Browser

8.3.2. Deciding Between Putting Functionality in the Application or Context Menu

8.4. Disabling Menu Items When Appropriate

8.4.1. Dynamically Enabling and Disabling Menu Items in the Context Menu

8.4.2. Dynamically Enabling and Disabling Menu Items in the Application Menu

8.5. Summary

9. Introducing the Tray Module

9.1. Getting Started with Clipmaster

9.2. Creating an Application with the Tray Module

9.2.1. Using the Correct Icon for macOS and Windows

9.2.2. Supporting Dark Mode in macOS

9.2.3. Reading from the Clipboard and Storing Clippings

9.3. Reading to and Writing from the Clipboard

9.3.1. Writing to the Clipboard

9.3.2. Handling Edge Cases

9.4. Registering Global Shortcuts

9.4.1. Checking Registrations and Unregistering Global Shortcuts

9.5. Displaying Notifications

9.6. Switching Menubar Icons when Pressed in macOS

9.7. Completed Code

9.8. Summary

10. Building Applications with the Menubar Library

10.1. Starting an Application with Menubar

10.2. Adding Clippings to the User Interface

10.3. Working with Clippings in the Application

10.3.1. Preventing Memory Leaks Using Event Delegation

10.3.2. Removing a Clipping

10.3.3. Writing to the Clipboard

10.4. Publishing Clippings

10.4.1. Setting Up Request

10.5. Displaying Notifications and Registering Global Shortcuts

10.5.1. Registering Global Shortcuts

10.5.2. Solving for the Edge Case that Occurs if the Window Has Never Been Shown

10.6. Adding a Secondary Menu

10.7. Summary

11. Using Transpilers and Frameworks

11.1. Introducing Electron Compile

11.2. Laying the Application's Foundation

11.3. Building the User Interface in React

11.3.1. The Application Component

11.3.2. Displaying the Lists of Items

11.4. Adding New Items

11.5. Live Reload Hot Module Reloading

11.5.1. Enabling Live Reload

11.5.2. Setting Up Hot Module Reloading

11.6. Summary

12. Persisting User Data and Using Native Node.js Modules

12.1. Storing Data in a SQLite Database

12.1.1. Using the Right Versions with electron-rebuild

12.1.2. Setting Up SQLite and Knex.js

12.1.3. Hooking The Database Into React

12.1.4. Fetching All of the Items from the Database

12.1.5. Adding Items to the Database

12.1.6. Updating Items in the Database

12.1.7. Deleting Items

12.1.8. Storing the Database in the Right Place

12.2. IndexedDB

12.2.1. Creating a Store with IndexedDB

12.2.2. Getting Data from IndexedDB

12.2.3. Writing Data to IndexedDB

12.2.4. Wiring It All Up

12.3. Summary

13. Testing Applications with Spectron

13.1. Introducing Spectron

13.2. Getting Comfortable with Spectron and WebdriverIO

13.3. Setting Up Spectron and the Test Runner

13.4. Writing Asynchronous Tests Using Spectron

13.4.1. Waiting for the Window to Load

13.4.2. Testing Electron BrowserWindow APIs

13.4.3. Traversing and Testing the DOM with Spectron

13.4.4. Controlling Electron's APIs with Spectron

13.5. Summary

Part 3: Deploying Electron Applications

14. Building Applications for Deployment

14.1. Introducing Electron Packager

14.1.1. Setting Up Electron Packager

14.1.2. Configuring the Output Directory

14.1.3. Configuring the Application's Name and Version

14.1.4. Updating the Application Icon

14.1.5. Building for Multiple Operating Systems

14.2. Using Asar

14.3. Electron Forge

14.3.1. Importing an Electron Application into Electron Forge

14.3.2. Building the Application with Electron Forge

14.4. Summary

15. Releasing and updating applications

15.1. Collecting Crash Reports

15.1.1. Setting Up Crash Reporter

15.1.2. Setting Up a Server to Receive Crash Reports

15.1.3. Reporting Uncaught Exceptions

15.2. Signing Your Applications

15.2.1. Signing Applications for macOS

15.2.2. Building an Installer and Code Signing on Windows

15.3. Automatically Updating Applications

15.3.1. Setting Up Automatic Updates in Electron

15.3.2. Setting Up a Server for Automatic Updates

15.4. Summary

16. Distributing your application through the Mac App Store

16.1. Submitting Your Application to the Mac App Store

16.1.1. Signing the Application

16.1.2. Registering Your Application with the Mac App Store

16.1.3. Adding the Application to iTunes Connect

16.1.4. Packaging Your Application for the Mac App Store

16.1.5. Configuring Application Categories

16.1.6. Register the Application to Open a File Type

16.2. Validating and Uploading Your Application

16.3. Finishing Touches

16.4. Summary

Appendixes

Appendix A: Code Samples from Fire Sale

A.1. Code from the end of Chapter 6

A.2. Code from the End of Chapter 7

A.3. Code from the End of Chapter 8

A.4. Completed Code from the End of Chapter 10

What's inside

Building and updating Electron applications
Leveraging native operating system APIs that aren't available to traditional browser applications
Build an application deployable on OS X, Windows, and Linux
Using third-party frameworks such as Ember, Angular, and React with Electron
Deploying to the Mac App Store

About the reader

This book is for web developers who want to use their existing skill set to create desktop applications that wouldn't be possible inside of the traditional browser environment. No experience building desktop applications needed.

About the author

Steven Kinney is the Director of the Front-End Engineering program at the Turing School of Software and Design and a front-end developer. Previously, he was Director of Educational Technology at the Council for Economic Education and a New York City teacher for seven years.

Manning Early Access Program (MEAP) Read chapters as they are written, get the finished eBook as soon as it’s ready, and receive the pBook long before it's in bookstores.

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