Electron

18 Aug, 2016

Electron is an easy to use API that allows you to create a desktop app using HTML, CSS, and Javascript. The best part of these apps are they are created on one platform and can be exported to all Microsoft Windows, MacOS, and Linux distributions.

These apps use Chromium and Node.js to ensure all the CSS and Javascript are rendered the same throughout the different platforms. The use of Node.js makes adding components from the Node library easy to add to your application.

For a test project I was able to find a boilerplate from Jakub Szwacz. He has mad the process extremely easy to get started and publish your app. To begin you can clone the repo:

git clone https://github.com/szwacz/electron-boilerplate.git
cd electron-boilerplate
npm install
npm start

Once started the basic app will begin.
Electron Boilerplate

This is a great way to get started to learn or base your own app off of. I created a simple TodoList off this boilerplate, and had made it easier to build the final app for the respective operating systems.

If you know HTML, CSS, and JavaScript give Electron a try, even for a simple application. There are a lot of tutorials and resources out there to help get you started.

Electron

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