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It's not just an embedded instance of Chromium. There are APIs that bridge the gap with the operating system. One way to look at this is that the UI layer runs

by a85 10y ago

It's not just an embedded instance of Chromium. There are APIs that bridge the gap with the operating system. One way to look at this is that the UI layer runs on HTML/CSS/Javascript. VS Code, Slack etc. are other common examples. [Electron APIs]: https://electron.atom.io/docs/api/ https://electron.atom.io/docs/api/

paulddraper 10y ago
Right. It's Chromium + JS APIs + some packaging. E.g. an API to write a file.
- Rapzid 10y ago
  That's a bit too simplistic of an explanation IMHO. It's a mashup of chromium and nodejs; the entry point is a nodejs app.
- pininja 10y ago
  Window, Menus, clipboard, etc.. (not just being able to write to a file) https://electron.atom.io/docs/api/ https://electron.atom.io/docs/api/
- pier25 10y ago
  All OS related functionality is through Node.
- JSDave 10y ago
  Electron gives you a view process, background process, and a way for the 2 to communicate. The view process is very limited, just standard web APIs. The background process is basically a node process and can do anything you can in node.
  - derefr 10y ago
    Including, importantly, the ability to fork+exec other native processes. You can ship an Electron client app that spawns and then interacts with a native C background service, if you like. (I believe that's how Keybase's native client works, in fact.)
  - yblu 10y ago
    > The view process is very limited, just standard web APIs. Nitpicking here, but the view (rendering) process in Electron can actually use the Node API [1]. The difference in API access privilege between the two types of process is in what Electron API (not Node API) they can use. For example, main process can use native GUI API but renderers can't and must IPC to main if they need to, say, show a system dialog. [1] https://github.com/electron/electron/blob/master/docs/glossary.md#renderer-process https://github.com/electron/electron/blob/master/docs/glossa...

by a85 10y ago

paulddraper 10y ago

Right. It's Chromium + JS APIs + some packaging. E.g. an API to write a file.

Rapzid 10y ago
That's a bit too simplistic of an explanation IMHO. It's a mashup of chromium and nodejs; the entry point is a nodejs app.
pininja 10y ago
Window, Menus, clipboard, etc.. (not just being able to write to a file) https://electron.atom.io/docs/api/ https://electron.atom.io/docs/api/
pier25 10y ago
All OS related functionality is through Node.
JSDave 10y ago
Electron gives you a view process, background process, and a way for the 2 to communicate. The view process is very limited, just standard web APIs. The background process is basically a node process and can do anything you can in node.
- derefr 10y ago
  Including, importantly, the ability to fork+exec other native processes. You can ship an Electron client app that spawns and then interacts with a native C background service, if you like. (I believe that's how Keybase's native client works, in fact.)
- yblu 10y ago
  > The view process is very limited, just standard web APIs. Nitpicking here, but the view (rendering) process in Electron can actually use the Node API [1]. The difference in API access privilege between the two types of process is in what Electron API (not Node API) they can use. For example, main process can use native GUI API but renderers can't and must IPC to main if they need to, say, show a system dialog. [1] https://github.com/electron/electron/blob/master/docs/glossary.md#renderer-process https://github.com/electron/electron/blob/master/docs/glossa...