Cross-Platform GUI Toolkit Trainwreck (2016)
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Cross-Platform GUI Toolkit Trainwreck (2016)
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Re: Cross-Platform GUI Toolkit Trainwreck (2016)
#2Given the other applications you chose to look at, I'm surprised you didn't also look at Audacity. It uses wxWidgets, which is a nice C++ cross-platform GUI framework. It wraps native controls on each platform it supports, and also has a "Generic" variant where it draws its own. It's not very heavy as these things go, and has a nice python binding called wxPython.
I'd check it out before rolling my own :)
Re: Cross-Platform GUI Toolkit Trainwreck (2016)
#3To date, the best solution to this problem that I have seen is to write all your core code in a shared library using something like C++, and then hooking it up to a thin layer of completely native, platform-specific code for the UI. It’s fast, lightweight, looks good, and requires minimal extra code if you do it right.
Re: Cross-Platform GUI Toolkit Trainwreck (2016)
#4To date, the best solution to this problem that I have seen is to write all your core code in a shared library using something like C++, and then hooking it up to a thin layer of completely native, platform-specific code for the UI. It’s fast, lightweight, looks good, and requires minimal extra code if you do it right.
MVP (Model View Presenter) is one approach to decouple the UI from the interaction logic to achieve that goal. Only the view implementation has to be platform specific. The viewmodel is also shared among platforms.
Re: Cross-Platform GUI Toolkit Trainwreck (2016)
#5Wonder how the author didn't come across Qt or wxWidgets in his research?
Re: Cross-Platform GUI Toolkit Trainwreck (2016)
#6Given the other applications you chose to look at, I'm surprised you didn't also look at Audacity. It uses wxWidgets, which is a nice C++ cross-platform GUI framework. It wraps native controls on each platform it supports, and also has a "Generic" variant where it draws its own. It's not very heavy as these things go, and has a nice python binding called wxPython. I'd check it out before rolling my own :)
By personal experience, wxWindows is "OK", but it's not a panacea. There are a ton of little quirks that will burn you when doing cross-platform development simply because native controls do not behave in the same way. HiDpi is a major pain with wxWindows (but then again, the way HiDpi is managed is a pain irrespective of the toolkit).
But if you do some forms and basic UI controls, wxWindows does the job egregiously. Looks the way it should be on all platforms.
It's funny an article from 2016 mentions issues about text rendering, because certainly we've been regressing in this area. I can spot QML and Electron apps by the broken text rendering alone. FF60+ with quantum has incorrect subpixel hinting and does not correctly hint at all sometimes.
Many of the mentioned apps int the article are "broken" in my eyes: I don't have perfect vision, and I do expect apps to follow the system text scaling (and they don't). For a "broken by design" example, see Darktable, which is awesome, and should do this by default, but the authors hard-coded a theme where literally every widget is styled for looks and not for function.
Nobody speaks about how the widgets should feel and interact, but that's exactly what feels off about "GTK" on windows or macos. QML, Electron and partly GTK3 brings that feeling to all platforms. My biggest letdown is QML, as many QT developers see it as the future so it has a larger adoption than it should have.
It breaks just about any rule in the book: poor behavior on any platform, noticeably slower, style not consistent with the platform, broken scrolling, broken text editing, broken text rendering...
Re: Cross-Platform GUI Toolkit Trainwreck (2016)
#7For the Java bit, I imagine that with modern Java versions with modules the app would be a lot smaller. The new Java versions are modular so you can include just what you use and I think it can even create a native package for installation. It should bring NodeNox 3 down from that 220MB package.
Re: Cross-Platform GUI Toolkit Trainwreck (2016)
#8Given the other applications you chose to look at, I'm surprised you didn't also look at Audacity. It uses wxWidgets, which is a nice C++ cross-platform GUI framework. It wraps native controls on each platform it supports, and also has a "Generic" variant where it draws its own. It's not very heavy as these things go, and has a nice python binding called wxPython. I'd check it out before rolling my own :)
By personal experience, wxWindows is "OK", but it's not a panacea. There are a ton of little quirks that will burn you when doing cross-platform development simply because native controls do not behave in the same way. HiDpi is a major pain with wxWindows (but then again, the way HiDpi is managed is a pain irrespective of the toolkit). But if you do some forms and basic UI controls, wxWindows does the job egregiously…
> But if you do some forms and basic UI controls, wxWindows does the job egregiously. Looks the way it should be on all platforms.
Word choice? "Egregiously" means "Conspicuously bad or offensive." [0] The context suggests you intended to say "adequate for the purpose," for which "competently" is the correct term.[1]
Re: Cross-Platform GUI Toolkit Trainwreck (2016)
#9To date, the best solution to this problem that I have seen is to write all your core code in a shared library using something like C++, and then hooking it up to a thin layer of completely native, platform-specific code for the UI. It’s fast, lightweight, looks good, and requires minimal extra code if you do it right.
It is still a lot of work if you need advanced things then the basic widgets. Thinks where usually you need to extend existing widgets like you want an advanced datagrid/table with sortable/dragable columns, with custom item renders for some columns (like a chart widget for the Trends column).
In this advanced cases you will need to create custom widgets for each platform, hope that all platform have the advanced datagrid widget(if not you will have to create it) etc.
For simple apps your solution works, and you could also make a CLI app too.
Re: Cross-Platform GUI Toolkit Trainwreck (2016)
#10Given the other applications you chose to look at, I'm surprised you didn't also look at Audacity. It uses wxWidgets, which is a nice C++ cross-platform GUI framework. It wraps native controls on each platform it supports, and also has a "Generic" variant where it draws its own. It's not very heavy as these things go, and has a nice python binding called wxPython. I'd check it out before rolling my own :)
By personal experience, wxWindows is "OK", but it's not a panacea. There are a ton of little quirks that will burn you when doing cross-platform development simply because native controls do not behave in the same way. HiDpi is a major pain with wxWindows (but then again, the way HiDpi is managed is a pain irrespective of the toolkit). But if you do some forms and basic UI controls, wxWindows does the job egregiously…
Why does electron have broken text rendering? Surely the Chrome browser’s tendering does a good job? Or do you mean something like “it doesn’t match system defaults”?