Building Native Experiences with Electron
•
11 likes•19,811 views
Listen to this talk! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIRXVGVPzn8 Tips and tricks for creating Electron apps that look beautiful and work the way users expect.
Recommended
More Related Content
What's hot
What's hot (20)
Viewers also liked
Similar to Building Native Experiences with Electron
Similar to Building Native Experiences with Electron (20)
Recently uploaded
Recently uploaded (20)
Building Native Experiences with Electron
- 1. Building “Native” Experiences with Electron Ben Gotow (@bengotow)
- 2. Building “Native” Experiences with Electron Beautiful apps that behave the way users expect Ben Gotow (@bengotow)
- 4. Kitematic
- 5. Window Frame Remove the standard frame by passing BrowserWindow the {frame: false} option. Add custom window controls to the document body. <div name="ToolbarWindowControls" class="toolbar-window-controls"> <button class="close" onClick="require('remote').getCurrentWindow().close()"></button> <button class="minimize" onClick="require('remote').getCurrentWindow().minimize()"></button> <button class="maximize" onClick="require('remote').getCurrentWindow().maximize()"></button> </div>
- 6. Draggable Toolbars -webkit-app-region allows you to specify that all or part of the DOM is the window drag handle. Caveats: • The visibility and z-index of drag regions does not matter. • Your app does not receive any click events inside drag regions. .toolbar { -webkit-app-region: drag; .toolbar-window-controls { -webkit-app-region: no-drag; } }
- 7. Kitematic, Mac OS X Kitematic, Windows
- 8. Add a platform class to the document body, and use it to change the appearance of toolbars and buttons. Really intense: Read Mac OS X defaults to detect appropriate gumdrop colors and styles. Platform-specific Style document.body.classList.add(“platform" + process.platform) defaults read -g AppleAquaColorVariant defaults read -g AppleInterfaceStyle
- 9. Focus
- 10. Focus Attach an additional blurred CSS class to <body> when the window is blurred, adjust styling of: • Window frame • Selected items • Buttons Caveats: • Listen to BrowserWindow blur/ focus, not window blur/focus, which triggers when you focus iFrames.
- 11. Focus Main Process Renderer Process @browserWindow.on ’focus’, => @browserWindow.webContents.send(‘browser-window-focus’) @browserWindow.on ’blur’, => @browserWindow.webContents.send(‘browser-window-blur’) ipc.on ’browser-window-focus’, => document.body.classList.remove(‘blurred’) ipc.on ’browser-window-blur’, => document.body.classList.add(‘blurred’)
- 12. First Mouse • Use accept-first-mouse: true • On Windows, you can click window contents from the background. • On Mac OS X, you can click toolbar items and window controls from the background. (Use pointer-events:none to disable background interaction with everything else.)
- 13. Cursor Considerations for Mac OS X • Stick to standard cursors. Use the hand cursor sparingly. On the Mac, it is typically only seen in web views. • Hover states are only used to reveal additional hidden options (like an X on a tab). Buttons, tabs, links, etc. have no hover states.
- 14. Images • Apply -webkit-user-drag: none to all images and -webkit-user-drag: text to everything else. • Support Retina displays! Choose images based on window.devicePixelRatio • Scale images by manually declaring their width and height, or specifying CSS zoom:0.5 when on a retina display.
- 15. Sound • Use with care! Unlike mobile apps, desktop software rarely makes noise. There are no audible clicks, pops, bounces. • Sound should accompany actions when impact may not be obvious. playSound: (filename) -> a = new Audio() a.src = path.join(resourcePath, ‘static’, ‘sounds’, filename) a.autoplay = true a.play()
- 16. Retina Borders • Chrome CSS borders must be 1pt - on Retina displays, they render as two pixels. But you /can/ make half-point box shadows. box-shadow: 0 0.5px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15), 0 -0.5px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15), 0.5px 0 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15), -0.5px 0 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15), 0 1px 1px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.15);
- 17. ben@nylas.com
- 18. Meet user expectations, or communicate new expectations?
- 19. Meet user expectations, or communicate new expectations?
- 20. Change Expectations • Avoids the uncanny valley by using interface elements that communicate platform standards do not apply. • Users don’t expect Spotify to behave like Windows or Mac OS X