Chapter 1. Introducing Electron
Figure 1.1. LevelUI is a GUI for Node’s LevelUp database built with Electron. You couldn’t build this application in a traditional browser because it wouldn’t have the ability to access a local database on the user’s computer. It also couldn’t use the LevelUI library because it’s a compiled C++ module, which only Node—and not the browser— can use.
Figure 1.2. Electron combines the core web browsing component of Chromium with the low-level system access of Node.
Figure 1.3. Brave is an entire web browser built on top of Electron.
Figure 1.4. In a browser-based web application, it might not be practical to rely on the Fetch API, given its inconsistent support. But in your Electron applications, you’re bundling the current stable build of Chromium with full support for the Fetch API.
Figure 1.5. Electron allows you to create custom application menus.
Figure 1.6. You can create an application that lives in the operating system’s menu bar or system tray.
Figure 1.7. Electron applications can use their Node.js runtimes to make requests to third-party APIs.
Figure 1.8. Electron’s multiprocess architecture
Chapter 2. Your first Electron application
Figure 2.1. A wireframe of the application we build in this chapter
Figure 2.2. The file tree structure for our first Electron application
Figure 2.3. npm init provides a series of prompts and sets up a package.json file