Electron for Desktop Developers

Let's be honest. Yes, web applications in web browsers have become very powerful with modern browsers and HTML5. But there will probably always be a need for desktop applications. On Windows, WPF has been in standstill for years and the Windows Tile Framework (WTF) applications never went anywhere. On Mac, Cocoa is powerful, but it has a high learning curve. And developing separate applications for Windows and Mac gives you two separate code bases. What if you could build a desktop application in HTML5, but without the limitations of the web browser sandbox? Imagine being able to build a desktop application with a web front-end and complete access to the desktop. Wouldn't that be interesting? Well, we have that today in Electron, the engine behind the Atom text editor, Visual Studio Code, and many other desktop applications. In this session, I will introduce you to Electron and the architecture for Electron applications. I will also show you how to get started building applications with Electron and how to package and distribute your applications for deployment to your users. Come learn about this fascinating new realm of desktop development!