Electron allows developers to build desktop applications with web technologies like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. It uses Chromium and Node.js to package apps so they can run natively on desktop and gain capabilities like offline use, while reusing existing frontend skills. Some benefits are auto-updates, debugging tools and native UI integration, though apps can be large and occasional performance issues occur. Developers can leverage existing JavaScript skills and libraries to build the app interface and backend, communicating between processes using Electron's IPC and remote APIs.

1. Electron
Desktop apps with HTML,
CSS & Javascript

2. /whoami
‣ Debopam Sengupta (Dev)
‣ Software Engineer @ AfterShip Ltd.
‣ Programming Enthusiast
‣ Budding open-source contributor
@debopamsengupta

3. Why Desktop Apps?
‣ Fast and responsive
‣ Better User Experience
‣ Offline access
‣ Privacy
‣ Reduced server costs

4. But it’s not so easy…
‣ Platform-specific languages (C# , C++,
Objective-C)
‣ Different desktop environments
‣ Handle updates separately

5. What is Electron?
+

6. The Good
Auto-updates Crash reporting Debugging Tools
Open-source Native UI integration

7. The Iffy…
‣ Not yet v1.0.0, so expect lots of changes.
‣ Occasional performance issues in
background.
‣ Bundling Chromium with every app
increases app size (~40 MB compressed)

8. How does it work?
Browser process
Renderer process

9. How does it work?

10. How does it work?
Just like writing a client app in JS, we can use
‣ ReactJS / AngularJS
‣ Babel
‣ Any other npm module: moment, lodash…

11. How does it work?
Also supports digging a little deeper…
‣ Electron APIs are low-level.
‣ Use Remote / IPC in Renderer process to
communicate with the Browser process.
‣ Use in place of PhantomJS for browser
testing using ChromeDriver.

12. How does it work?

13. Sounds rather good, right?
Short demo :)

14. Thank you !