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Show HN: Vuido builds desktop apps using Vue.js without Electron

forum.vuejs.org

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Re: Show HN: Vuido builds desktop apps using Vue.js without Electron

#81

I feel like there's room for an Electron variant that's just "less electron". As in, I don't need all of Chrome to do my thing; just the HTML rendering engine and JavaScript interpreter. The thing that makes it 50gb is all the web sockets and ie4-comparable-iframe-shims that nobody ever uses on the desktop. Lop all that stuff and see how big the install is and how much memory it uses. My guess is it would be a lot le…

I'd welcome optimizations, but do we really care if an app is 50MB, in 2018? I see a lot of bashing against Electron because of the size and memory consumption of Electron apps, but at least on Linux Electron is a blessing. Many times it's either an Electron app or no app at all, as many companies wouldn't bother supporting Linux if Electron didn't make it so cheap and easy. With that in mind, with many laptops comin…

Not everyone is rich to buy such laptops.

Also I don't know any no technical friend using more than 4GB on their computers.

Re: Show HN: Vuido builds desktop apps using Vue.js without Electron

#82
post #14

One question: why would you use the awful clusterfuck that is JavaScript on the desktop where you’ve got the freedom to choose from dozens of lovely languages that actually are a pleasure to use? JS is a necessary evil on the web, but why inflict such pain to yourself when you’re able to use something else?

Normally I would agree, but GUI development with Vue is such a lovely experience. It takes advantage of many of the newer JS features to make this possible (automatic data binding via property get/set interception, for example). As a consequence it's hard to imagine providing the same in another, better language.

.NET has been doing it since 2008.

Re: Show HN: Vuido builds desktop apps using Vue.js without Electron

#84

I feel like there's room for an Electron variant that's just "less electron". As in, I don't need all of Chrome to do my thing; just the HTML rendering engine and JavaScript interpreter. The thing that makes it 50gb is all the web sockets and ie4-comparable-iframe-shims that nobody ever uses on the desktop. Lop all that stuff and see how big the install is and how much memory it uses. My guess is it would be a lot le…

I'd welcome optimizations, but do we really care if an app is 50MB, in 2018? I see a lot of bashing against Electron because of the size and memory consumption of Electron apps, but at least on Linux Electron is a blessing. Many times it's either an Electron app or no app at all, as many companies wouldn't bother supporting Linux if Electron didn't make it so cheap and easy. With that in mind, with many laptops comin…

>but do we really care if an app is 50MB, in 2018?

What happens when every developer decides user resources are practically infinite, so every application uses as much of everything it wants to all the time?

What does the current landscape of javascript on the web look like? Not exactly a model of efficiency and speed, for more or less that reason.

Re: Show HN: Vuido builds desktop apps using Vue.js without Electron

#85
What would be the disadvantages of just using a custom build of firefox for apps that bundles non-sandboxed libraries as needed?

So for example, firefox.exe could actually be built to be my app.exe, with the generic browser UI replaced with specific app menus.

The build could have options for bundling any library, or provide a simple OS essentials abstraction library with a web sockets or local web server http interface.

It would be a single use custom UI browser “app” with the same potential power as an OS native app but easily portable.

Benefits

- I think FF is a ~50MB download so after stripping out a little generic browser functionality, simple utility apps should be about the same

- One of the biggest problems with these ideas normally is the actual multi-platform deployment can become the hardest part of a cross platform app, yet FF has a polished multi platform install/setup solution already fully figured out and maintained.

Re: Show HN: Vuido builds desktop apps using Vue.js without Electron

#86
post #68

I'm currently developing a web app and while my nw.js/electron version is around 50 MB and uses 200+ MB of memory, loading it in Firefox it's a 600kB bundle, fully renders in less then half a second, and uses a whopping 8 MB of memory in Firefox. Actually less the HN! So while I think this project is cool, if you consider using it, also consider making a in browser web app. Also remember that the browser is more then…

The extra memory usage of electron is a shame.

When you say consider using an “in browser” web app what do you mean by that precisely? Do you mean consider if you can get by using browser based offline/local capabilities and not go outside the sandbox?

See my other comment on rebuilding FF, not sure if you meant anything overlapping.

Re: Show HN: Vuido builds desktop apps using Vue.js without Electron

#87

So to me, the issue with Electron is that I'm already running Chrome, so I should be able to take advantage of that. In particular, if I have N electron apps, I want 1 Chrome running. I don't want to run certain applications inside the browser, I want the separate app icon, etc. Is there anything that is being done in Chrome/FF to support that kind of thing? That way it's up to the site consumer's preference how they…

“I want 1 Chrome running”

Why? To save a little disk space? There are a lot of downsides to that. Microsoft thought DLLs were a good idea once.

I know Chrome has better isolation but it’s still not as idiot proof and most importantly, as cheap to support as having your own totally independent app.

If a user contacts you with a bug, you immediate know for a fact it has nothing to do with any new chrome update or possible problems chrome may be having and vastly narrow down the problem space.

Re: Show HN: Vuido builds desktop apps using Vue.js without Electron

#88
post #10

you all need mote tk in your life. maybe it's time for jsTk?

Please no! Tk is inaccessible to blind users with screen readers, at least on Windows. This has been the case for decades.

thanks. Didn't know about that. only made small tools for myself with tk till now.

Re: Show HN: Vuido builds desktop apps using Vue.js without Electron

#89

What would be the disadvantages of just using a custom build of firefox for apps that bundles non-sandboxed libraries as needed? So for example, firefox.exe could actually be built to be my app.exe, with the generic browser UI replaced with specific app menus. The build could have options for bundling any library, or provide a simple OS essentials abstraction library with a web sockets or local web server http interf…

This is exactly what Electron / CEF is, except the tooling already exists for CEF, and there’s already a large ecosystem of libraries.
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