BrowserView has been deprecated since Electron 30 and is replaced by WebContentView. Thankfully, migrating is fairly painless.

Electron is moving from BrowserView to WebContentsView to align with Chromium’s UI framework, the Views API. WebContentsView offers a reusable view directly tied to Chromium’s rendering pipeline, simplifying future upgrades and opening up the possibility for developers to integrate non-web UI elements to their Electron apps. By adopting WebContentsView, applications are not only prepared for upcoming updates but also benefit from reduced code complexity and fewer potential bugs in the long run.

Developers familiar with BrowserWindows and BrowserViews should note that BrowserWindow and WebContentsView are subclasses inheriting from the BaseWindow and View base classes, respectively. To fully understand the available instance variables and methods, be sure to consult the documentation for these base classes.

Migration steps​

1. Upgrade Electron to 30.0.0 or higher​

2. Familiarize yourself with where your application uses BrowserViews​

One way to do this is to search your codebase for new BrowserView(. This should give you a sense for how your application is using BrowserViews and how many call sites need to be migrated.

3. Migrate each usage of BrowserView​

1. Migrate the instantiation. This should be fairly straightforward because WebContentsView and BrowserView’s constructors have essentially the same shape. Both accept WebPreferences via the webPreferences param.

   - this.tabBar = new BrowserView({
   + this.tabBar = new WebContentsView({
   

2. Migrate where the BrowserView gets added to its parent window.

   - this.browserWindow.addBrowserView(this.tabBar)
   + this.browserWindow.contentView.addChildView(this.tabBar);
   

3. Migrate BrowserView instance method calls on the parent window.

   Old Method	New Method	Notes
   win.setBrowserView	win.contentView.removeChildView + win.contentView.addChildView
   win.getBrowserView	win.contentView.children
   win.removeBrowserView	win.contentView.removeChildView
   win.setTopBrowserView	win.contentView.addChildView	Calling addChildView on an existing view reorders it to the top.
   win.getBrowserViews	win.contentView.children

4. Migrate the setAutoResize instance method to a resize listener.

   - this.browserView.setAutoResize({
   -   vertical: true,
   - })
   
   + this.browserWindow.on('resize', () => {
   +   if (!this.browserWindow || !this.webContentsView) {
   +     return;
   +   }
   +   const bounds = this.browserWindow.getBounds();
   +   this.webContentsView.setBounds({
   +     x: 0,
   +     y: 0,
   +     width: bounds.width,
   +     height: bounds.height,
   +    });
   +  });
   
   tip

   All existing usage of browserView.webContents and instance methods browserView.setBounds, browserView.getBounds , and browserView.setBackgroundColor do not need to be migrated and should work with a WebContentsView instance out of the box!

4. Test and commit your changes​

Running into issues? Check the WebContentsView tag on Electron's issue tracker to see if the issue you're encountering has been reported. If you don't see your issue there, feel free to add a new bug report. Including testcase gists will help us better triage your issue!

Congrats, you’ve migrated onto WebContentsViews! 🎉

Historical changes to Electron APIs will now be detailed in the docs.

Hi 👋, I'm Peter, the 2024 Google Summer of Code (GSoC) contributor to Electron.

Over the course of the GSoC program, I implemented an API history feature for the Electron documentation and its functions, classes, etc. in a similar fashion to the Node.js documentation: by allowing the use of a simple but powerful YAML schema in the API documentation Markdown files and displaying it nicely on the Electron documentation website.

We are excited to announce that Electron has been accepted as a mentoring organization for the 20th edition of Google Summer of Code (GSoC) 2024! Google Summer of Code is a global program focused on bringing new contributors into open source software development.

For more program details, check out Google’s Summer of Code homepage.

About us​

Electron is a JavaScript framework for building cross-platform desktop applications using web technologies. The core Electron framework is a compiled binary executable built with Chromium and Node.js, and is mostly written in C++.

Outside of Electron core, we also work on a variety of projects to help sustain the Electron organization, such as:

• End-user distribution tooling (e.g. Electron Forge and update.electronjs.org).
• Learning materials for Electron developers (e.g. electronjs.org and Electron Fiddle).
• Internal tools to streamline developer productivity (e.g. Electron Build Tools and Sheriff).

As a Summer of Code contributor, you would be collaborating with some of Electron’s core contributors on one of many projects under the github.com/electron umbrella.

Before applying​

If you aren’t very familiar with Electron, we would recommend you start by reading the documentation and trying out examples in Electron Fiddle.

To learn more about Electron app distribution, you can also play around with Electron Forge by creating a sample application:

npm init electron-app@latest my-app

After familiarizing yourself with the code a bit, come join the conversation on the Electron Discord server.

Drafting your proposal​

Interested in collaborating with Electron? First, check out the seven project idea drafts that we have prepared. All of the listed ideas are currently open for proposals.

Have a different idea you’d like us to consider? We’re also open to accepting new ideas that are not on the proposed project list, but make sure your approach is thoroughly outlined and detailed. When in doubt, we recommend sticking with our listed ideas.

Your application should include:

• Your proposal: a written document that describes in detail what you plan to achieve over the course of the summer.
• Your background as a developer. If you have a resume, please include a copy. Otherwise, tell us about your past technical experience.
  • Lack of experience in certain areas won’t disqualify you, but it will help our mentors work out a plan to best support you and make sure your summer project is successful.

A detailed guide of what to submit as part of your Electron application is here. Submit proposals directly to the Google Summer of Code portal. Note that proposals emailed to the Electron team rather than submitted through the application portal will not be considered as a final submission.

If you want more guidance on your proposal or are unsure of what to include, we also recommend that you follow the official Google Summer of Code proposal writing advice here.

Applications open on March 18th, 2024 and close on April 2nd, 2024.

Questions?​

If you have questions we didn’t address in the blog post or inquiries for your proposal draft, please send us an email at summer-of-code@electronjs.org or check GSoC FAQ!

Resources​

• Electron Google Summer of Code 2024 Ideas List
• Electron Google Summer of Code 2024 Contributor Guidance
• Google Summer of Code Student/Contributor Guide

Electron’s API Working Group is adopting an open Requests for Comments (RFC) process to help shepherd larger changes to Electron core.

Why RFCs?​

In short, we want to smooth out the process of landing significant changes to Electron core.

Currently, new code changes are mostly discussed through issues and pull requests on GitHub. For most changes to Electron, this is a good system. Many bug fixes, documentation changes, and even new features are straightforward enough to review and merge asynchronously through standard GitHub flows.

For changes that are more significant—for instance, large API surfaces or breaking changes that would affect the majority of Electron apps—it makes sense for review to happen at the ideation stage before most of the code is written.

This process is designed to be open to the public, which will also make it easier for the open source community at large to give feedback on potential changes before they land in Electron.

How does it work?​

The entire RFC process lives in the electron/rfcs repository on GitHub. The steps are described in detail in the repository README.

In brief, an RFC is Proposed once a PR is made to the electron/rfcs repository. A Proposed RFC becomes:

• Active when the PR is merged into the main branch of the repository, which means that Electron maintainers are amenable to an implementation in electron/electron, or
• Declined if the PR is ultimately rejected.

An Active RFC is Completed if the implementation has been merged into electron/electron.

Who can participate?​

Anyone in the Electron community can submit RFCs or leave feedback on the electron/rfcs repository!

• To see the list of active RFCs, refer to the text folder in the repository.
• To leave feedback on proposed RFCs, check out the list of open PRs.
• To submit a new RFC, check out the repo’s README and the RFC template.

We wanted to make this process a two-way dialogue and encourage community participation to get a diverse set of opinions from Electron apps that might consume these APIs in the future. If you’re interested in leaving feedback on currently proposed RFCs, the Electron maintainers have already created a few:

• Electron C APIs
• Preload Realm for Service Workers

Credits​

Electron's RFC process was modeled on many established open source RFC processes. Inspiration for many ideas and major portions of copywriting go to:

• emberjs/rfcs
• reactjs/rfcs
• rust-lang/rfcs
• tauri-apps/rfcs
• vuejs/rfcs
• yarnpkg/rfcs

The first commit to the electron/electron repository was on March 13, 2013¹.

10 years and 27,147 more commits from 1192 unique contributors later, Electron has become one of the most popular frameworks for building desktop applications today. This milestone is the perfect opportunity to celebrate and reflect on our journey so far, and to share what we’ve learned along the way.

We would not be here today without everyone who has dedicated their time and effort to contribute to the project. Although source code commits are always the most visible contributions, we also have to acknowledge the effort of folks who report bugs, maintain userland modules, provide documentation and translations, and participate in the Electron community across cyberspace. Every contribution is invaluable to us as maintainers.

Before we continue with the rest of the blog post: thank you. ❤️

How did we get here?​

Atom Shell was built as the backbone for GitHub’s Atom editor, which launched in public beta in April 2014. It was built from the ground up as an alternative to the web-based desktop frameworks available at the time (node-webkit and Chromium Embedded Framework). It had a killer feature: embedding Node.js and Chromium to provide a powerful desktop runtime for web technologies.

Within a year, Atom Shell began seeing immense growth in capabilities and popularity. Large companies, startups, and individual developers alike had started building apps with it (some early adopters include Slack, GitKraken, and WebTorrent), and the project was aptly renamed to Electron.

From then on, Electron hit the ground running and never stopped. Here’s a look at our weekly download count over time, courtesy of npmtrends.com:

Electron v1 was released in 2016, promising increased API stability and better docs and tooling. Electron v2 was released in 2018 and introduced semantic versioning, making it easier for Electron developers to keep track of the release cycle.

By Electron v6, we shifted to a regular 12-week major release cadence to match Chromium’s. This decision was a change in mentality for the project, bringing “having the most up-to-date Chromium version” from a nice-to-have to a priority. This has reduced the amount of tech debt between upgrades, making it easier for us to keep Electron updated and secure.

Since then, we’ve been a well-oiled machine, releasing a new Electron version on the same day as every Chromium stable. By the time Chromium sped up their release schedule to 4 weeks in 2021, we were able to shrug our shoulders and increase our release cadence to 8 weeks accordingly.

We’re now on Electron v23 (and counting), and are still dedicated to building the best runtime for building cross-platform desktop applications. Even with the boom in JavaScript developer tools in recent years, Electron has remained a stable, battle-tested stalwart of the desktop app framework landscape. Electron apps are ubiquitous nowadays: you can program with Visual Studio Code, design with Figma, communicate with Slack, and take notes with Notion (amongst many other use cases). We’re incredibly proud of this achievement and grateful to everyone who has made it possible.

What did we learn along the way?​

The road to the decade mark has been long and winding. Here are some key things that have helped us run a sustainable large open source project.

Scaling distributed decision-making with a governance model​

One challenge we had to overcome was handling the long-term direction of the project once Electron first exploded in popularity. How do we handle being a team of a couple dozen engineers distributed across companies, countries, and time zones?

In the early days, Electron’s maintainer group relied on informal coordination, which is fast and lightweight for smaller projects, but doesn’t scale to wider collaboration. In 2019, we shifted to a governance model where different working groups have formal areas of responsibility. This has been instrumental in streamlining processes and assigning portions of project ownership to specific maintainers. What is each Working Group (WG) responsible for nowadays?

• Getting Electron releases out the door (Releases WG)
• Upgrading Chromium and Node.js (Upgrades WG)
• Overseeing public API design (API WG)
• Keeping Electron secure (Security WG)
• Running the website, documentation, and tooling (Ecosystem WG)
• Community and corporate outreach (Outreach WG)
• Community moderation (Community & Safety WG)
• Maintaining our build infrastructure, maintainer tools, and cloud services (Infrastructure WG)

Around the same time we shifted to the governance model, we also moved Electron's ownership from GitHub to the OpenJS Foundation. Although the original core team still works at Microsoft today, they are only a part of a larger group of collaborators that form Electron governance.²

While this model isn’t perfect, it has suited us well through a global pandemic and ongoing macroeconomic headwinds. Going forward, we plan on revamping the governance charter to guide us through the second decade of Electron.

Community​

The community part of open source is hard, especially when your Outreach team is a dozen engineers in a trench coat that says “community manager”. That said, being a large open source project means that we have a lot of users, and harnessing their energy for Electron to build a userland ecosystem is a crucial part of sustaining project health.

What have we been doing to develop our community presence?

Building virtual communities​

• In 2020, we launched our community Discord server. We previously had a section in Atom’s forum, but decided to have a more informal messaging platform to have a space for discussions between maintainers and Electron developers and for general debugging help.
• In 2021, we established the Electron China user group with the help of @BlackHole1. This group has been instrumental in Electron growth in users from China’s booming tech scene, providing a space for them to collaborate on ideas and discuss Electron outside of our English-language spaces. We’d also like to thank cnpm for their work in supporting Electron’s nightly releases in their Chinese mirror for npm.

Participating in high-visibility open source programs​

• We have been celebrating Hacktoberfest every year since 2019. Hacktoberfest is yearly celebration of open source organized by DigitalOcean, and we get dozens of enthusiastic contributors every year looking to make their mark on open source software.
• In 2020, we participated in the initial iteration of Google Season of Docs, where we worked with @bandantonio to rework Electron’s new user tutorial flow.
• In 2022, we mentored a Google Summer of Code student for the first time. @aryanshridhar did some awesome work to refactor Electron Fiddle's core version loading logic and migrate its bundler to webpack.

Automate all the things!​

Today, Electron governance has about 30 active maintainers. Less than half of us are full-time contributors, which means that there’s a lot of work to go around. What’s our trick to keeping everything running smoothly? Our motto is that computers are cheap, and human time is expensive. In typical engineer fashion, we’ve developed a suite of automated support tooling to make our lives easier.

Not Goma​

The core Electron codebase is a behemoth of C++ code, and build times have always been a limiting factor in how fast we can ship bug fixes and new features. In 2020, we deployed Not Goma, a custom Electron-specific backend for Google’s Goma distributed compiler service. Not Goma processes compilation requests from authorized user’s machines and distributes the process across hundreds of cores in the backend. It also caches the compilation result so that someone else compiling the same files will only need to download the pre-compiled result.

Since launching Not Goma, compilation times for maintainers have decreased from the scale of hours to minutes. A stable internet connection became the minimum requirement for contributors to compile Electron!

Continuous Factor Authentication​

Continuous Factor Authentication (CFA) is a layer of automation around npm’s two-factor authentication (2FA) system that we combine with semantic-release to manage secure and automated releases of our various @electron/ npm packages.

While semantic-release already automates the npm package publishing process, it requires turning off two-factor authentication or passing in a secret token that bypasses this restriction.

We built CFA to deliver a time-based one-time password (TOTP) for npm 2FA to arbitrary CI jobs, allowing us to harness the automation of semantic-release while keeping the additional security of two-factor authentication.

We use CFA with a Slack integration front-end, allowing maintainers to validate package publishing from any device they have Slack on, as long as they have their TOTP generator handy.

Sheriff​

Sheriff is an open source tool we wrote to automate the management of permissions across GitHub, Slack, and Google Workspace.

Sheriff’s key value proposition is that permission management should be a transparent process. It uses a single YAML config file that designates permissions across all the above listed services. With Sheriff, getting collaborator status on a repo or creating a new mailing list is as easy as getting a PR approved and merged.

Sheriff also has an audit log that posts to Slack, warning admins when suspicious activity occurs anywhere in the Electron organization.

…and all our GitHub bots​

GitHub is a platform with rich API extensibility and a first-party bot application framework called Probot. To help us focus on the more creative parts of our job, we built out a suite of smaller bots that help do the dirty work for us. Here are a few examples:

• Sudowoodo automates the Electron release process from start to finish, from kicking off builds to uploading the release assets to GitHub and npm.
• Trop automates the backporting process for Electron by attempting to cherry-pick patches to previous release branches based on GitHub PR labels.
• Roller automates rolling upgrades of Electron’s Chromium and Node.js dependencies.
• Cation is our status check bot for electron/electron PRs.

Altogether, our little family of bots has given us a huge boost in developer productivity!

What’s next?​

As we enter our second decade as a project, you might be asking: what’s next for Electron?

We’re going to stay in sync with Chromium's release cadence, releasing new major versions of Electron every 8 weeks, keeping the framework updated with the latest and greatest from the web platform and Node.js while maintaining stability and security for enterprise-grade applications.

We generally announce news on upcoming initiatives when they become concrete. If you want to keep up with future releases, features, and general project updates, you can read our blog and follow our social media profiles (Twitter and Mastodon)!

The Electron team is excited to announce that we will be participating in Google Summer of Code for the first time this year!

What is Google Summer of Code?​

Google Summer of Code (GSoC) is a yearly mentoring program connecting open source software projects with potential contributors. Previously open only to students, anyone ages 18 and up can now register for GSoC.

For more information, check out the Summer of Code homepage.

How do I sign up?​

Are you interested in collaborating with Electron? If you are a new or beginner open source contributor, we welcome you to apply!

In order to be selected as an Electron contributor for Google Summer of Code, you will need to submit an application. Applications will open on April 4th, 2022 and close on April 19th, 2022. You can follow updates for Google: Summer of Code application guidelines here.

Want to apply? First, check out the five project idea drafts that we have prepared. All of the listed ideas are currently open for proposals. We are also open to accepting new ideas that are not on the proposed project list.

Your application should include:

• Your proposal, which is a written document that describes in detail what you plan to achieve over the course of the summer.
• Your background as a developer. If you have a resume, please include a copy, otherwise tell us about your past experience with an emphasis on relevant technical experience.

A detailed guide of what to submit as part of your Electron application is here.

You can also read through the official GSoC student/contributor guide for important tips on preparing your proposal.

If you want to discuss project proposals or have questions, come hang out in our #gsoc-general Discord channel!

References​

• Electron Proposal Guide
• Electron GitHub
• Project Ideas Document
• Google Summer of Code Student/Contributor Guide

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

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 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 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 documentation
• Project ideas document
• Season of Docs tech writer guide

Electron is working on making its release cycles faster and more stable. To make that possible, we've started the App Feedback Program for large-scale Electron apps to test our beta releases and report app-specific issues to us. This helps us to prioritize work that will get applications upgraded to our next stable release sooner.

Edit (2020-05-21): This program has been retired.

Who can join?​

Our criteria and expectations for apps joining this program include the following items:

• Test your app during the beta period for 10,000+ user-hours
• Have a single point-person who will check in weekly to discuss your app's Electron bugs and app blockers
• You agree to abide by Electron's Code of Conduct
• You are willing to share the following information listed in the next question

What info does my Electron app have to share?​

• Total user-hours your app has been running with any beta release
• Version of Electron that your app is testing with (e.g., 4.0.0-beta.3)
• Any bugs preventing your application from upgrading to the release line being beta tested

User-hours​

We understand not everyone can share exact user numbers, however better data helps us decide how stable a particular release is. We ask that apps commit to testing a minimum number of user-hours, currently 10,000 across the beta cycle.

• 10 user-hours could be 10 people testing for one hour, or one person testing for 10 hours
• You can split the testing between beta releases, for example test for 5,000 user-hours on 3.0.0-beta.2 and then test for 5,000 user-hours on 3.0.0-beta.5. More is better, but we understand that some applications cannot test every beta release
• CI or QA hours do not count towards the total; however, internal releases do count

Why should my Electron app join?​

Your app's bugs will be tracked and be on the core Electron team's radar. Your feedback helps the Electron team to see how the new betas are doing and what work needs to be done.

Will my application's info be shared publicly? Who gets to see this info?​

No, your application's information will not be shared with the general public. Information is kept in a private GitHub repo that is only viewable to members of the App Feedback Program and Electron Governance. All members have agreed to follow Electron's Code of Conduct.

Sign up​

We are currently accepting a limited number of signups. If you are interested and are able to fulfill the above requirements, please fill out this form.

This week we interviewed the creator of Jasper, an Electron-based tool for managing GitHub notifications.

Hello! Who are you?​

I'm Ryo Maruyama, a software developer in Japan. I am developing Jasper and ESDoc.

What is Jasper?​

Jasper is a flexible and powerful issue reader for GitHub. It supports issues and pull requests on github.com and GitHub Enterprise.

Why did you make it?​

When people use GitHub in their job or OSS activities, they tend to receive many notifications on a daily basis. As a way to subscribe to the notifications, GitHub provides email and web notifications. I used these for a couple of years, but I faced the following problems:

• It's easy to overlook issues where I was mentioned, I commented, or I am watching.
• I put some issues in a corner of my head to check later, but I sometimes forget about them.
• To not forget issues, I keep many tabs open in my browser.
• It's hard to check all issues that are related to me.
• It's hard to grasp all of my team's activity.

I was spending a lot of time and energy trying to prevent those problems, so I decided to make an issue reader for GitHub to solve these problems efficiently, and started developing Jasper.

Who's using Jasper?​

Jasper is used by developers, designers, and managers in several companies that are using GitHub. Of course, some OSS developers also are using it. And it is also used by some people at GitHub!

How does Jasper work?​

Once Jasper is configured, the following screen appears. From left to right, you can see "streams list", "issues list" and "issue body".

This "stream" is the core feature of Jasper. For example, if you want to see "issues that are assigned to @zeke in the electron/electron repository", you create the following stream:

repo:electron/electron assignee:zeke is:issue

After creating the stream and waiting for a few seconds, you can see the issues that meet the conditions.

What can we do with streams?​

I will introduce what kind of conditions can be used for stream.

Users and Teams​

involves means mention, author, assignee or commenter

Repositories and Organizations​

org is same as user

Attributes​

Review Status​

As you may have noticed by looking at these, streams can use GitHub's search queries. For details on how to use streams and search queries, see the following URLs.

• jasperapp.io/doc.html#stream
• help.github.com/articles/searching-issues
• help.github.com/articles/search-syntax

Jasper also has features for unread issue management, unread comment management, marking stars, notification updating, filtering issues, keyboard shortcuts, etc.

Is Jasper a paid product? How much does it cost?​

Jasper is $12. However you can use the free trial edition for 30 days.

Why did you choose to build Jasper on Electron?​

I like the following aspects of Electron:

• Apps can be developed with JavaScript/CSS/HTML.
• Apps can be built for Windows, Mac, and Linux platforms.
• Electron is actively developed and has a large community.

These features enable rapid and simple desktop application development. It is awesome! If you have any product idea, you should consider using Electron by all means.

What are some challenges you've faced while developing Jasper?​

I had a hard time figuring out the "stream" concept. At first I considered using GitHub's Notifications API. However I noticed that it does not support certain use cases. After that I considered using the Issues API and Pull Requests API, in addition to the Notification API. But it never became what I wanted. Then while thinking about various methods, I realized that polling GitHub's Search API would offer the most flexibility. It took about a month of experimentation to get to this point, then I implemented a prototype of Jasper with the stream concept in two days.

Note: The polling is limited to once every 10 seconds at most. This is acceptable enough for the restriction of GitHub API.

What's coming next?​

I have a plan to develop the following features:

• A filtered stream: A stream has some filtered stream that filter issues in the stream. It is like as view of SQL.
• Multiple accounts: you will be able to use both github.com and GHE
• Improve performance: For now the loading a issue in WebView is low speed than normal browser.

Follow @jasperappio on Twitter for updates.