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Migrating Slack's Desktop App to BrowserView

slack.engineering

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Re: Migrating Slack's Desktop App to BrowserView

#101

Post by krisdol »

wink wrote: post #69
SteveNuts wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here, it's really nice to have VSCode, atom, slack, etc. RAM is pretty cheap, I'd rather put money towards a better Linux machine than give that money to Microsoft for the OS.

But all the fancy stuff still doesn't work, it's mostly just fluff. (NB: I don't use VS Code or Atom and the Slack App on Linux has literally zero upsides for me vs a pinned desktop chrome bookmark or using nativefier, screenhero still misses features.)

Spotify, Slack, and Atom work fine for me, though slack is probably the most annoying one on all platforms. Atom is far from fluff in terms of functionality, but it's fine if you don't use it.

Re: Migrating Slack's Desktop App to BrowserView

#102

Post by zeveb »

Drdrdrq wrote: post #68
callalex wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t want the UI to be consistent, I want it to be platform native.

I am guessing you are not on Linux? Your priorities would be different then. For instance "similar in functionalities like on other OSs" is pretty high on my list.

I'm on Linux, and I want an XWindows-native UI. I want to be able to identify windows by their class. I want to be able to embed them. I want to be able to script them from the command line.

I don't want something which is as weak & unusable as what I'd get on Windows or macOS.

Re: Migrating Slack's Desktop App to BrowserView

#103

Post by mlvljr »

SomeCollegeBro wrote: post #93
peoplewindow wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Electron apps still have to be packaged for Linux. And cross platform apps can be written in Qt or Java too. Doesn't seem like Electron is the thing making the difference here.

Have you actually written a large scale cross platform app for Linux and Windows? Sure, Qt components will show up on both platforms. But to get them to show up the same tends to be an incredible headache, especially if custom styling is applied.

If styling needs to be 100% the same, then QML solves that no problemo :)

Re: Migrating Slack's Desktop App to BrowserView

#104

Post by didibus »

rosser wrote: post #34
Klonoar wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meh, there's often reasons to reinvent a portion of an API. You'd need to be more specific about what you see there that's an issue. I also pointed out Telegram because people, consistently, in every one of these threads, trot it out as an example of a native chat app (I don't count the Qt version in any of this, because it does not in any way feel native on macOS). To be honest, I welcome anyone to point out a compe…

No-one else doing it "right" is not an excuse for anyone to do it "wrong". EDIT: Leaving aside the question of whether the other multi-platform messaging apps also do it that poorly, and merely running with your assertion to that effect. I have neither the time nor the inclination to gather data on that question.

No one else doing it right can be an argument to show that its because no alternative is much better, and so Electron is actually the possibly right choice. It still being too slow or memory hungry for your liking still remains though. But it seems that there might not be an obvious solution to this that does not compromise on features.

Re: Migrating Slack's Desktop App to BrowserView

#105

Post by M4v3R »

amedvednikov wrote: post #86
M4v3R wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but it doesn't work for me at all. When I try to add a service, I get the login screen for few seconds, and then the whole window turns gray and I can't type anything, the only thing I can do is to close it. Tried several times with different services. Tried macOS version on High Sierra.

That's weird. What's your hardware?

MacBook Pro, early 2015, 8GB of RAM.

Re: Migrating Slack's Desktop App to BrowserView

#106

Post by satysin »

lwansbrough wrote: post #45

What the hell is taking up all that RAM? Slack is using over 800MB of RAM on my computer right now, and it's completely idle. I've got a C# process on my computer right now handling thousands of messages per second and consuming 1/20th the RAM. If you rebuild Slack in Xamarin you'd probably drop your RAM consumption to under 50MB, just a guess. JS fiends are gonna tell me C# ain't JS, and I agree. TypeScript ain't JS…

Slack is using 282 MB on my system currently [0]. I am only connected to two servers though. I don't consider 282 MB to be awful although it is a lot more than Discord which is only using 100 MB while connected to six servers.

[0]https://i.imgur.com/KiPpaAZ.png

Re: Migrating Slack's Desktop App to BrowserView

#107

Post by [deleted] »

zeveb wrote: post #100
brightball wrote: post #36

As a Linux laptop user, I fully endorse Electron. There’s so much more available for Linux because of it that would have no client at all otherwise. Between NVMe disks and the ability to have 64gb of RAM if I want...keep it coming. I’d rather have heavy software than no software.

> There’s so much more available for Linux because of it that would have no client at all otherwise. https://github.com/yuya373/emacs-slack works on Linux, and doesn't chew up CPU, RAM & disk to do it.

[deleted]

Re: Migrating Slack's Desktop App to BrowserView

#108

Post by dotancohen »

amedvednikov wrote: post #18
afandian wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When these kinds of things come up there's often complaint that desktop apps running in the browser are inefficient. As it happens, I agree. An old favourite of mine, Adium, probably never used 600 MB because I'm pretty sure my PowerBook G4 had less RAM than that. But I think it's a mistake to jump to the conclusion that these apps should be written in a native framework rather than a web view. Slack is doing much mo…

That's why I'm developing eul, a lightweight native desktop client for Slack, Skype, Facebook etc: https://eul.im It's only 4 MB and handles tens of thousands of Slack messages in one chat without lag. 1.0 release is going to be out in early November.

This looks really nice. Two issues:

1. Downloading embedded web browswer had been at 0% for a few minutes. At I went to close it, I noticed the counter creep up to 1%. The download is _slow_!

2. Not open source. I cannot trust a proprietary app with my login information to my communication channels.

Once the app is open source, I'll happily give it another try. Thanks!

Re: Migrating Slack's Desktop App to BrowserView

#109

Post by sidlls »

SomeCollegeBro wrote: post #93
peoplewindow wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Electron apps still have to be packaged for Linux. And cross platform apps can be written in Qt or Java too. Doesn't seem like Electron is the thing making the difference here.

Have you actually written a large scale cross platform app for Linux and Windows? Sure, Qt components will show up on both platforms. But to get them to show up the same tends to be an incredible headache, especially if custom styling is applied.

Why would you want them to be the same? What percentage of people who use slack on both platforms and who care whether the appearance is the same on both?

Re: Migrating Slack's Desktop App to BrowserView

#110

Post by dcgudeman »

Interesting to read Slack proselytize the use of Observables (which I'm a huge fan of). I really wish TC39 would move it to stage two. I found the following discussion/ reasoning pretty lacking for the amount of use Observables are getting.

http://tc39.github.io/tc39-notes/2017-05_may-25.html#17iiia-...

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