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Show HN: DeskGap – Like Electron, but uses the system webview

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Re: Show HN: DeskGap – Like Electron, but uses the system webview

#121

Post by jayflux »

fermienrico wrote: post #63
aylmao wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nobody This is like claiming nobody wants to write C because no one wants to manage their own memory in 2019, or miss out on all the cool new packages in the JS ecosystem. Evidently _some people_ do. I can assure you there's at least number _n > 1_ of people who care more about app size than either of your points. I personally wrote a side project in system web-view, because I don't want my macOS-only system-tray a…

No need to go too far to find an example: Sublime Text and Sublime Merge. While this route is probably not for quick app deployment, but boy can it kick ass when properly done in C++ with custom GUI framework. I love Sublime Text and Sublime Merge. I love their philosophy towards software design. I love how they value user experience above everything else. There are very few pieces of software that give you so much p…

Yet so many still migrate to VSCode which is electron based. So maybe the difference you value isn’t valued enough to be worth it for most authors.

I get the point you’re making, but you might be in the minority here.

Re: Show HN: DeskGap – Like Electron, but uses the system webview

#122

Post by disillusion »

I think it's interesting how debates about Electron inevitably end up with the arguments 'the developer wants X' vs 'the user wants Y'. However, there's one aspect a lot of people seem to overlook in their arguments: pragmatism.

The ideal application:

- uses almost no memory

- uses almost no disk space

- is extremely fast

- costs (next to) nothing

- and has all the features in the world

- presented in a manner that automatically shows the user only the exact features (s)he cares about

In the real world, we have to balance the project/product requirements. In the end, only these things matter:

- It yields a net profit (monetary or otherwise) for the company or owner

- It has (and keeps) added value in comparison to similar software

- It's fun to design and develop in/for

- It has bugfixes and new features in a timely manner, without taking up too much development time

- It has a pretty, easy to use interface

- It's quick and snappy enough to run

Adding that all up, and developing in something like Electron is a no-brainer: mean time between iterations is faster, design and development is more fun and the end user has a product that is fast enough for their needs packed with features. Try that in any low level language or without control over the engine and you'll have to severely hamper one of these goals.

Re: Show HN: DeskGap – Like Electron, but uses the system webview

#123

Post by dmitriid »

kijin wrote: post #80
vedantroy wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that developers don't want to be testing against multiple browser/rendering engines--hence why Electron was built. Maybe having multiple engines is good (although maybe the benefits are overstated since nowadays most engines align with the spec instead of implementing non-standard extensions like ActiveX), but it's not good for people for who want to quickly, and with low effort, develop desktop applicat…

What developers want is important, but what users want is even more important. If a lightweight app is what users want, that's a good enough reason for at least some companies to consider DeskGap over Electron. I'm sick of sluggish "native" apps on my i7 PC with fast SSDs and 32GB of RAM. I don't even want to imagine how those apps perform on low-end devices.

Users don’t want a “lightweight app”. Users want an app with .

Re: Show HN: DeskGap – Like Electron, but uses the system webview

#124

Post by stephenr »

cotelletta wrote: post #116
middleload wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe you don't listen. "Apps" like Slack are on my hate list even above desktop Java apps. Seriously, I can't understand how come it's acceptable to use >1GB of RAM to display 10 lines of text.

It's easy. The text is marked up, mixed in with images, video and other miscellaneous rich content, and includes remote resources and third party embeds. There is no native UI toolkit that can do this properly, nor is there a cross platform way for 3rd parties to integrate even if there was. So web it is, with a runtime designed for being able to rapidly page in/out the entire UI from one screen to the next, even if…

macOS Messages (aka iMessage) has been rendering text chat using HTML views for years, and it doesn't use gobs of memory.

The problem isn't that the text part is rendered using HTML. That actually makes sense - multiple desktop applications that compose/render user generated rich content rely on HTML (or something converted to HTML) and a web view of some description to render that content: mail, chat, etc.

The problem is rendering the entire application's chrome using Web technologies, and then running all of that inside a web view from a browser that is known to have the resource usage of a porcine creature with an eating disorder.

> The only ray of hope here is what FB has done with React and React Native

No. The ray of hope is that people realise web technologies are not the best choice, and the way they're used in Electron is fucking atrocious.

Re: Show HN: DeskGap – Like Electron, but uses the system webview

#125

Post by ahartmetz »

middleload wrote: post #95
arcturus17 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never heard a non-programmer user complain about the Spotify or Slack desktop apps, but that’s just me.

Maybe you don't listen. "Apps" like Slack are on my hate list even above desktop Java apps. Seriously, I can't understand how come it's acceptable to use >1GB of RAM to display 10 lines of text.

Why would you even use the slack "app"? I don't like Slack but I have to use it, so I open it in a browser tab. Same crap, less memory use.

Re: Show HN: DeskGap – Like Electron, but uses the system webview

#126

Post by ahartmetz »

kkarakk wrote: post #77
gpvos wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All software is political, so ideology is relevant.

The political ideology in play for the majority of software development is capitalism so we loop back to "if i can't get it done asap using this tool, i'm not going to use this tool"

Externalities matter even in capitalism.

Re: Show HN: DeskGap – Like Electron, but uses the system webview

#127

Post by Kovah »

jayflux wrote: post #121
fermienrico wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No need to go too far to find an example: Sublime Text and Sublime Merge. While this route is probably not for quick app deployment, but boy can it kick ass when properly done in C++ with custom GUI framework. I love Sublime Text and Sublime Merge. I love their philosophy towards software design. I love how they value user experience above everything else. There are very few pieces of software that give you so much p…

Yet so many still migrate to VSCode which is electron based. So maybe the difference you value isn’t valued enough to be worth it for most authors. I get the point you’re making, but you might be in the minority here.

You are comparing apples with pears. Sublime can't be compared to VS Code because the former is basically an advanced editor while the latter is an IDE (like PhpStorm or Atom).

And I highly doubt that many users switching from Sublime to VS Code. They use one or the other for a specific reason, like a blazing fast and distraction free editing experience in Sublime - something you do not have in VS Code or any other IDE, imo.

Re: Show HN: DeskGap – Like Electron, but uses the system webview

#128

Post by ahartmetz »

stonogo wrote: post #30
Klonoar wrote: post #5

These projects completely overlook _why_ people choose Electron over the system view. - Nobody wants to be testing against multiple browser/rendering engines in 2019. - Nobody wants to wait for a vendor to update their implementation when Chrome has the feature available almost immediately. Edit: Since I can already see the litany of armchair-quarterback-desktop-app-authors, I'm just going to link to the comment from…

Then again, the Slack app segfaulted on launch for months because of a node.js incompatibility with newer glibc. So I guess what you've traded for is - Nobody bothers to be testing against multiple operating systems in 2019. - Everybody gets to wait for Slack to get around to it while the system webview gets the compatibility update almost immediately. Great for the authors, shit for the users. On the bright side, it…

Nice. What did you switch to? I'm watching that space so i can recommend alternatives everywhere I work. Must be F/OSS. Top of the list currently are Rocket.chat and Matrix.

Re: Show HN: DeskGap – Like Electron, but uses the system webview

#129

Post by ionised »

arcturus17 wrote: post #74
toper-centage wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, fuck the users. Will nobody think of the poor poor developers?

Never heard a non-programmer user complain about the Spotify or Slack desktop apps, but that’s just me.

Which is a shame, because they are both awful.

Re: Show HN: DeskGap – Like Electron, but uses the system webview

#130

Post by _khau »

maaaats wrote: post #72
Klonoar wrote: post #5

These projects completely overlook _why_ people choose Electron over the system view. - Nobody wants to be testing against multiple browser/rendering engines in 2019. - Nobody wants to wait for a vendor to update their implementation when Chrome has the feature available almost immediately. Edit: Since I can already see the litany of armchair-quarterback-desktop-app-authors, I'm just going to link to the comment from…

> Blows my mind we're still debating this. Maybe you should consider that a sign that it's not as black&white as you tout it to be? I mean, what a way to just dismiss everything..

Should we consider the anti-vax movment as a sign that all is not black and white with vaccines?

Of course not.

Just because people are still having the conversation it doesn't mean the conversation is worthwhile.

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