Electron4.0.5 / 5.0.0 Beta 3 / 3.1.4 / 2.0.17 / 1.8.8 / 1

Previously known as Atom Shell, Electron is a free and open-source GUI framework that gives developers the possibility to build cross-platforms applications using HTML, CSS and JavaScript code. It takes advantage of the frontend and backend modules that were originally made for web apps, namely the Node.js runtime and Chromium web browser.Some well-known projects created with Electron are Atom, Nylas N1, GitKraken, GitHub Desktop, and Visual Studio Code, the latter being Microsoft's very own source code editor. Actually, the developers behind Electron are behind Atom too. Besides Windows, compatibility extends to MacOS and Linux.

Create native, cross-platform desktop apps with ease

As far as the structure is concerned, Electron generally consists of three components: package.json (metadata, contains the app name and version), main.js (the main process, which creates windows and handles system-related events), and index.html (GUI, the webpage to display. After making these files, they should be moved to the "electron/resources/app" directory.Complete Electron documentation and development details can be inspected on GitHub, including a quick start guide and application distribution details. Furthermore, you can download Electron API demos, which provide an insight of the basic Electron building features in a highly intuitive and stylish interface, including code snippets and live demos.

Has feature-rich developer documentation

To distribute your app with Electron, you need to download Electron's prebuilt binaries from this page. The GUI framework can be accessed via the electron.exe file (on Windows only), which brings up a user-friendly interface and shows a command that you can enter in the console to run your app. Alternative, you can drag and drop it in this window.To sum it up, Electron provides a clean and intuitive interface for developing desktop applications with the aid of HTML, CSS and JavaScript. It's free, open source and well-documented.