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source-code-directory-structure.md

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Source code directory structure

Overview

The source code of Electron is separated into a few parts, and we are mostly following Chromium on the separation conventions.

You may need to become familiar with Chromium's multi-process architecture to understand the source code better.

Structure of source code

  • atom - Source code of Electron.
    • app - System entry code.
    • browser - The frontend including the main window, UI, and all of the main process things. This talks to the renderer to manage web pages.
      • lib - Javascript part of the main process initialization code.
      • ui - Implementation of UI stuff for different platforms.
        • cocoa - Cocoa specific source code.
        • gtk - GTK+ specific source code.
        • win - Windows GUI specific source code.
      • default_app - The default page to show when Electron is started without providing an app.
      • api - The implementation of the main process APIs.
        • lib - Javascript part of the API implementation.
      • net - Network related code.
      • mac - Mac specific Objective-C source code.
      • resources - Icons, platform-dependent files, etc.
    • renderer - Code that runs in renderer process.
      • lib - Javascript part of renderer initialization code.
      • api - The implementation of renderer process APIs.
        • lib - Javascript part of the API implementation.
    • common - Code that used by both the main and renderer processes, including some utility functions and code to integrate node's message loop into Chromium's message loop.
      • lib - Common Javascript initialization code.
      • api - The implementation of common APIs, and foundations of Electron's built-in modules.
        • lib - Javascript part of the API implementation.
  • chromium_src - Source code that copied from Chromium.
  • docs - Documentations.
  • spec - Automatic tests.
  • atom.gyp - Building rules of Electron.
  • common.gypi - Compiler specific settings and building rules for other components like node and breakpad.

Structure of other directories

  • script - Scripts used for development purpose like building, packaging, testing, etc.
  • tools - Helper scripts used by gyp files, unlike script, scripts put here should never be invoked by users directly.
  • vendor - Source code of third party dependencies, we didn't use third_party as name because it would confuse with the same directory in Chromium's source code tree.
  • node_modules - Third party node modules used for building.
  • out - Temporary output directory of ninja.
  • dist - Temporary directory created by script/create-dist.py script when creating an distribution.
  • external_binaries - Downloaded binaries of third-party frameworks which do not support to be built via gyp.