Electron 45 gives screen sharing its own permission
· BehindLines newsroom
Electron, the framework used to build desktop applications, has a new major version. In its announcement dated October 21, the team presents Electron 45 and several changes affecting startup, permissions and the integration of local features. The version number describes the software framework used by developers; it does not mean every application built on it has already been updated.
The GitHub release page lists the bundled components: Chromium 156.0.8078.48, Node.js 24.22.0 and V8 15.6. It also records changes in behaviour and fixes. This catalogue and the announcement come from the same project, rather than two teams that have carried out independent tests.
One change affecting applications concerns screen sharing. The permission request is now named `display-capture`, separately from `media`, which is used for the camera and microphone. The team explains that an application whose rules accept only the old category may therefore find screen sharing stops working after migration.
Other changes affect preload scripts running in a sandbox. Some Node.js tools, including `Buffer` and the `events`, `timers` and `url` modules, are no longer provided automatically there. The notes describe alternatives. This requires adapting the code of affected applications; it does not amount to removing Node.js from Electron as a whole.
The version also opens an experimental interface connecting Chromium's Prompt API to a local implementation selected by the application. The project includes neither an artificial intelligence model nor a ready-to-use inference engine. This distinction limits the announcement's scope: the availability of an interface demonstrates neither a model's quality nor the presence of that feature in software already installed.
The announcement thus describes changes to the underlying framework and its compatibility rules, without demonstrating performance that applies to every computer. The two documents identify the announced features; their behaviour in each application still depends on how they are integrated.