Note: This is an alpha release. Please file new issues for any bugs you find in it.

This release is published to npm under the alpha tag and can be installed via npm install electron@alpha, or npm install electron@42.0.0-alpha.1.

Release Notes for v42.0.0-alpha.1

Features

• Added Notification.handleActivation(callback) API on Windows to handle notification clicks, replies, and action buttons - including when the app is launched from a notification (cold start). #49919
• Added ELECTRON_INSTALL_PLATFORM and ELECTRON_INSTALL_ARCH variables to install binaries from other platforms and architectures. #49981
• Added app.isActive() to check if the app is the active/foreground application (macOS only). #49622
• Added webContents.getOrCreateDevToolsTargetId(). #49733 ^{(Also in 41)}
• Added a disclaim option to the UtilityProcess API to allow for TCC disclaiming on macOS. #49128 ^{(Also in 39, 40, 41)}
• Added a reason property to the Notification 'closed' event on Windows to allow developers to know the reason the Notification was dismissed. #49913 ^{(Also in 40, 41)}
• Added an usePrinterDefaultPageSize option to webContents.print() to allow using the printer's default page size. #49523 ^{(Also in 41)}
• Added animation functionality to view.setBounds and add view.setBackgroundBlur. #48812
• Added support for MSIX auto-updating. #49230 ^{(Also in 39, 40, 41)}
• Added support for --experimental-transform-types. #49711 ^{(Also in 39, 40, 41)}
• Added support for long-animation-frame script attribution (via --enable-features=AlwaysLogLOAFURL). #49706 ^{(Also in 39, 40, 41)}
• Added support for importing shared textures using the p010le 10-bit YUV pixel format. #49272
• Added support for several more safeStorage backends via new asynchronous functionality in safeStorage. #49054
• Added the ability to disable auto-focusing of WebContents on navigation using webPreferences.focusOnNavigation. #49425 ^{(Also in 40, 41)}
• Changed offscreen scale factor use 1.0f as default. #49683
• Electron now downloads its binary into node_modules dynamically on first launch instead of running a postinstall script. Added the install-electron script to manually trigger the download as well. #49328
• Enable wasm trap handlers behind WasmTrapHandlers fuse. #48983 ^{(Also in 41)}
• Extended actions support for Windows notifications to include buttons, select dropdowns, and replies. #48132 ^{(Also in 40, 41)}
• On Wayland (Linux), frameless windows now have GTK drop shadows and extended resize boundaries. To create fully frameless windows with no decorations, set hasShadow: false in the window constructor. #49295 ^{(Also in 41)}
• Replaced deprecated NSUserNotification with User Notifications. #47817

Fixes

• Added validation to protocol client methods to reject protocol names that do not conform to the RFC 3986 URI scheme grammar. #50141 ^{(Also in 38, 39, 40, 41)}
• Addressed upstream Chromium shift to enable CoreAudio Tap API for audio capture used in electron's desktopCapturer (🍏 macOS). #49717 ^{(Also in 39, 40, 41)}
• Allow dynamically updating menu item labels, sublabels, and icons. #49678 ^{(Also in 40, 41)}
• Fixed globalShortcut not working on Wayland with GlobalShortcutsPortal feature enabled. #49842 ^{(Also in 40, 41)}
• Fixed a bug that cause offscreen rendering doesn't have valid screen info and unable to get valid result of related media queries.
  • Added webPreference.offscreen.deviceScaleFactor to allow user specify a value, instead of using user's primary display's value. #48730 ^{(Also in 40)}
• Fixed a crash that could occur when using the File System Access API. #49578 ^{(Also in 39, 40, 41)}
• Fixed a macOS crash when creating a new tab from the tab overview. #49917 ^{(Also in 40, 41)}
• Fixed an application crash on MacOS where the menu observer was not being properly removed before garbage collection. #49648 ^{(Also in 40, 41)}
• Fixed an error with Windows release builds after MSIX merger. #49613
• Fixed an issue in chrome://accessibility. #49547 ^{(Also in 39, 40, 41)}
• Fixed an issue on macOS where Universal Links were not delivered to app.on('continue-activity') on cold launch when NSUserActivity.userInfo was nil. #49986 ^{(Also in 39, 40, 41)}
• Fixed an issue on macOS where calling autoUpdater.quitAndInstall() could fail if checkForUpdates() was called again after an update was already downloaded. #50210 ^{(Also in 39, 40, 41)}
• Fixed an issue that caused the RGBAF16 shared texture format to have a keyed mutex on Windows. #49798 ^{(Also in 41)}
• Fixed an issue where Chrome Devtools menus may not appear in certain embedded windows. #49794 ^{(Also in 39, 40, 41)}
• Fixed an issue where VideoFrame objects returned through contextBridge had an incorrect prototype. #49997 ^{(Also in 39, 40, 41)}
• Fixed an issue where additionalData passed to app.requestSingleInstanceLock on Windows could be truncated or fail to deserialize in the primary instance's second-instance event. #50119 ^{(Also in 38, 39, 40, 41)}
• Fixed an issue where net.fetch() requests in the main process and utility processes would permanently fail with net::ERR_FAILED after the Network Service process crashed and restarted. #49887
• Fixed an issue where nodeIntegrationInWorker overrides in setWindowOpenHandler were not honored for child windows sharing a renderer process with their opener. #50122 ^{(Also in 38, 41)}
• Fixed an issue where screen.getCursorScreenPoint() crashed on Wayland when it was called before a BrowserWindow had been created. #50092 ^{(Also in 39, 40, 41)}
• Fixed an issue where shell.writeShortcutLink was throwing TypeError: Insufficient number of arguments when called with just [(path, options)]. #49476 ^{(Also in 39, 40, 41)}
• Fixed an issue where alt+space triggered th system context menu even if an accelerator was registered for the hotkey combination. #49619 ^{(Also in 39, 40, 41)}
• Fixed an issue where calling setBounds on a WebContentsView could trigger redundant page-favicon-updated events even when the favicon had not changed. #49464 ^{(Also in 39, 40, 41)}
• Fixed an issue where cookie changed events weren't properly emitted in all cases. #49103 ^{(Also in 41)}
• Fixed an issue where frameless windows had resize issues in Mac App Store builds. #49780 ^{(Also in 39, 40, 41)}
• Fixed an issue where invalid characters in custom protocol or webRequest response header values were not rejected. #50123 ^{(Also in 38, 39, 40, 41)}
• Fixed an issue where making a window fullscreen on Windows, minimizing it and then restoring it broke previous fullscreen state. #49872 ^{(Also in 40, 41)}
• Fixed an issue where malformed custom toastXml could cause a Notification crash. #49947 ^{(Also in 40, 41)}
• Fixed an issue where menu item accelerators stopped working after the item's enabled property was toggled on macOS. #49553 ^{(Also in 39, 40, 41)}
• Fixed an issue where menu item enabled state wasn't updated during key equivalent dispatch when the menu was closed on macOS. #49875 ^{(Also in 39, 40, 41)}
• Fixed an issue where native modules would either crash or not compile for MacOS 12. #49697 ^{(Also in 40, 41)}
• Fixed an issue where permission and device-chooser handlers received the top-level page origin instead of the requesting subframe's origin. #50052 ^{(Also in 38, 39, 40, 41)}
• Fixed an issue where role-based menu items were incorrectly returning null for their accelerator property. #49558 ^{(Also in 39, 40, 41)}
• Fixed an issue where setting zoomFactor in setWindowOpenHandler's overrideBrowserWindowOptions had no effect on windows opened via window.open(). #49886 ^{(Also in 39, 40, 41)}
• Fixed an issue where some shell functionality may not work on Linux if the target window is already open. #49499 ^{(Also in 41)}
• Fixed an issue where traffic light buttons would flash at position (0,0) when restoring a window with a custom trafficLightPosition from minimization on macOS. #50183 ^{(Also in 39, 40, 41)}
• Fixed an issue whereby a duplicate "Toggle Full Screen" menu item appeared in the View menu on macOS. #49074 ^{(Also in 38, 39, 40, 41)}
• Fixed bug where opening a message box immediately upon closing a child window may cause the parent window to freeze on Windows. #50078 ^{(Also in 39, 40, 41)}
• Fixed build failure when printing is disabled. #50056 ^{(Also in 41)}
• Fixed crash in platform_util::Beep() on Linux. #49442 ^{(Also in 39, 40, 41)}
• Fixed dependency issue that caused Squirrel.Mac updates to fail. #49980
• Fixed dock menu items not respecting enabled and checked properties on macOS. #49574 ^{(Also in 38, 39, 40, 41)}
• Fixed draggable regions not updating position when DevTools is docked to the left or right in a frameless window. #49822 ^{(Also in 39, 40, 41)}
• Fixed memory leak when setting icons on Linux/GTK. #49863 ^{(Also in 38, 39, 40, 41)}
• Fixed menu bar hiding after a call to win.setFullScreen(false) when not in fullscreen on Linux. #45930 ^{(Also in 39, 40, 41)}
• Fixed menus to correctly emit menu-will-close event when closed after any submenu has been open. #49783 ^{(Also in 40, 41)}
• Fixed rendering glitches on macOS. #49608 ^{(Also in 40, 41)}
• Fixed several issues with consistent window sizing and resizing on Linux when CSD is in use (e.g. on GNOME/Wayland) and added support for creating content-sized windows. #49209 ^{(Also in 41)}
• Fixed shutdown crash on windows when hidden titlebar is enabled. #50042 ^{(Also in 39, 40, 41)}
• Fixed startup crash when V8 sandbox is disabled. #49210 ^{(Also in 40, 41)}
• Fixed webRequest handlers not being called for intercepted protocols and special net.fetch URLs. #45915
• Fixed window sizing on Linux when min/max size constraints are set or resizable is false. Windows no longer shrink below the requested max size or grow taller when resizability is disabled. #49903 ^{(Also in 41)}
• Global shortcuts can now be registered more reliably on Wayland using the globalShortcut API. #49988 ^{(Also in 41)}
• Improved the appearance of shadows and borders on frameless windows on Wayland. #50007

Other Changes

• Backported fix for 483569511. #49788
• Fixed crash in platform_util::Beep() on Linux. #49680 ^{(Also in 40, 41)}
• Refactored our MSIX updater code to use an upstream Chromium pattern and eliminates the need for special exception handling build flags. #49645 ^{(Also in 39, 40, 41)}
• Updated Chromium to 147.0.7727.0. #50115
• Updated Node.js to v24.14.0. #49941

Documentation

• Documentation changes: #46926, #49401

Unknown

• Fixed CSS selector syntax in default app styles to properly apply animations to hero icons. #49950 ^{(Also in 41)}
• Fixed an issue where some packages weren't correctly filtered on macOS in dialogs. #49444 ^{(Also in 38, 39, 40, 41)}
• Fixed squirrel.mac stacked update behavior to old staged updates. #49365 ^{(Also in 39, 40, 41)}