Electron Documentation1.7.8

Docs / API / BrowserWindow

BrowserWindow

Create and control browser windows.

Process: Main

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

// Or use `remote` from the renderer process.
// const {BrowserWindow} = require('electron').remote

let win = new BrowserWindow({width: 800, height: 600})
win.on('closed', () => {
  win = null
})

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

// Or load a local HTML file
win.loadURL(`file://${__dirname}/app/index.html`)

Frameless window

To create a window without chrome, or a transparent window in arbitrary shape, you can use the Frameless Window API.

Showing 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 visual flash, there are two solutions for different situations.

Using 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')
let 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.

Setting backgroundColor

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')

let 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 app feel more native.

Parent and child windows

By using parent option, you can create child windows:

const {BrowserWindow} = require('electron')

let top = new BrowserWindow()
let 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')

let 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.

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
}

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.

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: ‘resize’

Emitted when the window is being resized.

Event: ‘move’

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

Note: On macOS this event is just an alias of moved.

Event: ‘moved’ macOS

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

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: ‘app-command’ Windows

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')
let 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()
  }
})

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.

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.

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

BrowserWindow.fromWebContents(webContents)

Returns BrowserWindow - The window that owns the given webContents.

BrowserWindow.fromId(id)

Returns BrowserWindow - The window with the given id.

BrowserWindow.addExtension(path)

Adds Chrome extension located at path, and returns extension’s name.

The method will also not return if the extension’s manifest is missing or incomplete.

Note: This API cannot be called before the ready event of the app module is emitted.

BrowserWindow.removeExtension(name)

Remove a Chrome extension by name.

Note: This API cannot be called before the ready event of the app module is emitted.

BrowserWindow.getExtensions()

Returns Object - The keys are the extension names and each value is an Object containing name and version properties.

Note: This API cannot be called before the ready event of the app module is emitted.

BrowserWindow.addDevToolsExtension(path)

Adds DevTools extension located at path, and returns extension’s name.

The extension will be remembered so you only need to call this API once, this API is not for programming use. If you try to add an extension that has already been loaded, this method will not return and instead log a warning to the console.

The method will also not return if the extension’s manifest is missing or incomplete.

Note: This API cannot be called before the ready event of the app module is emitted.

BrowserWindow.removeDevToolsExtension(name)

Remove a DevTools extension by name.

Note: This API cannot be called before the ready event of the app module is emitted.

BrowserWindow.getDevToolsExtensions()

Returns Object - The keys are the extension names and each value is an Object containing name and version properties.

To check if a DevTools extension is installed you can run the following:

const {BrowserWindow} = require('electron')

let installed = BrowserWindow.getDevToolsExtensions().hasOwnProperty('devtron')
console.log(installed)

Note: This API cannot be called before the ready event of the app module is emitted.

Instance Properties

Objects created with new BrowserWindow have the following properties:

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

win.webContents

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

A Integer representing the unique ID of the window.

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.setAspectRatio(aspectRatio[, extraSize]) macOS

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 [ 40, 50 ]. The second argument doesn’t care where the extra width and height are within the content view–only that they exist. Just sum any extra width and height areas you have within the overall content view.

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

win.getBounds()

Returns Rectangle

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

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

Resizes the window to width and height.

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 user.

win.isResizable()

Returns Boolean - Whether the window can be manually resized by 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 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.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 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')
let win = new BrowserWindow()

let 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 the kiosk mode.

win.isKiosk()

Returns Boolean - Whether the window is in kiosk mode.

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, ]callback)

Same as webContents.capturePage([rect, ]callback).

win.loadURL(url[, options])

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:

let 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.reload()

Same as webContents.reload.

win.setMenu(menu) Linux Windows

Sets the menu as the window’s menu bar, setting it to null will remove the 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.getName().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) macOS

Sets whether the window should have a shadow. On Windows and Linux does nothing.

win.hasShadow() macOS

Returns Boolean - Whether the window has a shadow.

On Windows and Linux always returns true.

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.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)

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)

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_MONITOR.

win.setFocusable(focusable) Windows

Changes whether the window can be focused.

win.setParentWindow(parent) Linux macOS

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

win.getParentWindow()

Returns BrowserWindow - The parent window.

win.getChildWindows()

Returns BrowserWindow[] - All child windows.

win.setAutoHideCursor(autoHide) macOS

Controls whether to hide cursor when typing.

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.

win.setTouchBar(touchBar) macOS Experimental

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

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

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