Custom Title Bar
Basic tutorial
Application windows have a default chrome applied by the OS. Not to be confused with the Google Chrome browser, window chrome refers to the parts of the window (e.g. title bar, toolbars, controls) that are not a part of the main web content. While the default title bar provided by the OS chrome is sufficent for simple use cases, many applications opt to remove it. Implementing a custom title bar can help your application feel more modern and consistent across platforms.
You can follow along with this tutorial by opening Fiddle with the following starter code.
- main.js
const { app, BrowserWindow } = require('electron')
function createWindow () {
const win = new BrowserWindow({})
win.loadURL('https://example.com')
}
app.whenReady().then(() => {
createWindow()
})
Remove the default title bar
Let’s start by configuring a window with native window controls and a hidden title bar.
To remove the default title bar, set the BaseWindowContructorOptions titleBarStyle
param in the BrowserWindow
constructor to 'hidden'
.
- main.js
const { app, BrowserWindow } = require('electron')
function createWindow () {
const win = new BrowserWindow({
// remove the default titlebar
titleBarStyle: 'hidden'
})
win.loadURL('https://example.com')
}
app.whenReady().then(() => {
createWindow()
})
Add native window controls Windows Linux
On macOS, setting titleBarStyle: 'hidden'
removes the title bar while keeping the window’s
traffic light controls available in the upper left hand corner. However on Windows and Linux,
you’ll need to add window controls back into your BrowserWindow
by setting the
BaseWindowContructorOptions titleBarOverlay
param in the BrowserWindow
constructor.
- main.js
const { app, BrowserWindow } = require('electron')
function createWindow () {
const win = new BrowserWindow({
// remove the default titlebar
titleBarStyle: 'hidden',
// expose window controlls in Windows/Linux
...(process.platform !== 'darwin' ? { titleBarOverlay: true } : {})
})
win.loadURL('https://example.com')
}
app.whenReady().then(() => {
createWindow()
})
Setting titleBarOverlay: true
is the simplest way to expose window controls back into
your BrowserWindow
. If you’re interested in customizing the window controls further,
check out the sections Custom traffic lights and Custom window controls that cover
this in more detail.
Create a custom title bar
Now, let’s implement a simple custom title bar in the webContents
of our BrowserWindow
.
There’s nothing fancy here, just HTML and CSS!
- main.js
- index.html
- styles.css
const { app, BrowserWindow } = require('electron')
function createWindow () {
const win = new BrowserWindow({
// remove the default titlebar
titleBarStyle: 'hidden',
// expose window controlls in Windows/Linux
...(process.platform !== 'darwin' ? { titleBarOverlay: true } : {})
})
win.loadFile('index.html')
}
app.whenReady().then(() => {
createWindow()
})
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<!-- https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/CSP -->
<meta http-equiv="Content-Security-Policy" content="default-src 'self'; script-src 'self'; style-src 'self' 'unsafe-inline'">
<link href="./styles.css" rel="stylesheet">
<title>Custom Titlebar App</title>
</head>
<body>
<!-- mount your title bar at the top of you application's body tag -->
<div class="titlebar">Cool titlebar</div>
</body>
</html>
body {
margin: 0;
}
.titlebar {
height: 30px;
background: blue;
color: white;
display: flex;
justify-content: center;
align-items: center;
}
Currently our application window can’t be moved. Since we’ve removed the default title bar,
the application needs to tell Electron which regions are draggable. We’ll do this by adding
the CSS style app-region: drag
to the custom title bar. Now we can drag the custom title
bar to reposition our app window!
- main.js
- index.html
- styles.css
const { app, BrowserWindow } = require('electron')
function createWindow () {
const win = new BrowserWindow({
// remove the default titlebar
titleBarStyle: 'hidden',
// expose window controlls in Windows/Linux
...(process.platform !== 'darwin' ? { titleBarOverlay: true } : {})
})
win.loadFile('index.html')
}
app.whenReady().then(() => {
createWindow()
})
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<!-- https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/CSP -->
<meta http-equiv="Content-Security-Policy" content="default-src 'self'; script-src 'self'; style-src 'self' 'unsafe-inline'">
<link href="./styles.css" rel="stylesheet">
<title>Custom Titlebar App</title>
</head>
<body>
<!-- mount your title bar at the top of you application's body tag -->
<div class="titlebar">Cool titlebar</div>
</body>
</html>
body {
margin: 0;
}
.titlebar {
height: 30px;
background: blue;
color: white;
display: flex;
justify-content: center;
align-items: center;
app-region: drag;
}
For more information around how to manage drag regions defined by your electron application, see the Custom draggable regions section below.
Congratulations, you've just implemented a basic custom title bar!
Advanced window customization
Custom traffic lights macOS
Customize the look of your traffic lights macOS
The customButtonsOnHover
title bar style will hide the traffic lights until you hover
over them. 如果您想要在您的 HTML 中创建自定义红绿灯,但仍然
使用原生界面来控制窗口,这是有用的。
const { BrowserWindow } = require('electron')
const win = new BrowserWindow({ titleBarStyle: 'customButtonsOnHover' })
Customize the traffic light position macOS
要修改红绿灯控件的位置,有两个配置 选项。
Applying hiddenInset
title bar style will shift the vertical inset of the traffic lights
by a fixed amount.
const { BrowserWindow } = require('electron')
const win = new BrowserWindow({ titleBarStyle: 'hiddenInset' })
If you need more granular control over the positioning of the traffic lights, you can pass
a set of coordinates to the trafficLightPosition
option in the BrowserWindow
constructor.
const { BrowserWindow } = require('electron')
const win = new BrowserWindow({
titleBarStyle: 'hidden',
trafficLightPosition: { x: 10, y: 10 }
})
Show and hide the traffic lights programmatically macOS
You can also show and hide the traffic lights programmatically from the main process.
The win.setWindowButtonVisibility
forces traffic lights to be show or hidden depending
on the value of its boolean parameter.
const { BrowserWindow } = require('electron')
const win = new BrowserWindow()
// hides the traffic lights
win.setWindowButtonVisibility(false)
Given the number of APIs available, there are many ways of achieving this. For instance,
combining frame: false
with win.setWindowButtonVisibility(true)
will yield the same
layout outcome as setting titleBarStyle: 'hidden'
.
Custom window controls
The Window Controls Overlay API is a web standard that gives web apps the ability to
customize their title bar region when installed on desktop. Electron exposes this API
through the titleBarOverlay
option in the BrowserWindow
constructor. When titleBarOverlay
is enabled, the window controls become exposed in their default position, and DOM elements
cannot use the area underneath this region.
titleBarOverlay
requires the titleBarStyle
param in the BrowserWindow
constructor
to have a value other than default
.
The custom title bar tutorial covers a basic example of exposing
window controls by setting titleBarOverlay: true
. The height, color (Windows Linux), and
symbol colors (Windows) of the window controls can be customized further by setting
titleBarOverlay
to an object.
The value passed to the height
property must be an integer. The color
and symbolColor
properties accept rgba()
, hsla()
, and #RRGGBBAA
color formats and support transparency.
If a color option is not specified, the color will default to its system color for the window
control buttons. Similarly, if the height option is not specified, the window controls will
default to the standard system height:
const { BrowserWindow } = require('electron')
const win = new BrowserWindow({
titleBarStyle: 'hidden',
titleBarOverlay: {
color: '#2f3241',
symbolColor: '#74b1be',
height: 60
}
})
Once your title bar overlay is enabled from the main process, you can access the overlay's color and dimension values from a renderer using a set of readonly JavaScript APIs and CSS Environment Variables.