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Electron 11.0.0

· 4 min read
VerteDinde
VerteDinde

Electron 11.0.0 has been released! It includes upgrades to Chromium 87, V8 8.7, and Node.js 12.18.3. We've added support for Apple silicon, and general improvements. Read below for more details!

The Electron team is excited to announce the release of Electron 11.0.0! You can install it with npm via npm install electron@latest or download it from our releases website. The release is packed with upgrades, fixes, and new support for Apple's M1 hardware.

We can't wait to see what you build with them! Continue reading for details about this release, and please share any feedback you have!

Notable Changes​

Stack Changes​

Highlight Features​

See the 11.0.0 release notes for a full list of new features and changes.

Breaking Changes​

  • Removed experimental APIs: BrowserView.{fromId, fromWebContents, getAllViews} and the id property of BrowserView. #23578

More information about these and future changes can be found on the Planned Breaking Changes page.

API Changes​

  • Added app.getApplicationInfoForProtocol() API that returns detailed information about the app that handles a certain protocol. #24112
  • Added app.createThumbnailFromPath() API that returns a preview image of a file given its file path and a maximum thumbnail size. #24802
  • Added webContents.forcefullyCrashRenderer() to forcefully terminate a renderer process to assist with recovering a hung renderer. #25756

End of Support for 8.x.y​

Electron 8.x.y has reached end-of-support as per the project's support policy. Developers and applications are encouraged to upgrade to a newer version of Electron.

What's Next​

In the short term, you can expect the team to continue to focus on keeping up with the development of the major components that make up Electron, including Chromium, Node, and V8. Although we are careful not to make promises about release dates, our plan is to release new major versions of Electron with new versions of those components approximately quarterly. The tentative 12.0.0 schedule maps out key dates in the Electron 12.0 development life cycle. Also, see our versioning document for more detailed information about versioning in Electron.

For information on planned breaking changes in upcoming versions of Electron, see our Planned Breaking Changes doc.

Continued Work for Deprecation of remote Module​

We started work to remove the remote module in Electron 9. We plan to remove the remote module itself in Electron 14.

Read and follow this issue for full plans and details for deprecation.

Final Step for Requiring Native Node Modules to be Context Aware or N-API (in Electron 12)​

From Electron 6 onwards, we've been laying the groundwork to require native Node modules loaded in the renderer process to be either N-API or Context Aware. Enforcing this change allows for stronger security, faster performance, and reduced maintenance workload. The final step of this plan is to remove the ability to disable render process reuse in Electron 12.

Read and follow this issue for full details, including the proposed timeline.

Apple Silicon Support

· 3 min read
MarshallOfSound
MarshallOfSound

With Apple Silicon hardware being released later this year, what does the path look like for you to get your Electron app running on the new hardware?

With the release of Electron 11.0.0-beta.1, the Electron team is now shipping builds of Electron that run on the new Apple Silicon hardware that Apple plans on shipping later this year. You can grab the latest beta with npm install electron@beta or download it directly from our releases website.

How does it work?​

As of Electron 11, we will be shipping separate versions of Electron for Intel Macs and Apple Silicon Macs. Prior to this change, we were already shipping two artifacts, darwin-x64 and mas-x64, with the latter being for Mac App Store compatibility usage. We are now shipping another two artifacts, darwin-arm64 and mas-arm64, which are the Apple Silicon equivalents of the aforementioned artifacts.

What do I need to do?​

You will need to ship two versions of your app: one for x64 (Intel Mac) and one for arm64 (Apple Silicon). The good news is that electron-packager, electron-rebuild and electron-forge already support targeting the arm64 architecture. As long as you're running the latest versions of those packages, your app should work flawlessly once you update the target architecture to arm64.

In the future, we will release a package that allows you to "merge" your arm64 and x64 apps into a single universal binary, but it's worth noting that this binary would be huge and probably isn't ideal for shipping to users.

Update: This package is now available at @electron/universal. You can use it to merge two packaged x64 and arm64 apps into a single binary.

Potential Issues​

Native Modules​

As you are targeting a new architecture, you'll need to update several dependencies which may cause build issues. The minimum version of certain dependencies are included below for your reference.

DependencyVersion Requirement
Xcode>=12.2.0
node-gyp>=7.1.0
electron-rebuild>=1.12.0
electron-packager>=15.1.0

As a result of these dependency version requirements, you may have to fix/update certain native modules. One thing of note is that the Xcode upgrade will introduce a new version of the macOS SDK, which may cause build failures for your native modules.

How do I test it?​

Currently, Apple Silicon applications only run on Apple Silicon hardware, which isn't commercially available at the time of writing this blog post. If you have a Developer Transition Kit, you can test your application on that. Otherwise, you'll have to wait for the release of production Apple Silicon hardware to test if your application works.

What about Rosetta 2?​

Rosetta 2 is Apple's latest iteration of their Rosetta technology, which allows you to run x64 Intel applications on their new arm64 Apple Silicon hardware. Although we believe that x64 Electron apps will run under Rosetta 2, there are some important things to note (and reasons why you should ship a native arm64 binary).

  • Your app's performance will be significantly degraded. Electron / V8 uses JIT compilation for JavaScript, and due to how Rosetta works, you will effectively be running JIT twice (once in V8 and once in Rosetta).
  • You lose the benefit of new technology in Apple Silicon, such as the increased memory page size.
  • Did we mention that the performance will be significantly degraded?

Community Discord Server and Hacktoberfest

· 3 min read
erickzhao
erickzhao

Join us for community bonding and a month-long celebration of open-source.

Hacktoberfest and Discord banner

Electron Community Discord Launch

Electron’s Outreach Working Group is excited to announce the launch of our official community Discord server!

Why a new Discord server?​

In its early days as the backbone of the Atom text editor, community discussion on the Electron framework occurred in a single channel in Atom’s Slack workspace. As time passed and the two projects were increasingly decoupled, the relevance of the Atom workspace to the Electron project decreased, and maintainer participation in the Slack channel declined in the same manner.

Up until now, we had still been redirecting our broader community to the Atom Slack workspace, even though we’ve had many reports from folks who have had trouble receiving invitations, and few of our core maintainers were frequenting the channel.

We’re setting up this shiny new server to be a central discussion hub for the community where you can get the latest news on all things Electron.

Get in here!​

So far, the server’s membership consists of a few maintainers who have been working together to set it up, but we’re so excited to chat with you all! Come ask for help, keep up to date with Electron releases, or just hang out with other developers. We’ve got a handy invite for you that’ll give you access to the server!

Hacktoberfest 2020

As a large and long-running open-source project, Electron wouldn’t have been nearly as successful without all the contributions from its community, from code submissions to bug reports to documentation changes, and much more. That’s why we believe in the importance of participating in Hacktoberfest to usher in a wider community of developers of all skill levels into the project.

Odds and ends​

This year, we don’t have a wider project to give you all to work on, but we’d like to focus on opportunities to contribute across the Electron JavaScript ecosystem.

Look out for issues tagged hacktoberfest across our various repositories, including the main electron/electron repository, the electron/electronjs.org website, electron/fiddle, and electron-userland/electron-forge!

P.S. If you're feeling particularly adventurous, we also have a backlog of issues marked with help wanted tags if you're looking for more of a challenge.

Stuck? Come chat with us!​

Moreover, it’s also no coincidence that the grand opening of our Discord server coincides with the largest celebration of open-source software of the year. Check out the #hacktoberfest channel to ask for help on your Hacktoberfest PR. In case you missed it, here's the invite link again!

Electron 10.0.0

· 5 min read
VerteDinde
VerteDinde
sofianguy
sofianguy

Electron 10.0.0 has been released! It includes upgrades to Chromium 85, V8 8.5, and Node.js 12.16. We've added several new API integrations and improvements. Read below for more details!

The Electron team is excited to announce the release of Electron 10.0.0! You can install it with npm via npm install electron@latest or download it from our releases website. The release is packed with upgrades, fixes, and new features.

In the Electron 10 release, we also made a change to our release notes. To make it easier to tell what's brand new in Electron 10 and what may have changed between Electron 10 and past releases, we now also include changes that were introduced to Electron 10, but backported to previous releases. We hope this makes it easier to apps to find new features and bug fixes when upgrading Electron.

We can't wait to see what you build with them! Continue reading for details about this release, and please share any feedback you have!

Notable Changes​

Stack Changes​

Highlight Features​

  • Added contents.getBackgroundThrottling() method and contents.backgroundThrottling property. [#21036]
  • Exposed the desktopCapturer module in the main process. #23548
  • Can now check if a given session is persistent by calling the ses.isPersistent() API. #22622
  • Resolve network issues that prevented RTC calls from being connected due to network IP address changes and ICE. (Chromium issue 1113227). #24998

See the 10.0.0 release notes for a full list of new features and changes.

Breaking Changes​

  • Changed the default value of enableRemoteModule to false. #22091
    • This is part of our plans for deprecating the remote module and moving it to userland. You can read and follow this issue that details our reasons for this and includes a proposed timeline for deprecation.
  • Changed the default value of app.allowRendererProcessReuse to true. #22336 (Also in Electron 9)
    • This will prevent loading of non-context-aware native modules in renderer processes.
    • You can read and follow this issue that details our reasons for this and includes a proposed timeline for deprecation.
  • Fixed the positioning of window buttons on macOS when the OS locale is set to an RTL language (like Arabic or Hebrew). Frameless window apps may have to account for this change while styling their windows. #22016

More information about these and future changes can be found on the Planned Breaking Changes page.

API Changes​

  • Session: Can now check if a given session is persistent by calling the ses.isPersistent() API. #22622
  • Contents: Added contents.getBackgroundThrottling() method and contents.backgroundThrottling property. #21036

Deprecated APIs​

The following APIs are now deprecated or removed:

  • Removed the deprecated currentlyLoggingPath property of netLog. Additionally, netLog.stopLogging no longer returns the path to the recorded log. #22732
  • Deprecated uncompressed crash uploads in crashReporter. #23598

End of Support for 7.x.y​

Electron 7.x.y has reached end-of-support as per the project's support policy. Developers and applications are encouraged to upgrade to a newer version of Electron.

What's Next​

In the short term, you can expect the team to continue to focus on keeping up with the development of the major components that make up Electron, including Chromium, Node, and V8. Although we are careful not to make promises about release dates, our plan is release new major versions of Electron with new versions of those components approximately quarterly. The tentative 11.0.0 schedule maps out key dates in the Electron 11.0 development life cycle. Also, see our versioning document for more detailed information about versioning in Electron.

For information on planned breaking changes in upcoming versions of Electron, see our Planned Breaking Changes doc.

Continued Work for Deprecation of remote Module (in Electron 11)​

We started work to remove the remote module in Electron 9 and we're continuing plans to remove the remote module. In Electron 11, we plan to continue refactor work for implementing WeakRef as we have done in Electron 10. Please read and follow this issue for full plans and details for deprecation.

Final Step for Requiring Native Node Modules to be Context Aware or N-API (in Electron 12)​

Edit: Originally, this blog post stated that we would disable renderer process reuse in Electron 11. Disabling renderer process reuse has now been pushed to Electron 12.

From Electron 6 onwards, we've been laying the groundwork to require native Node modules loaded in the renderer process to be either N-API or Context Aware. Enforcing this change allows for stronger security, faster performance, and reduced maintenance workload. The final step of this plan is to remove the ability to disable render process reuse in Electron 12. Read this issue for full details including the proposed timeline.

Electron becomes an OpenJS Foundation Impact Project

· One min read
VerteDinde
VerteDinde

At OpenJS World this morning, we announced that Electron has officially graduated from the OpenJS Foundation's incubation program, and is now an OpenJS Foundation Impact Project.

Electron entered incubation in December of 2019, at the last OpenJS Foundation global conference in Montreal. We're excited to take a larger role in the JavaScript community as an Impact Project, and continue our partnership with the OpenJS Foundation.

Learning more​

You can read up on the foundation, its mission, and its members on the OpenJSF website. The OpenJS Foundation is host to a number of open source JavaScript projects including jQuery, Node.js, and webpack. It's supported by 30 corporate and end-user members, including GoDaddy, Google, IBM, Intel, Joyent, and Microsoft.

Electron is an open–source framework for building cross-platform desktop applications with web technologies. To learn more about the humans behind Electron and how they work together, take a look at our Governance page.

To get started with Electron itself, take a peek at our documentation.

Google Season of Docs

· 2 min read
erickzhao
erickzhao

Electron is proud to be participating in the second edition of Google's Season of Docs initiative, which pairs mentors from open source organizations with technical writers to improve project documentation.

What is Season of Docs?

Season of Docs logo

Season of Docs is a program that fosters collaboration between technical writers and open source communities to the benefit of both parties. Open source maintainers utilize the writer's technical writing expertise to improve the structure and content of their documentation, while the technical writer is introduced to an open-source community under the guidance of its mentors. Learn more about it on the Google's Season of Docs website.

For our first time participating in the program, we'll be mentoring a single technical writer who will be working alongside Electron's Ecosystem Working Group to reshape large parts of our documentation. You can learn more about the timeline of the whole project here.

How do I sign up?

Are you interested in collaborating with us as a technical writer? First, get familiar with Google's tech writer guide for this year's program, and check out the two project idea drafts that we have prepared.

In order to be selected as Electron's technical writer for Season of Docs, candidates will need to apply on the Google Season of Docs website during the Technical Writer Application phase that is running from June 8 to July 9..

Your application should include a proposal, which is a written document that describes in detail what you plan to achieve on the Electron docs over the course of 3 months. This proposal can either develop on one of the starting points mentioned in our Project Idea doc, or can be something entirely new. Don't know where to start? You can check out last year's list of accepted proposals for inspiration.

Aside from the proposal, we'll also be looking at your background as a technical writer. Please include a copy of your resume with an emphasis on relevant writing experience, as well as technical writing samples (these samples could be existing documentation, tutorial, blog posts, etc.)

If you want to discuss project proposals, shoot us an email at season-of-docs@electronjs.org and we can chat from there!

References

Electron 9.0.0

· 4 min read
sofianguy
sofianguy
VerteDinde
VerteDinde

Electron 9.0.0 has been released! It includes upgrades to Chromium 83, V8 8.3, and Node.js 12.14. We've added several new API integrations for our spellchecker feature, enabled PDF viewer, and much more!

The Electron team is excited to announce the release of Electron 9.0.0! You can install it with npm via npm install electron@latest or download it from our releases website. The release is packed with upgrades, fixes, and new features. We can't wait to see what you build with them! Continue reading for details about this release, and please share any feedback you have!

Notable Changes​

Stack Changes​

Highlight Features​

  • Multiple improvements to the spellchecker feature. See more details in #22128 and #22368.
  • Improved window events handler efficiency on Linux. #23260.
  • Enable PDF viewer. #22131.

See the 9.0.0 release notes for a full list of new features and changes.

Breaking Changes​

  • Deprecation warning when using remote without enableRemoteModule: true. #21546
    • This is the first step in our plans for deprecating the remote module and moving it to userland. You can read and follow this issue that details our reasons for this and includes a proposed timeline for deprecation.
  • Set app.enableRendererProcessReuse to true by default. #22336
    • This is continued work for a future requirement that native Node modules loaded in the renderer process be either N-API or Context Aware. Full info and proposed timeline is detailed in this issue.
  • Sending non-JavaScript objects over IPC now throws an exception. #21560
    • This behavior was depreciated in Electron 8.0. In Electron 9.0, the old serialization algorithm has been removed, and sending such non-serializable objects will now throw an "object could not be cloned" error.

More information about these and future changes can be found on the Planned Breaking Changes page.

API Changes​

  • shell API changes:
    • The shell.openItem API has been replaced with an asynchronous shell.openPath API. proposal
  • sessionAPI changes:
    • Added session.listWordsFromSpellCheckerDictionary API to list custom words in the dictionary. #22128
    • Added session.removeWordFromSpellCheckerDictionary API to remove custom words in the dictionary. #22368
    • Added session.serviceWorkerContext API to access basic service worker info and receive console logs from service workers. #22313
  • app API changes:
    • Added a new force parameter to app.focus() on macOS to allow apps to forcefully take focus. #23447
  • BrowserWindow API changes:
    • Added support for property access to some getter/setter pairs on BrowserWindow. #23208

Deprecated APIs​

The following APIs are now deprecated or removed:

  • shell.openItem API is now depreciated, and replaced with an asynchronous shell.openPath API.
  • <webview>.getWebContents, which was deprecated in Electron 8.0, is now removed.
  • webFrame.setLayoutZoomLevelLimits, which was deprecated in Electron 8.0, is now removed.

End of Support for 6.x.y​

Electron 6.x.y has reached end-of-support as per the project's support policy. Developers and applications are encouraged to upgrade to a newer version of Electron.

What's Next​

In the short term, you can expect the team to continue to focus on keeping up with the development of the major components that make up Electron, including Chromium, Node, and V8. Although we are careful not to make promises about release dates, our plan is release new major versions of Electron with new versions of those components approximately quarterly. The tentative 10.0.0 schedule maps out key dates in the Electron 10.0 development life cycle. Also, see our versioning document for more detailed information about versioning in Electron.

For information on planned breaking changes in upcoming versions of Electron, see our Planned Breaking Changes doc.

Change the default of contextIsolation from false to true (Starting in Electron 10)​

Without contextIsolation, any code running in a renderer process can quite easily reach into Electron internals or an app's preload script. That code can then perform privileged actions that Electron wants to keep restricted.

Changing this default improves the default security of Electron apps, so that apps will need to deliberately opt in to the insecure behaviour. Electron will depreciate the current default of contextIsolation in Electron 10.0, and change to the new default (true) in Electron 12.0.

For more information on contextIsolation, how to enable it easily and it's security benefits please see our dedicated Context Isolation Document.

Upcoming Electron Releases

· One min read
codebytere
codebytere

Electron is temporarily pausing major releases

What's Happening?​

Our major release cadence schedule moves in lockstep with that of Chromium, and the Chromium project has made the recent decision to pause its releases due to adjusted work schedules. This means that for the duration of Chromium's altered cadence, Electron will also temporarily pause new major releases.

We feel that our best choice is to follow in Chromium's footsteps, and so in the interim the Electron team will shift to full-time work on bugfixes, security, performance, and stability.

We want to ensure that both our maintainers and our consumers' wellbeing is prioritized during this time, so we welcome your feedback and look forward to returning to our regular release schedule.

For more updates, please follow our Twitter account.

Edit (2020-03-30): Electron 9 stable will target Chromium M83 and be released on May 19, 2020, in response to Chromium's announcement of skipping the M82 stable date and adjusting the M83 stable date.

Electron 8.0.0

· 6 min read
jkleinsc
jkleinsc
sofianguy
sofianguy

Electron 8.0.0 has been released! It includes upgrades to Chromium 80, V8 8.0, and Node.js 12.13.0. We've added Chrome's built-in spellchecker, and much more!

The Electron team is excited to announce the release of Electron 8.0.0! You can install it with npm via npm install electron@latest or download it from our releases website. The release is packed with upgrades, fixes, and new features. We can't wait to see what you build with them! Continue reading for details about this release, and please share any feedback you have!

Notable Changes​

Stack Changes​

Highlight Features​

  • Implemented usage of Chrome's built-in spellchecker feature. See more details in #20692 and #21266.
  • IPC communication now uses v8's Structured Clone Algorithm. This is faster, more featureful, and less surprising than the existing logic, and brings about a 2x performance boost for large buffers and complex objects. Latency for small messages is not significantly affected. See more details in #20214.

See the 8.0.0 release notes for a full list of new features and changes.

Breaking Changes​

  • Show module name in deprecation warning for context-aware modules. #21952
    • This is continued work for a future requirement that native Node modules loaded in the renderer process be either N-API or Context Aware. Full info and proposed timeline is detailed in this issue.
  • Values sent over IPC are now serialized with Structured Clone Algorithm. #20214
  • Offscreen Rendering is currently disabled due to lack of a maintainer to work on this feature. It broke during the Chromium upgrade and was subsequently disabled. #20772

More information about these and future changes can be found on the Planned Breaking Changes page.

API Changes​

  • app API changes:
    • Added app.getApplicationNameForProtocol(url). #20399
    • Added app.showAboutPanel() and app.setAboutPanelOptions(options) support on Windows. #19420
  • BrowserWindow API changes:
    • Updated docs to note that BrowserWindow options hasShadow is available on all platforms #20038
    • Added trafficLightPosition option to BrowserWindow options to allow custom positioning for traffic light buttons. #21781
    • Added accessibleTitle option to BrowserWindow for setting the accessible window title #19698
    • BrowserWindow.fromWebContents() can now return null #19983
    • Added BrowserWindow.getMediaSourceId() and BrowserWindow.moveAbove(mediaSourceId). #18926
    • Added support for will-move event on macOS. #19641
  • Documented previously undocumented crashReporter.getCrashesDirectory(). #20417
  • dialog API changes:
    • Added dontAddToRecent property to dialog.showOpenDialog and dialog.showOpenDialogSync to prevent documents from being added to recent documents on Windows in open dialogs. #19669
    • Added property customization to dialog.showSaveDialog and dialog.showSaveDialogSync. #19672
  • Notification API changes:
    • Added timeoutType option to allow Linux/Windows users to set the type of notification timeout. #20153
    • Added urgency option to set urgency on Linux notifications. #20152
  • session API changes:
    • Updated documentation on session.setProxy(config) and session.setCertificateVerifyProc(proc) to note optional options. #19604
    • Added session.downloadURL(url) to allow to triggering downloads without a BrowserWindow. #19889
    • Added support for HTTP preconnect resource hints via session.preconnect(options) and the preconnect event. #18671
    • Added session.addWordToSpellCheckerDictionary to allow custom words in the dictionary #21297
  • Added option to shell.moveItemToTrash(fullPath[, deleteOnFail]) on macOS to specify what happens when moveItemToTrash fails. #19700
  • systemPreferences API changes:
    • Updated systemPreferences.getColor(color) documentation for macOS. #20611
    • Added screen media type to systemPreferences.getMediaAccessStatus(). #20764
  • Added nativeTheme.themeSource to allow apps to override Chromium and the OS's theme choice. #19960
  • TouchBar API changes:
    • Added accessibilityLabel property to TouchBarButton and TouchBarLabel to improve TouchBarButton/TouchBarLabel accessibility. #20454
    • Updated TouchBar related documentation #19444
  • tray API changes:
    • Added new options to tray.displayBalloon(): iconType, largeIcon, noSound and respectQuietTime. #19544
    • Added tray.removeBalloon(), which removes an already displayed balloon notification. #19547
    • Added tray.focus(), which returns focus to the taskbar notification area. feat: add tray.focus() #19548
  • webContents API changes:
    • Added contents.executeJavaScriptInIsolatedWorld(worldId, scripts[, userGesture]) to expose executeJavaScriptInIsolatedWorld on the webContents API. #21190
    • Added methods to capture a hidden webContents. #21679
    • Added options to webContents.print([options], [callback]) to enable customization of print page headers and footers. #19688
    • Added ability to inspect specific shared workers via webContents.getAllSharedWorkers() and webContents.inspectSharedWorkerById(workerId). #20389
    • Added the support of fitToPageEnabled and scaleFactor options in WebContents.printToPDF(). #20436
  • Updated webview.printToPDF documentation to indicate return type is now Uint8Array. #20505

Deprecated APIs​

The following APIs are now deprecated:

  • Deprecated the nonfunctional visibleOnFullScreen option within BrowserWindow.setVisibleOnAllWorkspaces prior to its removal in the next major release version. #21732
  • Deprecated alternate-selected-control-text on systemPreferences.getColor(color) for macOS. #20611
  • Deprecated setLayoutZoomLevelLimits on webContents, webFrame, and <webview> Tag because Chromium removed this capability. #21296
  • The default value of false for app.allowRendererProcessReuse is now deprecated. #21287
  • Deprecated <webview>.getWebContents() as it depends on the remote module. #20726

End of Support for 5.x.y​

Electron 5.x.y has reached end-of-support as per the project's support policy. Developers and applications are encouraged to upgrade to a newer version of Electron.

App Feedback Program​

We continue to use our App Feedback Program for testing. Projects who participate in this program test Electron betas on their apps; and in return, the new bugs they find are prioritized for the stable release. If you'd like to participate or learn more, check out our blog post about the program.

What's Next​

In the short term, you can expect the team to continue to focus on keeping up with the development of the major components that make up Electron, including Chromium, Node, and V8. Although we are careful not to make promises about release dates, our plan is release new major versions of Electron with new versions of those components approximately quarterly. The tentative 9.0.0 schedule maps out key dates in the Electron 9 development life cycle. Also, see our versioning document for more detailed information about versioning in Electron.

For information on planned breaking changes in upcoming versions of Electron, see our Planned Breaking Changes doc.

Deprecation of remote Module (Starting in Electron 9)​

Due to serious security liabilities, we are beginning plans to deprecate the remote module starting in Electron 9. You can read and follow this issue that details our reasons for this and includes a proposed timeline for deprecation.

Electron joins the OpenJS Foundation

· 2 min read
felixrieseberg
felixrieseberg

At Node+JS Interactive in Montreal, the OpenJS Foundation announced that it accepted Electron into the Foundation's incubation program. The Foundation is committed to supporting the healthy growth of the JavaScript ecosystem and web technologies by providing a neutral organization to host and sustain projects, as well as collaboratively fund activities for the benefit of the community at large.

The OpenJS Foundation is host to a number of open source JavaScript projects including jQuery, Node.js, and webpack. It's supported by 30 corporate and end-user members, including GoDaddy, Google, IBM, Intel, Joyent, and Microsoft. Electron is an open–source framework for building cross-platform desktop applications with web technologies.

This is an exciting move for Electron, and we see it as a next step in our evolution as an open-source project.

What this means for developers​

Electron joining the OpenJS Foundation does not change how Electron is made, released, or used — and does not directly affect developers building applications with Electron. Even though Electron was originally created at GitHub in 2013, it is currently maintained by a number of organizations and individuals. In 2019, Electron codified its governance structure and invested heavily into formalizing how decisions affecting the entire project are made. We believe that having multiple organizations and developers investing in and collaborating on Electron makes the project stronger.

Lifting Electron up from being owned by a single corporate entity and moving it into a neutral foundation focused on supporting the web and JavaScript ecosystem is a natural next step as we mature as an open-source project.

Learning more​

You can read up on the foundation, its mission, and its members on the OpenJSF website. For more information and quotes about the acceptance of Electron into the OpenJSF incubation program, check out the official press release. To learn more about the humans behind Electron and how they work together, take a look at our Governance page.

To get started with Electron itself, take a peek at our documentation.