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Show HN: Cross-platform desktop applications with PyQT

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Re: Show HN: Cross-platform desktop applications with PyQT

#81

Post by egeozcan »

badsectoracula wrote: post #44
horsawlarway wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Bah humbug, the old stuff is good enough for me!" is a shitty answer. Why would you not want a toolkit that makes rich application experiences across multiple platforms easy and standard? I get that performance is a problem with the tooling in its current form (arguably...) but that's not a reason to ignore the problem electron is solving: creating complex UIs using things like WinForms, QT, GTK, Cocoa, etc SUCKS. I…

> Why would you not want a toolkit that makes rich application experiences across multiple platforms easy and standard? Because way more often than not the "rich" stuff are all fluff with no meat, end up taking wasting system resources and work badly with the rest of the system.

Developers have already been working around the standard styles with all those technologies. It only took more time and effort. I look at the native apps I've installed and the standard layout is the rare exception. I mean no offense, but arguing that a standard set of controls would be enough for most of the applications would be faulty judgement at best, if not being delusional.

Re: Show HN: Cross-platform desktop applications with PyQT

#82

Post by monkmartinez »

papaf wrote: post #79
horsawlarway wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Bah humbug, the old stuff is good enough for me!" is a shitty answer. Why would you not want a toolkit that makes rich application experiences across multiple platforms easy and standard? I get that performance is a problem with the tooling in its current form (arguably...) but that's not a reason to ignore the problem electron is solving: creating complex UIs using things like WinForms, QT, GTK, Cocoa, etc SUCKS. I…

creating complex UIs using things like WinForms, QT, GTK, Cocoa, etc SUCKS I think that this depends on your background. Personally, I would rather do a UI in QT than Javascript. I like that Qt supports high level components such as trees: https://doc.qt.io/qt-5/qtwidgets-itemviews-simpletreemodel-example.html With Qt I can also use a lot of the experience that I gained 5 years ago on a UI today. Any Javascript UI ex…

"Any Javascript UI experience that I picked up 5 years ago is obsolete."

That is only true in the sense that your Python 2.x experience didn't translate into your Python 3.x experience. That is, I think the overlap is similar on a language level. The difference lies in the libs/frameworks.

Re: Show HN: Cross-platform desktop applications with PyQT

#83

Post by bpicolo »

fnl wrote: post #53
alexandernst wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. QML is a step in the right direction, but the syntax is kind of awkward, and you still need C++ on the background, which makes it harder to use, more expensive (in terms of man/hours cost) and slower to develop than + HTML/CSS.

Not that most companies would care, as dev cost seems to be all that matters these days, but the upsides are much faster and leaner applications than what you get from Electron.

Can't talk as to rendering and such, but python isn't going to be a performance win vs JS. V8 is faster than cpython by a decent margin for typical tasks on typical data structures.

You'll need to dip into clang or whatnot for really hardcore perf either way

Re: Show HN: Cross-platform desktop applications with PyQT

#84

Post by toyg »

mi100hael wrote: post #5
_em6m wrote: post #4

The main problem with "other toolkits" vs Electron apps is that they are not as simple to use in order to create a very good looking UIs. Compare how easy it is to use HTML and CSS in order to create a very complex UIs with all sort of effects vs how utterly complicated is to override, let's say, Qt's ::paint() method in order to achieve rich text inside a label. Let me repeat it. Rich text inside a label. Such a sim…

The other issue is that a lot of these sorts of applications like Slack started life as a web app. In that case, your options are use Electron or build a new desktop application from the ground up.

> your options are use Electron or build a new desktop application from the ground up.

It's ironic that people bang the drum about REST and decoupling... and then at the first hint of actual serious frontend/backend decoupling, everyone runs for the hills.

Re: Show HN: Cross-platform desktop applications with PyQT

#85

Post by matt_kantor »

badsectoracula wrote: post #44
horsawlarway wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Bah humbug, the old stuff is good enough for me!" is a shitty answer. Why would you not want a toolkit that makes rich application experiences across multiple platforms easy and standard? I get that performance is a problem with the tooling in its current form (arguably...) but that's not a reason to ignore the problem electron is solving: creating complex UIs using things like WinForms, QT, GTK, Cocoa, etc SUCKS. I…

> Why would you not want a toolkit that makes rich application experiences across multiple platforms easy and standard? Because way more often than not the "rich" stuff are all fluff with no meat, end up taking wasting system resources and work badly with the rest of the system.

Also because it often violates the standard UI conventions for the given OS, so I have to learn how to use every application from scratch.†

Accessibility is another big one.

† The flip side is if you use the same app on different operating systems often. There are some apps that fall into that category for me personally, but I think your average user probably only uses two operating systems regularly: one on their mobile device(s) and another on their "real" computer(s).

Re: Show HN: Cross-platform desktop applications with PyQT

#86

Post by moocowtruck »

ThePhysicist wrote: post #36
_em6m wrote: post #4

The main problem with "other toolkits" vs Electron apps is that they are not as simple to use in order to create a very good looking UIs. Compare how easy it is to use HTML and CSS in order to create a very complex UIs with all sort of effects vs how utterly complicated is to override, let's say, Qt's ::paint() method in order to achieve rich text inside a label. Let me repeat it. Rich text inside a label. Such a sim…

I would disagree with this as I've created many small apps using QT, and getting started is much easier than with Electron (in my opinion). It is as easy as this: import sys from PyQt5.QtWidgets import QApplication, QWidget if __name__ == '__main__': app = QApplication(sys.argv) w = QWidget() w.setWindowTitle('Hello, world!') w.show() Also, styling apps in QT is really easy, in fact you can even use CSS: http://doc.q…

what do i need installed to get started with this, i have your code but what do i do next?

Re: Show HN: Cross-platform desktop applications with PyQT

#87

Post by papaf »

monkmartinez wrote: post #82
papaf wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

creating complex UIs using things like WinForms, QT, GTK, Cocoa, etc SUCKS I think that this depends on your background. Personally, I would rather do a UI in QT than Javascript. I like that Qt supports high level components such as trees: https://doc.qt.io/qt-5/qtwidgets-itemviews-simpletreemodel-example.html With Qt I can also use a lot of the experience that I gained 5 years ago on a UI today. Any Javascript UI ex…

"Any Javascript UI experience that I picked up 5 years ago is obsolete." That is only true in the sense that your Python 2.x experience didn't translate into your Python 3.x experience. That is, I think the overlap is similar on a language level. The difference lies in the libs/frameworks.

No its nothing like a minor language change. This actually happened to me and my Javascript UI experience (Jquery) is obsolete in the world of React and Angular or whatever the flavour of the month is.

Re: Show HN: Cross-platform desktop applications with PyQT

#88

Post by mherrmann »

moocowtruck wrote: post #86
ThePhysicist wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would disagree with this as I've created many small apps using QT, and getting started is much easier than with Electron (in my opinion). It is as easy as this: import sys from PyQt5.QtWidgets import QApplication, QWidget if __name__ == '__main__': app = QApplication(sys.argv) w = QWidget() w.setWindowTitle('Hello, world!') w.show() Also, styling apps in QT is really easy, in fact you can even use CSS: http://doc.q…

what do i need installed to get started with this, i have your code but what do i do next?

Did you see the tutorial? https://github.com/mherrmann/fbs-tutorial

Re: Show HN: Cross-platform desktop applications with PyQT

#89

Post by throwawayfinal »

snerbles wrote: post #24
wiremine wrote: post #3

Not directly related to the initiative itself, but comparing and contrasting the Electron website vs. PyQT is striking: https://riverbankcomputing.com/software/pyqt/intro https://electronjs.org/ I've been a (proud) Pythonist for years now, and I've always been a bit chagrined by the quality of the "marketing" of Python projects. It doesn't at all reflect the quality of the community and the projects.

It does reflect the priorities of the community, though. PyQT's page is clearly written by a developer, with an emphasis on explaining the internals of the library. The author clearly saw no need to make it attractive. There is no long-term vision beyond the library itself. While PyQT is navel-gazing, Electron's page is all about grabbing mindshare and establishing clout. It seeks to conquer the world and your deskto…

As a developer, Electron's page shows their prowess in writing good front end code, which is really important. As someone who understands the basic concept of Electron, I want a product that demonstrates those competencies.

Re: Show HN: Cross-platform desktop applications with PyQT

#90

Post by xfer »

andrewstuart wrote: post #9

Browsers should just provide controlled access to the operating system file system which will remove some large percentage of the use cases for Electron. It would be easier and much safer.

I would still prefer to have native apps, instead of spending 400MB per application.
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