electron

BrowserWindow

Create and control browser windows.

Process: Main

// In the main process.
const { BrowserWindow } = require('electron')

const win = new BrowserWindow({ width: 800, height: 600 })

// Load a remote URL
win.loadURL('https://github.com')

// Or load a local HTML file
win.loadFile('index.html')

Window customization

The BrowserWindow class exposes various ways to modify the look and behavior of your app’s windows. For more details, see the Window Customization tutorial.

Showing the window gracefully

When loading a page in the window directly, users may see the page load incrementally, which is not a good experience for a native app. To make the window display without a visual flash, there are two solutions for different situations.

Using the ready-to-show event

While loading the page, the ready-to-show event will be emitted when the renderer process has rendered the page for the first time if the window has not been shown yet. Showing the window after this event will have no visual flash:

const { BrowserWindow } = require('electron')
const win = new BrowserWindow({ show: false })
win.once('ready-to-show', () => {
  win.show()
})

This event is usually emitted after the did-finish-load event, but for pages with many remote resources, it may be emitted before the did-finish-load event.

Please note that using this event implies that the renderer will be considered “visible” and paint even though show is false. This event will never fire if you use paintWhenInitiallyHidden: false

Setting the backgroundColor property

For a complex app, the ready-to-show event could be emitted too late, making the app feel slow. In this case, it is recommended to show the window immediately, and use a backgroundColor close to your app’s background:

const { BrowserWindow } = require('electron')

const win = new BrowserWindow({ backgroundColor: '#2e2c29' })
win.loadURL('https://github.com')

Note that even for apps that use ready-to-show event, it is still recommended to set backgroundColor to make the app feel more native.

Some examples of valid backgroundColor values include:

const win = new BrowserWindow()
win.setBackgroundColor('hsl(230, 100%, 50%)')
win.setBackgroundColor('rgb(255, 145, 145)')
win.setBackgroundColor('#ff00a3')
win.setBackgroundColor('blueviolet')

For more information about these color types see valid options in win.setBackgroundColor.

Parent and child windows

By using parent option, you can create child windows:

const { BrowserWindow } = require('electron')

const top = new BrowserWindow()
const child = new BrowserWindow({ parent: top })
child.show()
top.show()

The child window will always show on top of the top window.

A modal window is a child window that disables parent window, to create a modal window, you have to set both parent and modal options:

const { BrowserWindow } = require('electron')

const child = new BrowserWindow({ parent: top, modal: true, show: false })
child.loadURL('https://github.com')
child.once('ready-to-show', () => {
  child.show()
})

Page visibility

The Page Visibility API works as follows:

It is recommended that you pause expensive operations when the visibility state is hidden in order to minimize power consumption.

Platform notices

Class: BrowserWindow

Create and control browser windows.

Process: Main

BrowserWindow is an EventEmitter.

It creates a new BrowserWindow with native properties as set by the options.

new BrowserWindow([options])

When setting minimum or maximum window size with minWidth/maxWidth/ minHeight/maxHeight, it only constrains the users. It won’t prevent you from passing a size that does not follow size constraints to setBounds/setSize or to the constructor of BrowserWindow.

The possible values and behaviors of the type option are platform dependent. Possible values are:

Instance Events

Objects created with new BrowserWindow emit the following events:

Note: Some events are only available on specific operating systems and are labeled as such.

Event: ‘page-title-updated’

Returns:

Emitted when the document changed its title, calling event.preventDefault() will prevent the native window’s title from changing. explicitSet is false when title is synthesized from file URL.

Event: ‘close’

Returns:

Emitted when the window is going to be closed. It’s emitted before the beforeunload and unload event of the DOM. Calling event.preventDefault() will cancel the close.

Usually you would want to use the beforeunload handler to decide whether the window should be closed, which will also be called when the window is reloaded. In Electron, returning any value other than undefined would cancel the close. For example:

window.onbeforeunload = (e) => {
  console.log('I do not want to be closed')

  // Unlike usual browsers that a message box will be prompted to users, returning
  // a non-void value will silently cancel the close.
  // It is recommended to use the dialog API to let the user confirm closing the
  // application.
  e.returnValue = false // equivalent to `return false` but not recommended
}

Note: There is a subtle difference between the behaviors of window.onbeforeunload = handler and window.addEventListener('beforeunload', handler). It is recommended to always set the event.returnValue explicitly, instead of only returning a value, as the former works more consistently within Electron.

Event: ‘closed’

Emitted when the window is closed. After you have received this event you should remove the reference to the window and avoid using it any more.

Event: ‘session-end’ Windows

Emitted when window session is going to end due to force shutdown or machine restart or session log off.

Event: ‘unresponsive’

Emitted when the web page becomes unresponsive.

Event: ‘responsive’

Emitted when the unresponsive web page becomes responsive again.

Event: ‘blur’

Emitted when the window loses focus.

Event: ‘focus’

Emitted when the window gains focus.

Event: ‘show’

Emitted when the window is shown.

Event: ‘hide’

Emitted when the window is hidden.

Event: ‘ready-to-show’

Emitted when the web page has been rendered (while not being shown) and window can be displayed without a visual flash.

Please note that using this event implies that the renderer will be considered “visible” and paint even though show is false. This event will never fire if you use paintWhenInitiallyHidden: false

Event: ‘maximize’

Emitted when window is maximized.

Event: ‘unmaximize’

Emitted when the window exits from a maximized state.

Event: ‘minimize’

Emitted when the window is minimized.

Event: ‘restore’

Emitted when the window is restored from a minimized state.

Event: ‘will-resize’ macOS Windows

Returns:

Emitted before the window is resized. Calling event.preventDefault() will prevent the window from being resized.

Note that this is only emitted when the window is being resized manually. Resizing the window with setBounds/setSize will not emit this event.

The possible values and behaviors of the edge option are platform dependent. Possible values are:

Event: ‘resize’

Emitted after the window has been resized.

Event: ‘resized’ macOS Windows

Emitted once when the window has finished being resized.

This is usually emitted when the window has been resized manually. On macOS, resizing the window with setBounds/setSize and setting the animate parameter to true will also emit this event once resizing has finished.

Event: ‘will-move’ macOS Windows

Returns:

Emitted before the window is moved. On Windows, calling event.preventDefault() will prevent the window from being moved.

Note that this is only emitted when the window is being moved manually. Moving the window with setPosition/setBounds/center will not emit this event.

Event: ‘move’

Emitted when the window is being moved to a new position.

Event: ‘moved’ macOS Windows

Emitted once when the window is moved to a new position.

Note: On macOS this event is an alias of move.

Event: ‘enter-full-screen’

Emitted when the window enters a full-screen state.

Event: ‘leave-full-screen’

Emitted when the window leaves a full-screen state.

Event: ‘enter-html-full-screen’

Emitted when the window enters a full-screen state triggered by HTML API.

Event: ‘leave-html-full-screen’

Emitted when the window leaves a full-screen state triggered by HTML API.

Event: ‘always-on-top-changed’

Returns:

Emitted when the window is set or unset to show always on top of other windows.

Event: ‘app-command’ Windows Linux

Returns:

Emitted when an App Command is invoked. These are typically related to keyboard media keys or browser commands, as well as the “Back” button built into some mice on Windows.

Commands are lowercased, underscores are replaced with hyphens, and the APPCOMMAND_ prefix is stripped off. e.g. APPCOMMAND_BROWSER_BACKWARD is emitted as browser-backward.

const { BrowserWindow } = require('electron')
const win = new BrowserWindow()
win.on('app-command', (e, cmd) => {
  // Navigate the window back when the user hits their mouse back button
  if (cmd === 'browser-backward' && win.webContents.canGoBack()) {
    win.webContents.goBack()
  }
})

The following app commands are explicitly supported on Linux:

Event: ‘scroll-touch-begin’ macOS

Emitted when scroll wheel event phase has begun.

Event: ‘scroll-touch-end’ macOS

Emitted when scroll wheel event phase has ended.

Event: ‘scroll-touch-edge’ macOS

Emitted when scroll wheel event phase filed upon reaching the edge of element.

Event: ‘swipe’ macOS

Returns:

Emitted on 3-finger swipe. Possible directions are up, right, down, left.

The method underlying this event is built to handle older macOS-style trackpad swiping, where the content on the screen doesn’t move with the swipe. Most macOS trackpads are not configured to allow this kind of swiping anymore, so in order for it to emit properly the ‘Swipe between pages’ preference in System Preferences > Trackpad > More Gestures must be set to ‘Swipe with two or three fingers’.

Event: ‘rotate-gesture’ macOS

Returns:

Emitted on trackpad rotation gesture. Continually emitted until rotation gesture is ended. The rotation value on each emission is the angle in degrees rotated since the last emission. The last emitted event upon a rotation gesture will always be of value 0. Counter-clockwise rotation values are positive, while clockwise ones are negative.

Event: ‘sheet-begin’ macOS

Emitted when the window opens a sheet.

Event: ‘sheet-end’ macOS

Emitted when the window has closed a sheet.

Event: ‘new-window-for-tab’ macOS

Emitted when the native new tab button is clicked.

Event: ‘system-context-menu’ Windows

Returns:

Emitted when the system context menu is triggered on the window, this is normally only triggered when the user right clicks on the non-client area of your window. This is the window titlebar or any area you have declared as -webkit-app-region: drag in a frameless window.

Calling event.preventDefault() will prevent the menu from being displayed.

Static Methods

The BrowserWindow class has the following static methods:

BrowserWindow.getAllWindows()

Returns BrowserWindow[] - An array of all opened browser windows.

BrowserWindow.getFocusedWindow()

Returns BrowserWindow | null - The window that is focused in this application, otherwise returns null.

BrowserWindow.fromWebContents(webContents)

Returns BrowserWindow | null - The window that owns the given webContents or null if the contents are not owned by a window.

BrowserWindow.fromBrowserView(browserView)

Returns BrowserWindow | null - The window that owns the given browserView. If the given view is not attached to any window, returns null.

BrowserWindow.fromId(id)

Returns BrowserWindow | null - The window with the given id.

Instance Properties

Objects created with new BrowserWindow have the following properties:

const { BrowserWindow } = require('electron')
// In this example `win` is our instance
const win = new BrowserWindow({ width: 800, height: 600 })
win.loadURL('https://github.com')

win.webContents Readonly

A WebContents object this window owns. All web page related events and operations will be done via it.

See the webContents documentation for its methods and events.

win.id Readonly

A Integer property representing the unique ID of the window. Each ID is unique among all BrowserWindow instances of the entire Electron application.

win.autoHideMenuBar

A boolean property that determines whether the window menu bar should hide itself automatically. Once set, the menu bar will only show when users press the single Alt key.

If the menu bar is already visible, setting this property to true won’t hide it immediately.

win.simpleFullScreen

A boolean property that determines whether the window is in simple (pre-Lion) fullscreen mode.

win.fullScreen

A boolean property that determines whether the window is in fullscreen mode.

win.focusable Windows macOS

A boolean property that determines whether the window is focusable.

win.visibleOnAllWorkspaces

A boolean property that determines whether the window is visible on all workspaces.

Note: Always returns false on Windows.

win.shadow

A boolean property that determines whether the window has a shadow.

win.menuBarVisible Windows Linux

A boolean property that determines whether the menu bar should be visible.

Note: If the menu bar is auto-hide, users can still bring up the menu bar by pressing the single Alt key.

win.kiosk

A boolean property that determines whether the window is in kiosk mode.

win.documentEdited macOS

A boolean property that specifies whether the window’s document has been edited.

The icon in title bar will become gray when set to true.

win.representedFilename macOS

A string property that determines the pathname of the file the window represents, and the icon of the file will show in window’s title bar.

win.title

A string property that determines the title of the native window.

Note: The title of the web page can be different from the title of the native window.

win.minimizable

A boolean property that determines whether the window can be manually minimized by user.

On Linux the setter is a no-op, although the getter returns true.

win.maximizable

A boolean property that determines whether the window can be manually maximized by user.

On Linux the setter is a no-op, although the getter returns true.

win.fullScreenable

A boolean property that determines whether the maximize/zoom window button toggles fullscreen mode or maximizes the window.

win.resizable

A boolean property that determines whether the window can be manually resized by user.

win.closable

A boolean property that determines whether the window can be manually closed by user.

On Linux the setter is a no-op, although the getter returns true.

win.movable

A boolean property that determines Whether the window can be moved by user.

On Linux the setter is a no-op, although the getter returns true.

win.excludedFromShownWindowsMenu macOS

A boolean property that determines whether the window is excluded from the application’s Windows menu. false by default.

const win = new BrowserWindow({ height: 600, width: 600 })

const template = [
  {
    role: 'windowmenu'
  }
]

win.excludedFromShownWindowsMenu = true

const menu = Menu.buildFromTemplate(template)
Menu.setApplicationMenu(menu)

win.accessibleTitle

A string property that defines an alternative title provided only to accessibility tools such as screen readers. This string is not directly visible to users.

Instance Methods

Objects created with new BrowserWindow have the following instance methods:

Note: Some methods are only available on specific operating systems and are labeled as such.

win.destroy()

Force closing the window, the unload and beforeunload event won’t be emitted for the web page, and close event will also not be emitted for this window, but it guarantees the closed event will be emitted.

win.close()

Try to close the window. This has the same effect as a user manually clicking the close button of the window. The web page may cancel the close though. See the close event.

win.focus()

Focuses on the window.

win.blur()

Removes focus from the window.

win.isFocused()

Returns boolean - Whether the window is focused.

win.isDestroyed()

Returns boolean - Whether the window is destroyed.

win.show()

Shows and gives focus to the window.

win.showInactive()

Shows the window but doesn’t focus on it.

win.hide()

Hides the window.

win.isVisible()

Returns boolean - Whether the window is visible to the user.

win.isModal()

Returns boolean - Whether current window is a modal window.

win.maximize()

Maximizes the window. This will also show (but not focus) the window if it isn’t being displayed already.

win.unmaximize()

Unmaximizes the window.

win.isMaximized()

Returns boolean - Whether the window is maximized.

win.minimize()

Minimizes the window. On some platforms the minimized window will be shown in the Dock.

win.restore()

Restores the window from minimized state to its previous state.

win.isMinimized()

Returns boolean - Whether the window is minimized.

win.setFullScreen(flag)

Sets whether the window should be in fullscreen mode.

win.isFullScreen()

Returns boolean - Whether the window is in fullscreen mode.

win.setSimpleFullScreen(flag) macOS

Enters or leaves simple fullscreen mode.

Simple fullscreen mode emulates the native fullscreen behavior found in versions of macOS prior to Lion (10.7).

win.isSimpleFullScreen() macOS

Returns boolean - Whether the window is in simple (pre-Lion) fullscreen mode.

win.isNormal()

Returns boolean - Whether the window is in normal state (not maximized, not minimized, not in fullscreen mode).

win.setAspectRatio(aspectRatio[, extraSize])

This will make a window maintain an aspect ratio. The extra size allows a developer to have space, specified in pixels, not included within the aspect ratio calculations. This API already takes into account the difference between a window’s size and its content size.

Consider a normal window with an HD video player and associated controls. Perhaps there are 15 pixels of controls on the left edge, 25 pixels of controls on the right edge and 50 pixels of controls below the player. In order to maintain a 16:9 aspect ratio (standard aspect ratio for HD @1920x1080) within the player itself we would call this function with arguments of 16/9 and { width: 40, height: 50 }. The second argument doesn’t care where the extra width and height are within the content view–only that they exist. Sum any extra width and height areas you have within the overall content view.

The aspect ratio is not respected when window is resized programmatically with APIs like win.setSize.

win.setBackgroundColor(backgroundColor)

Examples of valid backgroundColor values:

Sets the background color of the window. See Setting backgroundColor.

win.previewFile(path[, displayName]) macOS

Uses Quick Look to preview a file at a given path.

win.closeFilePreview() macOS

Closes the currently open Quick Look panel.

win.setBounds(bounds[, animate])

Resizes and moves the window to the supplied bounds. Any properties that are not supplied will default to their current values.

const { BrowserWindow } = require('electron')
const win = new BrowserWindow()

// set all bounds properties
win.setBounds({ x: 440, y: 225, width: 800, height: 600 })

// set a single bounds property
win.setBounds({ width: 100 })

// { x: 440, y: 225, width: 100, height: 600 }
console.log(win.getBounds())

win.getBounds()

Returns Rectangle - The bounds of the window as Object.

win.getBackgroundColor()

Returns string - Gets the background color of the window in Hex (#RRGGBB) format.

See Setting backgroundColor.

Note: The alpha value is not returned alongside the red, green, and blue values.

win.setContentBounds(bounds[, animate])

Resizes and moves the window’s client area (e.g. the web page) to the supplied bounds.

win.getContentBounds()

Returns Rectangle - The bounds of the window’s client area as Object.

win.getNormalBounds()

Returns Rectangle - Contains the window bounds of the normal state

Note: whatever the current state of the window : maximized, minimized or in fullscreen, this function always returns the position and size of the window in normal state. In normal state, getBounds and getNormalBounds returns the same Rectangle.

win.setEnabled(enable)

Disable or enable the window.

win.isEnabled()

Returns boolean - whether the window is enabled.

win.setSize(width, height[, animate])

Resizes the window to width and height. If width or height are below any set minimum size constraints the window will snap to its minimum size.

win.getSize()

Returns Integer[] - Contains the window’s width and height.

win.setContentSize(width, height[, animate])

Resizes the window’s client area (e.g. the web page) to width and height.

win.getContentSize()

Returns Integer[] - Contains the window’s client area’s width and height.

win.setMinimumSize(width, height)

Sets the minimum size of window to width and height.

win.getMinimumSize()

Returns Integer[] - Contains the window’s minimum width and height.

win.setMaximumSize(width, height)

Sets the maximum size of window to width and height.

win.getMaximumSize()

Returns Integer[] - Contains the window’s maximum width and height.

win.setResizable(resizable)

Sets whether the window can be manually resized by the user.

win.isResizable()

Returns boolean - Whether the window can be manually resized by the user.

win.setMovable(movable) macOS Windows

Sets whether the window can be moved by user. On Linux does nothing.

win.isMovable() macOS Windows

Returns boolean - Whether the window can be moved by user.

On Linux always returns true.

win.setMinimizable(minimizable) macOS Windows

Sets whether the window can be manually minimized by user. On Linux does nothing.

win.isMinimizable() macOS Windows

Returns boolean - Whether the window can be manually minimized by the user.

On Linux always returns true.

win.setMaximizable(maximizable) macOS Windows

Sets whether the window can be manually maximized by user. On Linux does nothing.

win.isMaximizable() macOS Windows

Returns boolean - Whether the window can be manually maximized by user.

On Linux always returns true.

win.setFullScreenable(fullscreenable)

Sets whether the maximize/zoom window button toggles fullscreen mode or maximizes the window.

win.isFullScreenable()

Returns boolean - Whether the maximize/zoom window button toggles fullscreen mode or maximizes the window.

win.setClosable(closable) macOS Windows

Sets whether the window can be manually closed by user. On Linux does nothing.

win.isClosable() macOS Windows

Returns boolean - Whether the window can be manually closed by user.

On Linux always returns true.

win.setAlwaysOnTop(flag[, level][, relativeLevel])

Sets whether the window should show always on top of other windows. After setting this, the window is still a normal window, not a toolbox window which can not be focused on.

win.isAlwaysOnTop()

Returns boolean - Whether the window is always on top of other windows.

win.moveAbove(mediaSourceId)

Moves window above the source window in the sense of z-order. If the mediaSourceId is not of type window or if the window does not exist then this method throws an error.

win.moveTop()

Moves window to top(z-order) regardless of focus

win.center()

Moves window to the center of the screen.

win.setPosition(x, y[, animate])

Moves window to x and y.

win.getPosition()

Returns Integer[] - Contains the window’s current position.

win.setTitle(title)

Changes the title of native window to title.

win.getTitle()

Returns string - The title of the native window.

Note: The title of the web page can be different from the title of the native window.

win.setSheetOffset(offsetY[, offsetX]) macOS

Changes the attachment point for sheets on macOS. By default, sheets are attached just below the window frame, but you may want to display them beneath a HTML-rendered toolbar. For example:

const { BrowserWindow } = require('electron')
const win = new BrowserWindow()

const toolbarRect = document.getElementById('toolbar').getBoundingClientRect()
win.setSheetOffset(toolbarRect.height)

win.flashFrame(flag)

Starts or stops flashing the window to attract user’s attention.

win.setSkipTaskbar(skip)

Makes the window not show in the taskbar.

win.setKiosk(flag)

Enters or leaves kiosk mode.

win.isKiosk()

Returns boolean - Whether the window is in kiosk mode.

win.isTabletMode() Windows

Returns boolean - Whether the window is in Windows 10 tablet mode.

Since Windows 10 users can use their PC as tablet, under this mode apps can choose to optimize their UI for tablets, such as enlarging the titlebar and hiding titlebar buttons.

This API returns whether the window is in tablet mode, and the resize event can be be used to listen to changes to tablet mode.

win.getMediaSourceId()

Returns string - Window id in the format of DesktopCapturerSource’s id. For example “window:1324:0”.

More precisely the format is window:id:other_id where id is HWND on Windows, CGWindowID (uint64_t) on macOS and Window (unsigned long) on Linux. other_id is used to identify web contents (tabs) so within the same top level window.

win.getNativeWindowHandle()

Returns Buffer - The platform-specific handle of the window.

The native type of the handle is HWND on Windows, NSView* on macOS, and Window (unsigned long) on Linux.

win.hookWindowMessage(message, callback) Windows

Hooks a windows message. The callback is called when the message is received in the WndProc.

win.isWindowMessageHooked(message) Windows

Returns boolean - true or false depending on whether the message is hooked.

win.unhookWindowMessage(message) Windows

Unhook the window message.

win.unhookAllWindowMessages() Windows

Unhooks all of the window messages.

win.setRepresentedFilename(filename) macOS

Sets the pathname of the file the window represents, and the icon of the file will show in window’s title bar.

win.getRepresentedFilename() macOS

Returns string - The pathname of the file the window represents.

win.setDocumentEdited(edited) macOS

Specifies whether the window’s document has been edited, and the icon in title bar will become gray when set to true.

win.isDocumentEdited() macOS

Returns boolean - Whether the window’s document has been edited.

win.focusOnWebView()

win.blurWebView()

win.capturePage([rect])

Returns Promise<NativeImage> - Resolves with a NativeImage

Captures a snapshot of the page within rect. Omitting rect will capture the whole visible page. If the page is not visible, rect may be empty.

win.loadURL(url[, options])

Returns Promise<void> - the promise will resolve when the page has finished loading (see did-finish-load), and rejects if the page fails to load (see did-fail-load).

Same as webContents.loadURL(url[, options]).

The url can be a remote address (e.g. http://) or a path to a local HTML file using the file:// protocol.

To ensure that file URLs are properly formatted, it is recommended to use Node’s url.format method:

const url = require('url').format({
  protocol: 'file',
  slashes: true,
  pathname: require('path').join(__dirname, 'index.html')
})

win.loadURL(url)

You can load a URL using a POST request with URL-encoded data by doing the following:

win.loadURL('http://localhost:8000/post', {
  postData: [{
    type: 'rawData',
    bytes: Buffer.from('hello=world')
  }],
  extraHeaders: 'Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded'
})

win.loadFile(filePath[, options])

Returns Promise<void> - the promise will resolve when the page has finished loading (see did-finish-load), and rejects if the page fails to load (see did-fail-load).

Same as webContents.loadFile, filePath should be a path to an HTML file relative to the root of your application. See the webContents docs for more information.

win.reload()

Same as webContents.reload.

win.setMenu(menu) Linux Windows

Sets the menu as the window’s menu bar.

win.removeMenu() Linux Windows

Remove the window’s menu bar.

win.setProgressBar(progress[, options])

Sets progress value in progress bar. Valid range is [0, 1.0].

Remove progress bar when progress < 0; Change to indeterminate mode when progress > 1.

On Linux platform, only supports Unity desktop environment, you need to specify the *.desktop file name to desktopName field in package.json. By default, it will assume {app.name}.desktop.

On Windows, a mode can be passed. Accepted values are none, normal, indeterminate, error, and paused. If you call setProgressBar without a mode set (but with a value within the valid range), normal will be assumed.

win.setOverlayIcon(overlay, description) Windows

Sets a 16 x 16 pixel overlay onto the current taskbar icon, usually used to convey some sort of application status or to passively notify the user.

win.setHasShadow(hasShadow)

Sets whether the window should have a shadow.

win.hasShadow()

Returns boolean - Whether the window has a shadow.

win.setOpacity(opacity) Windows macOS

Sets the opacity of the window. On Linux, does nothing. Out of bound number values are clamped to the [0, 1] range.

win.getOpacity()

Returns number - between 0.0 (fully transparent) and 1.0 (fully opaque). On Linux, always returns 1.

win.setShape(rects) Windows Linux Experimental

Setting a window shape determines the area within the window where the system permits drawing and user interaction. Outside of the given region, no pixels will be drawn and no mouse events will be registered. Mouse events outside of the region will not be received by that window, but will fall through to whatever is behind the window.

win.setThumbarButtons(buttons) Windows

Returns boolean - Whether the buttons were added successfully

Add a thumbnail toolbar with a specified set of buttons to the thumbnail image of a window in a taskbar button layout. Returns a boolean object indicates whether the thumbnail has been added successfully.

The number of buttons in thumbnail toolbar should be no greater than 7 due to the limited room. Once you setup the thumbnail toolbar, the toolbar cannot be removed due to the platform’s limitation. But you can call the API with an empty array to clean the buttons.

The buttons is an array of Button objects:

The flags is an array that can include following strings:

win.setThumbnailClip(region) Windows

Sets the region of the window to show as the thumbnail image displayed when hovering over the window in the taskbar. You can reset the thumbnail to be the entire window by specifying an empty region: { x: 0, y: 0, width: 0, height: 0 }.

win.setThumbnailToolTip(toolTip) Windows

Sets the toolTip that is displayed when hovering over the window thumbnail in the taskbar.

win.setAppDetails(options) Windows

Sets the properties for the window’s taskbar button.

Note: relaunchCommand and relaunchDisplayName must always be set together. If one of those properties is not set, then neither will be used.

win.showDefinitionForSelection() macOS

Same as webContents.showDefinitionForSelection().

win.setIcon(icon) Windows Linux

Changes window icon.

win.setWindowButtonVisibility(visible) macOS

Sets whether the window traffic light buttons should be visible.

win.setAutoHideMenuBar(hide)

Sets whether the window menu bar should hide itself automatically. Once set the menu bar will only show when users press the single Alt key.

If the menu bar is already visible, calling setAutoHideMenuBar(true) won’t hide it immediately.

win.isMenuBarAutoHide()

Returns boolean - Whether menu bar automatically hides itself.

win.setMenuBarVisibility(visible) Windows Linux

Sets whether the menu bar should be visible. If the menu bar is auto-hide, users can still bring up the menu bar by pressing the single Alt key.

win.isMenuBarVisible()

Returns boolean - Whether the menu bar is visible.

win.setVisibleOnAllWorkspaces(visible[, options])

Sets whether the window should be visible on all workspaces.

Note: This API does nothing on Windows.

win.isVisibleOnAllWorkspaces()

Returns boolean - Whether the window is visible on all workspaces.

Note: This API always returns false on Windows.

win.setIgnoreMouseEvents(ignore[, options])

Makes the window ignore all mouse events.

All mouse events happened in this window will be passed to the window below this window, but if this window has focus, it will still receive keyboard events.

win.setContentProtection(enable) macOS Windows

Prevents the window contents from being captured by other apps.

On macOS it sets the NSWindow’s sharingType to NSWindowSharingNone. On Windows it calls SetWindowDisplayAffinity with WDA_EXCLUDEFROMCAPTURE. For Windows 10 version 2004 and up the window will be removed from capture entirely, older Windows versions behave as if WDA_MONITOR is applied capturing a black window.

win.setFocusable(focusable) macOS Windows

Changes whether the window can be focused.

On macOS it does not remove the focus from the window.

win.isFocusable() macOS Windows

Returns whether the window can be focused.

win.setParentWindow(parent)

Sets parent as current window’s parent window, passing null will turn current window into a top-level window.

win.getParentWindow()

Returns BrowserWindow | null - The parent window or null if there is no parent.

win.getChildWindows()

Returns BrowserWindow[] - All child windows.

win.setAutoHideCursor(autoHide) macOS

Controls whether to hide cursor when typing.

win.selectPreviousTab() macOS

Selects the previous tab when native tabs are enabled and there are other tabs in the window.

win.selectNextTab() macOS

Selects the next tab when native tabs are enabled and there are other tabs in the window.

win.mergeAllWindows() macOS

Merges all windows into one window with multiple tabs when native tabs are enabled and there is more than one open window.

win.moveTabToNewWindow() macOS

Moves the current tab into a new window if native tabs are enabled and there is more than one tab in the current window.

win.toggleTabBar() macOS

Toggles the visibility of the tab bar if native tabs are enabled and there is only one tab in the current window.

win.addTabbedWindow(browserWindow) macOS

Adds a window as a tab on this window, after the tab for the window instance.

win.setVibrancy(type) macOS

Adds a vibrancy effect to the browser window. Passing null or an empty string will remove the vibrancy effect on the window.

Note that appearance-based, light, dark, medium-light, and ultra-dark have been deprecated and will be removed in an upcoming version of macOS.

win.setTrafficLightPosition(position) macOS

Set a custom position for the traffic light buttons in frameless window.

win.getTrafficLightPosition() macOS

Returns Point - The custom position for the traffic light buttons in frameless window.

win.setTouchBar(touchBar) macOS

Sets the touchBar layout for the current window. Specifying null or undefined clears the touch bar. This method only has an effect if the machine has a touch bar and is running on macOS 10.12.1+.

Note: The TouchBar API is currently experimental and may change or be removed in future Electron releases.

win.setBrowserView(browserView) Experimental

win.getBrowserView() Experimental

Returns BrowserView | null - The BrowserView attached to win. Returns null if one is not attached. Throws an error if multiple BrowserViews are attached.

win.addBrowserView(browserView) Experimental

Replacement API for setBrowserView supporting work with multi browser views.

win.removeBrowserView(browserView) Experimental

win.setTopBrowserView(browserView) Experimental

Raises browserView above other BrowserViews attached to win. Throws an error if browserView is not attached to win.

win.getBrowserViews() Experimental

Returns BrowserView[] - an array of all BrowserViews that have been attached with addBrowserView or setBrowserView.

Note: The BrowserView API is currently experimental and may change or be removed in future Electron releases.

win.setTitleBarOverlay(options) Windows

On a Window with Window Controls Overlay already enabled, this method updates the style of the title bar overlay.

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