The release of Electron 40.0.0 has been introduced, providing a self-sufficient framework for developing cross-platform desktop applications, built on the components of Chromium, V8, and Node.js.
Among the changes in the new release:
- Updated versions of the browser engine Chromium 144, platform Node.js 24.11.1, and JavaScript engine V8 14.4 (previously using Chromium 142, Node.js 22.20.0, and V8 14.2).
- Support has been added for the 'memory-eviction' child process termination flag, used when terminating a process to prevent memory exhaustion (OOM, out-of-memory).
- In Offscreen Rendering mode, support for output in the RGBAF16 format with the scRGB HDR color space has been introduced.
- A new method app.isHardwareAccelerationEnabled() has been added to check if hardware acceleration is enabled.
- The net.request API has introduced a bypassCustomProtocolHandlers option to ignore calls to additional protocol handlers.
- Methods have been added for selectively enabling accessibility features.
- The ability to import external textures as a VideoFrame object, representing a video frame, has been added.
- On the Linux platform, the systemPreferences.getAccentColor property is now available to obtain information about the system's accent colors used for highlighting active elements and the border color of the active window.
- Support for granting access to the File System API, restricted to the current session, has been added.
- Support for dynamic loading of ESM modules in preload scripts has been added, where context isolation (contextIsolation = false) is disabled.
- Access to the Clipboard API from rendering processes has been deprecated.
The Electron platform allows you to create any graphical applications using web technologies, with logic defined in JavaScript, HTML, and CSS, and functionality that can be extended through a plugin system. Developers have access to Node.js modules as well as an extended API for creating native dialogs, integrating applications, creating context menus, integrating with the notification output system, window manipulation, and interaction with Chromium subsystems.
Unlike web applications, Electron-based programs are delivered as self-contained executable files that are not browser-dependent. Additionally, developers do not need to worry about porting the application to different platforms; Electron provides the ability to build for all systems supported in Chromium. Electron also offers tools for automating the delivery and installation of updates (updates can be delivered either from a separate server, or directly from GitHub).
Notable applications built on the Electron platform include the Atom and Visual Studio Code editors, the Mailspring email client, Git management tool GitKraken, the blogging platform WordPress Desktop, the BitTorrent client WebTorrent Desktop, as well as official clients for services like Signal, Slack, Basecamp, Twitch, Ghost, Wire, Wrike, and Discord. A total of 612 applications are listed in the Electron app catalog. To simplify the development of new applications, a set of sample demo applications has been prepared, including code examples to address various tasks.
Source: opennet.ru
