Revise the docs of remote module.
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# remote
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# remote
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It's common that the developers want to use modules in browsers from the
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The `remote` module provides a simple way to do inter-process communication
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renderer, like closing current window, opening file dialogs, etc. Instead of
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between renderer process and browser process.
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writing IPC code for every operation you want to do, atom-shell provides the
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`remote` module to let you do RPC call just like using normal javascript
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objects.
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An example of creating a window in renderer:
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In atom-shell, all GUI related modules are only available in the browser
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process, if users want to call an browser side API in the renderer process
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, they usually would have to explicitly send inter-process messages to the
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browser process. But with the `remote` module, users can invoke methods of
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objects living in browser process without sending inter-process messages
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directly, like Java's
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[RMI](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_remote_method_invocation).
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An example of creating a browser window in renderer process:
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```javascript
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```javascript
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var remote = require('remote');
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var remote = require('remote');
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@ -15,31 +20,50 @@ var win = new BrowserWindow({ width: 800, height: 600 });
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win.loadUrl('https://github.com');
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win.loadUrl('https://github.com');
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```
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```
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## Remote objects
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Each object (including function) returned by `remote` module represents an
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object in browser process (we call it remote object or remote function), when
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you invoke methods of a remote object, or call a remote function, or even create
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a new object with the remote constructor (function), you are actually sending
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synchronous inter-process messages.
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In the example above, both `BrowserWindow` and `win` were remote objects. And
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`new BrowserWindow` didn't create a `BrowserWindow` object in renderer process,
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instead it created a `BrowserWindow` object in browser process, and returned the
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corresponding remote object in renderer process, namely the `win` object.
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## Lifetime of remote objects
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## Lifetime of remote objects
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Every object returned by `remote` module represents an object in browser (e.g.
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Atom-shell makes sure that as long as the remote object in renderer process
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a remote object), so when you call methods of an object, or call a returned
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lives (in other words, has not been garbage collected), the corresponding object
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function, or even create a object with the returned constructor, you are
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in browser process would never be released. And when the remote object has been
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indeed making a synchronous RPC call. And when the renderer releases the last
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garbage collected, the corresponding object in browser process would be
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reference to the remote object, the browser would release the corresponding
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dereferenced.
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reference too.
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This also means that, if the renderer keeps a reference to an object in
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But it also means that, if the remote object is leaked in renderer process, like
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browser, the object would never be released. So be careful to never leak the
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being stored in a map but never got freed, the corresponding object in browser
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process would also be leaked too. So you should be very careful not to leak
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remote objects.
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remote objects.
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## Passing callbacks
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Primary value types like strings and numbers, however, are sent by copy.
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Many APIs in browser accepts callbacks, so the `remote` module also supports
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## Passing callbacks to browser
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passing callbacks when calling remote functions, and the callbacks passed
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would become remote functions in the browser.
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But in order to avoid possible dead locks, the callbacks passed to browser
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Some APIs in browser process accepts callbacks, and it would be attempting to
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would be called asynchronously in browser, so you should never expect the
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pass callbacks when calling a remote function. Yes `remote` module does support
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browser to get the return value of the passed callback.
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doing this, but you should also be extremely careful on this.
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Another thing is the lifetime of the remote callbacks in browser, it might be
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First, in order to avoid dead locks, the callbacks passed to browser process
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very tempting to do things like following:
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would be called asynchronously, so you should not expect the browser process to
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get the return value of the passed callbacks.
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Second, the callbacks passed to browser process would not get released
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automatically after they were called, instead they would persistent until the
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browser process garbage collected them.
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For example, following code seems innocent at first glance, It installed a
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callback for the `close` event on a remote object:
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```javascript
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```javascript
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var remote = require('remote');
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var remote = require('remote');
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@ -48,35 +72,34 @@ remote.getCurrentWindow().on('close', function() {
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});
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});
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```
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```
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Yes it will work correctly, but when you reload the window, the callback you
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But the callback would be stored in the browser process persistently until you
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setup on the object in browser will not be erased, resources are leaked and
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explicitly uninstall it! So each time you reload your window, the callback would
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there is no magic in javascript to release a referenced object.
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be installed for once and previous callbacks were just leak. To make things
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worse, since the context of previously installed callbacks have been released,
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when `close` event was emitted exceptions would happen in browser process.
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So if you really need to keep a reference of callbacks in browser, you should
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So generally, unless you are clear what you are doing, you should always avoid
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write the callback in browser and send messages to renderer. And also make use
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passing callbacks to browser process.
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of DOM's events like `unload` and `beforeunload`, they will work perfectly.
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## remote.require(module)
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## remote.require(module)
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* `module` String
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* `module` String
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Return a module in browser.
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Returns the object returned by `require(module)` in the browser process.
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## remote.getCurrentWindow()
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## remote.getCurrentWindow()
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Return the `BrowserWindow` object that represents current window.
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Returns the [BrowserWindow](../browser/browser-window.md) object which
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represents current window.
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`Note:` it doesn't return the `window` object which represents the global
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scope, instead it returns an instance of the `BrowserWindow` class which is
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created with `browser-window` module in browser.
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## remote.getGlobal(name)
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## remote.getGlobal(name)
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* `name` String
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* `name` String
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Return the `global[name]` value in browser.
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Returns the global variable of `name` (e.g. `global[name]`) in the browser
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process.
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## remote.process
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## remote.process
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Getter to return the `process` object in browser, this is the same with
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Returns the `process` object in the browser process, this is the same with
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`remote.getGlobal('process')` but gets cached.
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`remote.getGlobal('process')` but gets cached.
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