Book Image

Electron Projects

By : Denys Vuika
Book Image

Electron Projects

By: Denys Vuika

Overview of this book

The Electron framework allows you to use modern web technologies to build applications that share the same code across all operating systems and platforms. This also helps designers to easily transition from the web to the desktop. Electron Projects guides you through building cross-platform Electron apps with modern web technologies and JavaScript frameworks such as Angular, React.js, and Vue.js. You’ll explore the process of configuring modern JavaScript frameworks and UI libraries, real-time analytics and automatic updates, and interactions with the operating system. You’ll get hands-on with building a basic Electron app, before moving on to implement a Markdown Editor. In addition to this, you’ll be able to experiment with major JavaScript frameworks such as Angular and Vue.js, discovering ways to integrate them with Electron apps for building cross-platform desktop apps. Later, you’ll learn to build a screenshot snipping tool, a mini-game, and a music player, while also gaining insights into analytics, bug tracking, and licensing. You’ll then get to grips with building a chat app, an eBook generator and finally a simple digital wallet app. By the end of this book, you’ll have experience in building a variety of projects and project templates that will help you to apply your knowledge when creating your own cross-platform applications.
Table of Contents (12 chapters)

Transparent windows

Given that we are working on the screenshot snipping tool, it is vital to be able to select an area of the screen to create a screenshot. Traditionally, such tools offer a transparent and resizable window so that users can imagine the result more clearly.

You can enable window transparency by using the transparent property like so:

function createWindow() {
win = new BrowserWindow({
transparent: true,
frame: false
});

win.loadURL(`http://localhost:3000`);

win.on('closed', () => {
win = null;
});
}
Please note that transparency mode has its own platform-specific limitations. You can find all the details here: https://electronjs.org/docs/api/frameless-window#limitations.

However, if you try to run your application right now, it won't be transparent. This is because of the default background color that Create React App generates...