Goal for this part
Track and reopen recent paths from the menu.
Treat 10-Recent-Files as the source of truth for this checkpoint. If your local tree drifted, re-clone that folder rather than mixing files from neighbors.
What you should already know
You do not need prior Electron experience for part 1. Later parts assume you finished the earlier snapshots on the same machine.
- Node.js is installed so you can run
npm install - You are comfortable editing JavaScript and HTML files
Why Electron fits Inkline
Electron is how many shipping editors wrap Chromium and Node. You get a desktop window with web UI and file-system access from the main process.
A textarea, tab strip, and menu bar map cleanly to HTML. Keep file I/O in main/preload—never trust the renderer with raw paths unchecked.
After you run the snapshot, you should recognize the behavior described in the goal—before you move on. If the window (or server) never appears, stop and fix the run steps.
Code shape
Snapshots stay small on purpose. Look for this kind of core call as you read the folder:
fs.writeFileSync(filePath, contents, "utf8");How to run it
Clone the teaching repo, open 10-Recent-Files, install what the README asks for, then run npx electron ..
git clone https://github.com/michaeldunga1/fcc-electron-editor.git
cd fcc-electron-editor/10-Recent-Files
npm install
npx electron .Common mistakes
- Ignoring platform-specific install notes in the snapshot README
- Case-sensitive filters that surprise users
- Filtering the wrong collection (all rows vs current folder)
- Clearing the query box without restoring the full list