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Electron 7.0

electronjs.org

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Re: Electron 7.0

#171

Post by saagarjha »

chocolatkey wrote: post #134
alkonaut wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only each OS would ship an abstraction layer that guaranteed "at least modern browser X" that one could ship into. I want to ship an electron app but I want it to be 100kb and start in 0.1s and take almost no memory because the libs are shared. I don't want each little chat app or music player to gobble up half a gig of ram and take 3 seconds to start.

Microsoft is working on an API that will use the chromium that's part of their new version of edge. It's already available for use (of course right now you have to have the edge beta downloaded): https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/hosting/webv...

Is this anything other than just a webview?

Re: Electron 7.0

#172

Post by cweagans »

inferiorhuman wrote: post #161
cweagans wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alternatively, you could roll up your sleeves and add support for whatever obscure OS you want to Electron and then have an entire world of apps available to you. Mediocre and working > not existing

Alternatively, you could roll up your sleeves and add support for whatever obscure OS you want to Electron and then have an entire world of apps available to you. To what end? The Electron devs have explicitly stated they will reject patches adding support for other platforms. Node is just as bad (letting trivial patches that would fix compilation on FreeBSD just fester). I've already looked at the folks trying to po…

shrug So maintain it as a third party set of patches. It's not unheard of. For instance, there's a set of Linux patches that improve font rendering. Just because upstream wouldn't accept it doesn't mean that it can't exist.

If Qt works for you, use it. Electron works for many people. I don't like Electron apps very much either, but I definitely prefer working Electron apps on Linux than just not having that app available in the first place.

Re: Electron 7.0

#173

Post by saagarjha »

bb88 wrote: post #60
scrollaway wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Insert any framework in place of SwiftUI. You're describing Qt, essentially. The approach has been tried, and succeeded to some degree. But the web is the only app where cross-platform is the default , and it's truly hard to avoid it. Even if the widgets all look different. Even if nothing looks native (people got used to it anyway). And to be clear I want the status quo to improve in this regard, especially in terms…

>But the web is the only app where cross-platform is the default No. Chrome is the only platform that is cross platform by default. But IE, eg, has definitely had behavior differences in the past. On the other hand, Qt is cross language, but not necessarily cross platform (it excludes iPhone and Android, say)

Chrome is not the only web browser out there.

Re: Electron 7.0

#174

Post by inferiorhuman »

cweagans wrote: post #172
inferiorhuman wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alternatively, you could roll up your sleeves and add support for whatever obscure OS you want to Electron and then have an entire world of apps available to you. To what end? The Electron devs have explicitly stated they will reject patches adding support for other platforms. Node is just as bad (letting trivial patches that would fix compilation on FreeBSD just fester). I've already looked at the folks trying to po…

shrug So maintain it as a third party set of patches. It's not unheard of. For instance, there's a set of Linux patches that improve font rendering. Just because upstream wouldn't accept it doesn't mean that it can't exist. If Qt works for you, use it. Electron works for many people. I don't like Electron apps very much either, but I definitely prefer working Electron apps on Linux than just not having that app avail…

So maintain it as a third party set of patches.

So I can run proprietary apps (because that's what these self-professed app devs are talking about mostly)? Not gonna happen.

Just because upstream wouldn't accept it doesn't mean that it can't exist.

No, it just means it's a lot of unnecessary work for a framework that already has an arduous build process. I haven't found that killer Electron app just yet so what that means in practical terms is that VS Code goes bye bye when my MacBook Pro finally dies and I move away from Apple (and likely to OpenBSD) on the desktop.

I definitely prefer working Electron apps on Linux than just not having that app available in the first place.

That's what's known as a false dichotomy. Even if Electron were the only choice, how many of these Electron apps (e.g. Slack, Discord, Signal) would be better off just being used directly from the browser?

Re: Electron 7.0

#175

Post by inferiorhuman »

nereye wrote: post #160
CDSlice wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Electron not supporting ARM or other non-x86 platforms is a big problem that I was not aware of. I wonder if that will change with Microsoft starting to make ARM laptops and Apple being rumored to switch to ARM sometime in the future.

From https://electronjs.org/docs/tutorial/support : Linux The prebuilt ia32 (i686) and x64 (amd64) binaries of Electron are built on Ubuntu 12.04, the armv7l binary is built against ARM v7 with hard-float ABI and NEON for Debian Wheezy.

Oh hey, they finally added vestigial Arm support looks at site for Linux.

Running Electron apps on Windows for ARM devices is possible by using the ia32 binary.

lol

Portability is not Electron's strong suit despite all the marketing hype to the contrary.

Re: Electron 7.0

#176

Post by luckydata »

Razengan wrote: post #43
luckydata wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't. The reason is UI kits on different OSs are so different that allowing this stuff makes for haggard looking apps. Using the web at least brings consistency to the experience. There's no workaround I can think of, you either write one UI per OS (even with QT you still need to adjust for conventions, spacing etc...) or you make an OS agnostic UI with Web tech.

> (even with QT you still need to adjust for conventions, spacing etc...) That is what I'm talking about: SwiftUI automatically uses the recommended conventions for spacing, padding, etc. which are different for macOS vs. iOS etc., and it also takes user environment settings into account, like font sizes and other accessibility options.

I don't think it's possible to do it in a way that consistently looks good. I've been around my fair share of cross platform frameworks and worked at companies that built them commercially, they never work beyond apps that aren't supposed to look great.

Re: Electron 7.0

#177

Post by choeger »

snek wrote: post #156
choeger wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. Four commands. The first one downloads binaries from the internet. If I was inclined to do so, I would not need to build in the first place ;). Give it a try with the current HEAD of their home-grown and undocumented build tool and see how far you get. And regarding the deterministic builds: I call bullshit. They just don't want to follow the different packaging guidelines from the different operating systems,…

> [build process] I agree, the chromium build tooling is unfriendly af. > I call bullshit Lot of works goes into deterministic builds, have fun going down this rabbit hole: https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=314403 > Now I have to trust them to keep all these dependencies up-to-date Looks like it rolls on average every 10-20 minutes: https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+log/HEAD/DEP... >…

> Lot of works goes into deterministic builds

That has nothing to do with their dependency management. In fact, if you link against system libraries, it should be simpler to get deterministic builds, as you have to build less.

Re: Electron 7.0

#178

Post by cweagans »

inferiorhuman wrote: post #174
cweagans wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

shrug So maintain it as a third party set of patches. It's not unheard of. For instance, there's a set of Linux patches that improve font rendering. Just because upstream wouldn't accept it doesn't mean that it can't exist. If Qt works for you, use it. Electron works for many people. I don't like Electron apps very much either, but I definitely prefer working Electron apps on Linux than just not having that app avail…

So maintain it as a third party set of patches. So I can run proprietary apps (because that's what these self-professed app devs are talking about mostly)? Not gonna happen. Just because upstream wouldn't accept it doesn't mean that it can't exist. No, it just means it's a lot of unnecessary work for a framework that already has an arduous build process. I haven't found that killer Electron app just yet so what that…

> So I can run proprietary apps (because that's what these self-professed app devs are talking about mostly)? Not gonna happen.

Well then you don't want it that bad.

> I haven't found that killer Electron app just yet so what that means in practical terms is that VS Code goes bye bye when my MacBook Pro finally dies and I move away from Apple (and likely to OpenBSD) on the desktop.

You seem to care an awful lot about an issue that doesn't seem to affect you. Why?

> That's what's known as a false dichotomy. Even if Electron were the only choice, how many of these Electron apps (e.g. Slack, Discord, Signal) would be better off just being used directly from the browser?

I've been using Linux off and on for over a decade now. The single biggest thing that has made it possible for me to use it as my daily driver is that I can continue to get work done without resorting to kludgy workarounds like running everything in a browser. Most companies that I've worked for use Slack enough that not being able to Alt+Tab to it would be a dealbreaker. Even if the only feature that Electron brought was a standalone browser that you could alt+tab, it'd still be worth it. Of course, that's not the case -- allowing for better integration with the desktop is also excellent.

Re: Electron 7.0

#179

Post by brycesbeard »

inferiorhuman wrote: post #174
cweagans wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

shrug So maintain it as a third party set of patches. It's not unheard of. For instance, there's a set of Linux patches that improve font rendering. Just because upstream wouldn't accept it doesn't mean that it can't exist. If Qt works for you, use it. Electron works for many people. I don't like Electron apps very much either, but I definitely prefer working Electron apps on Linux than just not having that app avail…

So maintain it as a third party set of patches. So I can run proprietary apps (because that's what these self-professed app devs are talking about mostly)? Not gonna happen. Just because upstream wouldn't accept it doesn't mean that it can't exist. No, it just means it's a lot of unnecessary work for a framework that already has an arduous build process. I haven't found that killer Electron app just yet so what that…

It’s clear that you aren’t their intended audience. Due to a choice you have made to not use a more common platform. Your responses sound like you’re upset; why? You made your choice. They made theirs. Accept the reality, accept the trade offs, or make changes.

Complaining about the decisions made by other people isn’t useful.

Re: Electron 7.0

#180

Post by jcelerier »

rolleiflex wrote: post #77
scrollaway wrote: post #5

I'm bullish on Electron. I think it's just a couple of technical advancements away from being the ultimate desktop toolkit. For context, I love and have worked a ton with Qt, and I much prefer Qt UIs as a user. But Electron has brought true cross-platform development to all platforms (Including Linux!). If it weren't for Electron, I wouldn't even have a bunch of the apps I use today. Hell, I wouldn't have a good IDE,…

I release two apps, across 3 OSes, in somewhat of a bimonthly cadence with a low defect rate. That’s 6 different binaries. I’m a solo founder. I know people like to rag on Electron, but without it, I wouldn’t be using something else, my apps just wouldn’t exist . It allows more people to try building more thing and that is a net positive. The speed problems and bloat issues of Electron is just shoddy programming on t…

> I release two apps, across 3 OSes, in somewhat of a bimonthly cadence with a low defect rate. That’s 6 different binaries. I’m a solo founder.

I release a Qt app for mac / windows / linux whenever I want by tagging a git commit and letting it be built by CI services. There is a single code base with almost zero platform-specific code. I really don't think that the technology choice is what matters in this.

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