Learning Path: Electron: App Development With Electron

Efficiently build, package, and distribute your Electron applications

What you'll learn

Find out which desktop applications Electron makes sense

Accelerate your application development using Electron

Create high quality desktop experiences using web technologies

Get an Understanding about how Electron works

Prepare your Electron application for application store submissions

Code-sign your Electron application to ensure integrity

Automate your deployments using continuous integration services

Configure Travis CI and Appveyor CI to automatically build and deploy Electron applications

Requirements

Prior knowledge of building static web pages using HTML and CSS is needed.

Description

Electron is a popular open source framework that allows you to build desktop applications using the skills you already possess as a front-end developer. So, if you are a web developer who wants to build modern apps with Electron, then go for this Learning Path.

Packt’s Video Learning Paths are a series of individual video products put together in a logical and stepwise manner such that each video builds on the skills learned in the video before it.



The highlights of this Learning Path are:


Build your Electron application and debug it
Create high quality desktop experiences using web technologies
Automate your deployments using continuous integration services

Let’s take a quick look at your learning journey. You will start with the introduction of Electron. You will then dive into all you need to know to start writing your first Electron application, where you will learn the main APIs provided by the platform and how to apply them to real-world scenarios. You will then know how to test and debug Electron applications, and will conclude with an in-depth knowledge of how Electron works, and how its architectured, so you have all the necessary knowledge to tackle even the most challenging problems. Next, you will go through detailed explanation on how to properly package, sign, and distribute Electron applications. You will also cover every single major operating system in detail by using tools that automate the whole process. Finally, you will address how to set up an auto-updating infrastructure, and discuss various tips & tricks related to packaging and distribution.


By the end of this Learning Path, you will be well versed with building and distributing applications using the Electron framework.

Meet Your Expert:

We have the best works of the following esteemed author to ensure that your learning journey is smooth:

Juan Cruz Viotti is a software engineering team lead at resin .io. He is an active member of the open source community, and is the maintainer of several open source projects, most notably Etcher, a cross-platform image writer desktop application focused on IoT.  Juan approaches software engineering with a focus on testability, and maintainability, and has extensive experience with web technologies on browser, server, mobile, desktop, and embedded applications.

Overview

Section 1: Building Electron Applications

Lecture 1 The Course Overview

Lecture 2 What is Electron?

Lecture 3 Why Would You Like to Develop an Electron Application?

Lecture 4 How Electron Development Differs from Traditional SPAs

Lecture 5 Electron Hello World

Lecture 6 Electron BrowserWindow

Lecture 7 Children Windows

Lecture 8 Electron Dialogs

Lecture 9 Electron Menus

Lecture 10 Electron Tray

Lecture 11 Electron Notifications

Lecture 12 Window Progress Bars

Lecture 13 Desktop Specific Styles

Lecture 14 File Protocols

Lecture 15 Clipboard

Lecture 16 Shell

Lecture 17 Elevation

Lecture 18 Keyboard Shortcuts

Lecture 19 Storing Settings and Misc Files

Lecture 20 Unit Testing with Electron-Mocha

Lecture 21 Integration Testing with Spectron

Lecture 22 Set Up a Cross Platform Manual Testing Environment

Lecture 23 Electron Crash Reporter

Lecture 24 Introduction to Electron DevTools

Lecture 25 The Electron Architecture

Lecture 26 The Electron IPC

Lecture 27 Electron vs NW.js

Lecture 28 How to Build Electron

Section 2: Distributing Electron Applications

Lecture 29 The Course Overview

Lecture 30 Basics of Packaging

Lecture 31 Where to Publish?

Lecture 32 Managing Electron Native Modules

Lecture 33 Introduction to electron-builder

Lecture 34 Building Debian Packages

Lecture 35 Building RPM Packages

Lecture 36 Building AppImages

Lecture 37 Building Snap Packages

Lecture 38 Configure GNU/Linux Builds on Travis CI

Lecture 39 Building DMG Archives

Lecture 40 Building PKG Packages

Lecture 41 Code Signing

Lecture 42 Building Mac App Store Packages

Lecture 43 Configure macOS Builds on Travis CI

Lecture 44 Building NSIS Installers

Lecture 45 Building Portable Packages

Lecture 46 Code Signing

Lecture 47 Building AppX Packages

Lecture 48 Configure Windows Builds on Appveyor CI

Lecture 49 Setup Auto Updates for macOS

Lecture 50 Setup Auto Updates for Windows

Lecture 51 Setup Auto Updates for AppImages

Lecture 52 Compressing Binaries/Libraries with UPX

Lecture 53 Reproducible Builds with NPM Shrinkwrap

Lecture 54 Minify and Concatenate JavaScript

Lecture 55 Packaging Web Applications in a Desktop Shell

This Learning Path is targeted at emerging web developers who have experience of building static web pages using HTML and CSS.