Electron 15.0.0, the latest version of the GitHub-developed framework for building cross-platform desktop applications, is now available, featuring a string encryption API and upgrades to underlying software packages.
The Electron 15.0.0 release adds safeStorage string encryption, providing a cookie encryption API to protect data stored on local disk. The API provides methods to encrypt and decrypt strings and check whether encryption is available. The upgrades to Electron’s software stack include Chromium 94, Node.js 16.5.0, and Google V8 9.4.
Also with Electron 15.0.0, the release cadence of the project changes, with a new stable release set to arrive every eight weeks as opposed to every 12 weeks for previous versions. This matches Chromium’s Extended Stable release schedule, the Electron developers said. Also, supported versions will include the latest four versions until May 2022, instead of the latest three versions.
Perhaps best known for its use in Microsoft’s Visual Studio Code editor, Electron allows developers to build desktop apps using JavaScript, HTML, and CSS. Electron 15.0.0 can be accessed from the Electron project webpage.
Other highlights of Electron 15.0.0 include:
- nativeWindowOpen: true is now the default system. This option is considered superior, offering fewer bugs, faster new windows, and more flexibility.
- A “frame-created” event has been added to WebContents, which emits when a frame is created in the page.
- An imageAnimationPolicy web preference has been added to control how images are animated.
- The continue-activity event API has been extended to support the webpageURL property from NSUserActivity.
- Numerous bug fixes have been made, including one in which a crash would occur when selecting and opening files in a native dialog on MacOS.
- A MenuItem.userAccelerator property has been added to read user-assigned MacOS overrides.
Electron 15.0.0 was announced on September 21. Electron is an OpenJS Foundation Project.
