electron

Creating a Browser Window

This feature allows you to create a new browser window in your Electron application. The code sample demonstrates how to create a window and load a URL into it.

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

app.on('ready', () => {
  const mainWindow = new BrowserWindow({ width: 800, height: 600 });
  mainWindow.loadURL('https://example.com');
});

Inter-Process Communication (IPC)

Electron provides IPC (Inter-Process Communication) to allow communication between the main process and renderer processes. The code sample shows how to send and receive messages asynchronously.

const { ipcMain, ipcRenderer } = require('electron');

// Main process
ipcMain.on('asynchronous-message', (event, arg) => {
  console.log(arg); // prints 'ping'
  event.reply('asynchronous-reply', 'pong');
});

// Renderer process
ipcRenderer.send('asynchronous-message', 'ping');
ipcRenderer.on('asynchronous-reply', (event, arg) => {
  console.log(arg); // prints 'pong'
});

Using Node.js Modules

Electron allows you to use Node.js modules in your application. The code sample demonstrates how to use the 'fs' module to read a file.

const fs = require('fs');

fs.readFile('/path/to/file', (err, data) => {
  if (err) throw err;
  console.log(data.toString());
});

Packaging the Application

Electron applications can be packaged for distribution using tools like 'electron-packager'. The code sample shows how to package an Electron app for Windows using a child process.

const { exec } = require('child_process');

exec('electron-packager . myApp --platform=win32 --arch=x64', (err, stdout, stderr) => {
  if (err) {
    console.error(`exec error: ${err}`);
    return;
  }
  console.log(`stdout: ${stdout}`);
  console.error(`stderr: ${stderr}`);
});