Electron (software framework)
framework that enables cross-platform desktop applications
Electron (formerly known as Atom Shell) is a free and open-source software framework developed and maintained by OpenJS Foundation. The framework is designed to create desktop applications using web technologies (mainly HTML, CSS and JavaScript, although other technologies such as front-end frameworks and WebAssembly are possible) that are rendered using a version of the Chromium browser engine and a back end using the Node.js runtime environment. It also uses various APIs to enable functionality such as native integration with Node.js services and an inter-process communication module.
Electron was originally built for Atom and is the main GUI framework behind several other open-source projects including GitHub Desktop, Light Table, WordPress Desktop, and Eclipse Theia. It is also used in Microsoft's proprietary code editor Visual Studio Code.
Architecture
Chromium forms the basis of a managed runtime, allowing application developers to write cross-platform applications in memory-safe JavaScript or TypeScript and target Web browser technologies including HTML, CSS, and SVG for graphics.
Electron-based applications include a "main" process and several "renderer" processes. The main process runs the logic for the application (e.g., menus, shell commands, lifecycle events), and can then launch multiple renderer processes by instantiating an instance of the BrowserWindow class, which loads a window that appears on the screen to render HTML, CSS, etc.
Both the main and renderer processes can run with Node.js integration if the nodeIntegration field in the main process is set to true.
Most of Electron's APIs are written in C++ or Objective-C and are exposed directly to the application code through JavaScript bindings.
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