electron/docs/development/source-code-directory-structure.md
2016-05-06 13:25:01 -07:00

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# Source Code Directory Structure
The source code of Electron is separated into a few parts, mostly
following Chromium on the separation conventions.
You may need to become familiar with [Chromium's multi-process
architecture](http://dev.chromium.org/developers/design-documents/multi-process-architecture)
to understand the source code better.
## Structure of Source Code
```
Electron
├── atom - C++ source code.
| ├── app - System entry code.
| ├── browser - The frontend including the main window, UI, and all of the
| | main process things. This talks to the renderer to manage web pages.
| | ├── ui - Implementation of UI stuff for different platforms.
| | | ├── cocoa - Cocoa specific source code.
| | | ├── gtk - GTK+ specific source code.
| | | └── win - Windows GUI specific source code.
| | ├── api - The implementation of the main process APIs.
| | ├── net - Network related code.
| | ├── mac - Mac specific Objective-C source code.
| | └── resources - Icons, platform-dependent files, etc.
| ├── renderer - Code that runs in renderer process.
| | └── api - The implementation of renderer process APIs.
| └── common - Code that used by both the main and renderer processes,
| including some utility functions and code to integrate node's message
| loop into Chromium's message loop.
| └── api - The implementation of common APIs, and foundations of
| Electron's built-in modules.
├── chromium_src - Source code that copied from Chromium.
├── default_app - The default page to show when Electron is started without
| providing an app.
├── docs - Documentations.
├── lib - JavaScript source code.
| ├── browser - Javascript main process initialization code.
| | └── api - Javascript API implementation.
| ├── common - JavaScript used by both the main and renderer processes
| | └── api - Javascript API implementation.
| └── renderer - Javascript renderer process initialization code.
| └── api - Javascript API implementation.
├── spec - Automatic tests.
├── atom.gyp - Building rules of Electron.
└── common.gypi - Compiler specific settings and building rules for other
components like `node` and `breakpad`.
```
## Structure of Other Directories
* **script** - Scripts used for development purpose like building, packaging,
testing, etc.
* **tools** - Helper scripts used by gyp files, unlike `script`, scripts put
here should never be invoked by users directly.
* **vendor** - Source code of third party dependencies, we didn't use
`third_party` as name because it would confuse it with the same directory in
Chromium's source code tree.
* **node_modules** - Third party node modules used for building.
* **out** - Temporary output directory of `ninja`.
* **dist** - Temporary directory created by `script/create-dist.py` script
when creating a distribution.
* **external_binaries** - Downloaded binaries of third-party frameworks which
do not support building with `gyp`.
## Keeping Git Submodules Up to Date
The Electron repository has a few vendored dependencies, found in the
[/vendor][vendor] directory. Occasionally you might see a message like this
when running `git status`:
```sh
$ git status
modified: vendor/brightray (new commits)
modified: vendor/node (new commits)
```
To update these vendored dependencies, run the following command:
```sh
git submodule update --init --recursive
```
If you find yourself running this command often, you can create an alias for it
in your `~/.gitconfig` file:
```
[alias]
su = submodule update --init --recursive
```
[vendor]: https://github.com/electron/electron/tree/master/vendor