I finally looked up what Electron is

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Cornflower
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I finally looked up what Electron is

#1 Post by Cornflower »

I may be the only one in this community to understand what Electron is, and why Electron-based apps cannot be portable, but as I still wasn't sure what it was after going over the dozens of posts mentioning it, I thought I'd share, in case anyone else is in the same boat: these apps more-or-less bundle Chromium in them, and almost always port to the internet.

I liked How to Geek's explanation from 2017.

https://www.howtogeek.com/330493/what-a ... so-common/

freakazoid
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Re: I finally looked up what Electron is

#2 Post by freakazoid »

Electron bloats the filesize of many apps due to the inclusion of the Chromium engine.

The only good Electron app I've encountered is LosslessCut and it doesn't really use the Internet.
is it stealth? ;)

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Andrew Lee
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Re: I finally looked up what Electron is

#3 Post by Andrew Lee »

Cornflower wrote: Fri Oct 22, 2021 3:58 am I liked How to Geek's explanation from 2017.

https://www.howtogeek.com/330493/what-a ... so-common/
Sounds like Electron is the new Java Runtime!

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Midas
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Re: I finally looked up what Electron is

#4 Post by Midas »

freakazoid wrote: Electron bloats the filesize of many apps due to the inclusion of the Chromium engine.

My feelings precisely -- who needs yet another 100MB plain text editor?

IMHO, relevant previous forum discussions of Electron and Electron-based programs can be found:

freakazoid
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Re: I finally looked up what Electron is

#5 Post by freakazoid »

Midas wrote: Mon Oct 25, 2021 3:50 am My feelings precisely -- who needs yet another 100MB plain text editor?
Don't forget the high memory usage!
is it stealth? ;)

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webfork
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Re: I finally looked up what Electron is

#6 Post by webfork »

Cornflower wrote: Fri Oct 22, 2021 3:58 am I may be the only one in this community to understand what Electron is
I welcome more focus on this toolset because I'm not thrilled by it's expansion, but I will point out a rant from smaragdus a few years back and my response that wouldn't be much different if I wrote it today.
Cornflower wrote: Fri Oct 22, 2021 3:58 amElectron-based apps cannot be portable ... always port to the internet
It's definitely rare to find a portable Electron app, but Atom is Electron based, is portable, and is currently in the database. I do recommend blocking any app you don't actively WANT connecting to the Internet via tools like FAB.

Like the whole problem of developing software *exclusively* for huge monitors, it might come down to the authors. Developers tend to have big monitors, faster computers, and loads of RAM and just don't see the problem with all these high system requirements.

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Midas
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Re: I finally looked up what Electron is

#7 Post by Midas »

webfork wrote:Developers tend to have big monitors, faster computers, and loads of RAM and just don't see the problem with all these high system requirements.
There's the old saying that goes something like: when all you have is a (big) hammer, all problems look like nails... :)

Shortcomings with Electron's portability are pretty much the same of its Chrome/ium siblings -- e.g, as discussed at viewtopic.php?t=23496 -- and unless devs actively devise workarounds for them (as I believe may be the case with Atom), the user is pretty much stuck with them.

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Albert90
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Re: I finally looked up what Electron is

#8 Post by Albert90 »

freakazoid wrote: Fri Oct 22, 2021 12:48 pm Electron bloats the filesize of many apps due to the inclusion of the Chromium engine.

The only good Electron app I've encountered is LosslessCut and it doesn't really use the Internet.
LosslessCut is definitely a win. It does seem like a really pointless thing to have Chromium bundled in with, but I suppose it was done for ease of development or some such.

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