
These companies and many other developers are drawn to the framework for its ease of use, ability to deploy across platforms and the familiar use of JavaScript, HTML and CSS to create user interfaces. Many popular desktop applications use Electron, including GitHub Desktop (GitHub created Electron), Slack, Skype, Mailspring, Visual Studio Code and Atom. The only downside is that these applications involve more overhead than the purely native applications, which means that they may have a bit slower performance and some other limitations.

In addition, the main process can access the native graphical user interface through a series of Electron modules, which makes it possible to interact with the underlying operating system.

The renderer process takes a web page and renders it into a window with a native feel and a very high level of compatibility with standards. Using Chromium and Node.js, the platform starts a main process with renderer processes for each browser window. What is Electron?Įlectron is a platform for building cross-platform desktop applications with JavaScript, HTML and CSS.
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Let's take a look at how Electron apps are conventionally tested, as well as how to test them with TestComplete. Fortunately, new testing frameworks are making it easier than ever to handle these new scenarios, including tools like TestComplete. While there are many JavaScript testing frameworks, it’s challenging to connect them to a desktop environment.

While older technologies may have well-established test automation tools, newer languages and frameworks may lack some of these features, making it challenging for developers to get up-to-speed with Agile best practices.Įlectron is a great example of a platform that can make testing difficult by merging web and desktop paradigms. New languages and frameworks are always pushing the envelope when it comes to developing software applications.
