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Glossary
This page defines some terminology that is commonly used in Electron development.
ASAR
ASAR stands for Atom Shell Archive Format. An asar archive is a simple
tar-like format that concatenates files into a single file. Electron can read
arbitrary files from it without unpacking the whole file.
The ASAR format was created primarily to improve performance on Windows... TODO
Brightray
Brightray was a static library that made libchromiumcontent easier to use in applications. It is now deprecated and has been merged into Electron's codebase.
CRT
The C Run-time Library (CRT) is the part of the C++ Standard Library that incorporates the ISO C99 standard library. The Visual C++ libraries that implement the CRT support native code development, and both mixed native and managed code, and pure managed code for .NET development.
DMG
An Apple Disk Image is a packaging format used by macOS. DMG files are
commonly used for distributing application "installers". electron-builder
supports dmg as a build target.
IME
Input Method Editor. A program that allows users to enter characters and symbols not found on their keyboard. For example, this allows users of Latin keyboards to input Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Indic characters.
IPC
IPC stands for Inter-Process Communication. Electron uses IPC to send serialized JSON messages between the main and renderer processes.
libchromiumcontent
A shared library that includes the Chromium Content module and all its dependencies (e.g., Blink, V8, etc.). Also referred to as "libcc".
main process
The main process, commonly a file named main.js, is the entry point to every
Electron app. It controls the life of the app, from open to close. It also
manages native elements such as the Menu, Menu Bar, Dock, Tray, etc. The
main process is responsible for creating each new renderer process in the app.
The full Node API is built in.
Every app's main process file is specified in the main property in
package.json. This is how electron . knows what file to execute at startup.
See also: process, renderer process
MAS
Acronym for Apple's Mac App Store. For details on submitting your app to the MAS, see the Mac App Store Submission Guide.
native modules
Native modules (also called addons in Node.js) are modules written in C or C++ that can be loaded into Node.js or Electron using the require() function, and used just as if they were an ordinary Node.js module. They are used primarily to provide an interface between JavaScript running in Node.js and C/C++ libraries.
Native Node modules are supported by Electron, but since Electron is very likely to use a different V8 version from the Node binary installed in your system, you have to manually specify the location of Electron’s headers when building native modules.
See also Using Native Node Modules.
NSIS
Nullsoft Scriptable Install System is a script-driven Installer authoring tool for Microsoft Windows. It is released under a combination of free software licenses, and is a widely-used alternative to commercial proprietary products like InstallShield. electron-builder supports NSIS as a build target.
OSR
Off-screen rendering.
process
A process is an instance of a computer program that is being executed. Electron apps that make use of the main and one or many renderer process are actually running several programs simultaneously.
In Node.js and Electron, each running process has a process object. This
object is a global that provides information about, and control over, the
current process. As a global, it is always available to applications without
using require().
See also: main process, renderer process
renderer process
The renderer process is a browser window in your app. Unlike the main process, there can be multiple of these and each is run in a separate process. They can also be hidden.
In normal browsers, web pages usually run in a sandboxed environment and are not allowed access to native resources. Electron users, however, have the power to use Node.js APIs in web pages allowing lower level operating system interactions.
See also: process, main process
Squirrel
Squirrel is an open-source framework that enables Electron apps to update automatically as new versions are released. See the autoUpdater API for info about getting started with Squirrel.
userland
This term originated in the Unix community, where "userland" or "userspace" referred to programs that run outside of the operating system kernel. More recently, the term has been popularized in the Node and npm community to distinguish between the features available in "Node core" versus packages published to the npm registry by the much larger "user" community.
Like Node, Electron is focused on having a small set of APIs that provide all the necessary primitives for developing multi-platform desktop applications. This design philosophy allows Electron to remain a flexible tool without being overly prescriptive about how it should be used. Userland enables users to create and share tools that provide additional functionality on top of what is available in "core".
V8
V8 is Google's open source JavaScript engine. It is written in C++ and is used in Google Chrome. V8 can run standalone, or can be embedded into any C++ application.
Electron builds V8 as part of Chromium and then points Node to that V8 when building it.
V8's version numbers always correspond to those of Google Chrome. Chrome 59 includes V8 5.9, Chrome 58 includes V8 5.8, etc.
webview
webview tags are used to embed 'guest' content (such as external web pages) in
your Electron app. They are similar to iframes, but differ in that each
webview runs in a separate process. It doesn't have the same
permissions as your web page and all interactions between your app and
embedded content will be asynchronous. This keeps your app safe from the
embedded content.