4d078fdb03
* remove 'basically' from docs * remove 'simply' from docs * remove most uses of 'just' from docs
107 lines
4.6 KiB
Markdown
107 lines
4.6 KiB
Markdown
# Source Code Directory Structure
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The source code of Electron is separated into a few parts, mostly
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following Chromium on the separation conventions.
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You may need to become familiar with [Chromium's multi-process
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architecture](https://dev.chromium.org/developers/design-documents/multi-process-architecture)
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to understand the source code better.
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## Structure of Source Code
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```diff
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Electron
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├── atom/ - C++ source code.
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| ├── app/ - System entry code.
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| ├── browser/ - The frontend including the main window, UI, and all of the
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| | main process things. This talks to the renderer to manage web pages.
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| | ├── ui/ - Implementation of UI stuff for different platforms.
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| | | ├── cocoa/ - Cocoa specific source code.
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| | | ├── win/ - Windows GUI specific source code.
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| | | └── x/ - X11 specific source code.
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| | ├── api/ - The implementation of the main process APIs.
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| | ├── net/ - Network related code.
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| | ├── mac/ - Mac specific Objective-C source code.
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| | └── resources/ - Icons, platform-dependent files, etc.
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| ├── renderer/ - Code that runs in renderer process.
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| | └── api/ - The implementation of renderer process APIs.
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| └── common/ - Code that used by both the main and renderer processes,
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| including some utility functions and code to integrate node's message
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| loop into Chromium's message loop.
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| └── api/ - The implementation of common APIs, and foundations of
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| Electron's built-in modules.
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├── brightray/ - Thin shim over libcc that makes it easier to use.
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├── chromium_src/ - Source code copied from Chromium. See below.
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├── default_app/ - The default page to show when Electron is started without
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| providing an app.
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├── docs/ - Documentations.
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├── lib/ - JavaScript source code.
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| ├── browser/ - Javascript main process initialization code.
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| | └── api/ - Javascript API implementation.
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| ├── common/ - JavaScript used by both the main and renderer processes
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| | └── api/ - Javascript API implementation.
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| └── renderer/ - Javascript renderer process initialization code.
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| └── api/ - Javascript API implementation.
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├── spec/ - Automatic tests.
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├── electron.gyp - Building rules of Electron.
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└── common.gypi - Compiler specific settings and building rules for other
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components like `node` and `breakpad`.
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```
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## `/chromium_src`
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The files in `/chromium_src` tend to be pieces of Chromium that aren't part of
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the content layer. For example to implement Pepper API, we need some wiring
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similar to what official Chrome does. We could have built the relevant
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sources as a part of [libcc](../glossary.md#libchromiumcontent) but most
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often we don't require all the features (some tend to be proprietary,
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analytics stuff) so we took parts of the code. These could have easily
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been patches in libcc, but at the time when these were written the goal of
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libcc was to maintain very minimal patches and chromium_src changes tend to be
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big ones. Also, note that these patches can never be upstreamed unlike other
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libcc patches we maintain now.
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## Structure of Other Directories
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* **script** - Scripts used for development purpose like building, packaging,
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testing, etc.
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* **tools** - Helper scripts used by gyp files, unlike `script`, scripts put
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here should never be invoked by users directly.
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* **vendor** - Source code of third party dependencies, we didn't use
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`third_party` as name because it would confuse it with the same directory in
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Chromium's source code tree.
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* **node_modules** - Third party node modules used for building.
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* **out** - Temporary output directory of `ninja`.
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* **dist** - Temporary directory created by `script/create-dist.py` script
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when creating a distribution.
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* **external_binaries** - Downloaded binaries of third-party frameworks which
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do not support building with `gyp`.
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## Keeping Git Submodules Up to Date
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The Electron repository has a few vendored dependencies, found in the
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[/vendor][vendor] directory. Occasionally you might see a message like this
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when running `git status`:
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```sh
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$ git status
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modified: vendor/libchromiumcontent (new commits)
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modified: vendor/node (new commits)
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```
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To update these vendored dependencies, run the following command:
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```sh
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git submodule update --init --recursive
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```
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If you find yourself running this command often, you can create an alias for it
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in your `~/.gitconfig` file:
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```sh
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[alias]
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su = submodule update --init --recursive
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```
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[vendor]: https://github.com/electron/electron/tree/master/vendor
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