Electron 15 has been released with updates to Chromium and Node.js, along with a number of API updates. This release is the first of a new accelerated release cycle that the developers say mean a new main version will appear every eight weeks.
Electron is a framework for creating native applications with web technologies like JavaScript, HTML, and CSS. It combines Chromium and Node.js into a single runtime, and apps can be packaged for Mac, Windows, and Linux. Both Atom and Electron were open sourced in 2014. During the summer Electron officially graduated from the OpenJS Foundation's incubation program, and is now an OpenJS Foundation Impact Project.
The main changes to the new release are upgrades to Chromium 94, V8 9.4, and Node.js 16.5.0. Other changes start with a move to use nativeWindowOpen: true as the default, rather than it being experimental as in earlier releases.The setting control how windows are created from trusted or untrusted content within a renderer. When nativeWindowOpen is set to false, window.open instead results in the creation of a BrowserWindowProxy , a light wrapper around BrowserWindow.
The next change is the addiition of a safeStorage string encryption API. This allows access to simple encryption and decryption of strings for storage on the local machine to protect data stored on disk from being accessed by other applications or users with full disk access.
Several changes were made in this release to the support and use of Electron fuses. Fuses are used to disable certain features for an entire application. The documentation gives the example that 99% of apps don't make use of ELECTRON_RUN_AS_NODE, meaning that those applications should be shipped with a binary that is incapable of using that feature. Fuses provide a way to disable or enable features within the Electron binary at package time before you code sign your app. The new release adds a new fuse for enforcing code signatures on the app.asar file your application loads. There's also new experimental cookie encryption support behind fuses, and new fuses to disable NODE_OPTIONS and --inspect debug arguments in packaged apps.
Other improvements include a new 'frame-created' event for WebContents that provides info when a frame is created in the page, and a new cookie encryption api to allow users to encrypt, decrypt strings and check whether encryption is available.
Following a well-established pattern both Google's and Microsoft's Developer Conferences will take place in May while Apple follows on in June. Here are the dates plus what to expect.
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