Building a new Windows 3.1 app in 2019: A Slack Client • Hacker News Board

Re: Building a new Windows 3.1 app in 2019: A Slack Client

#241

Post by yellowapple » Fri, Dec 20, 2019, 9:15 PM UTC

CivBase wrote: post #228

xg15 wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But we are finally seeing emergence of desktop applications from major players for Linux because of electron. In my experience, Electron applications seldomly follow the UI conventions of the host OS or offer much in terms of integration. If the desktop app is really just the web site in a locked-down browser, then what benefits does this offer to just the normal web page?

Web pages are constrained by the functionality made available to them by the browser - which is (purposely) very limited. Electron apps run on a native JavaScript interpreter (NodeJS) and have full access to the OS. As far as UI inconsitencies go, most libraries I have used for native apps (Qt, Swing, Tk, etc) also do not feature UI elements that are consistent with the OS. Many developers simply can't afford to supp…

> most libraries I have used for native apps (Qt, Swing, Tk, etc) also do not feature UI elements that are consistent with the OS

Huh? Okay, maybe Swing doesn't support native-looking widgets (I have less experience with it), but I can personally attest that Qt and Tk (or more precisely Ttk) apps nowadays use a platform-native look-and-feel on Windows, macOS, and Linux alike, by default (i.e. with zero effort on the part of the app developer). It might not be absolutely pixel perfect, but it's way closer than an Electron app.

Re: Building a new Windows 3.1 app in 2019: A Slack Client

#242

Post by jamil7 » Sat, Dec 21, 2019, 10:38 AM UTC

yeokm1 wrote: post #92

jamil7 wrote: post #82

Do the public slack APIs offer enough to built a third party client?

I felt it was enough for me. :) https://api.slack.com/

Thanks! given the amount of complaining about slack on HN I thought someone would have produced a native open source client by now. I might look into it.

Re: Building a new Windows 3.1 app in 2019: A Slack Client

#243

Post by yeokm1 » Sat, Dec 21, 2019, 4:01 PM UTC

butz wrote: post #198

Considering that Windows 3.1 takes less space than Electron binary, one can actually run this program in VM and get better performance and less RAM usage than official app.

I updated my blog post to include a memory and disk usage comparison :)

Re: Building a new Windows 3.1 app in 2019: A Slack Client

#244

Post by kleiba » Sat, Dec 21, 2019, 9:20 PM UTC

Const-me wrote: post #180

kleiba wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but I wouldn't pick the language for 2D GUIs in 2019 Which one would you recommend?

I mostly program for Windows and use C# for the GUI. Cross-platform story is complicated, though. I have good experience creating a custom GUI framework for embedded Linux: drm/kms, gles, NanoVG, [DllImport], everything on top is custom C# code in .NET core 2.2. But that approach is not for everyone. I only needed 10-15 screens with simple GUI on them, it’s a 5” touchscreen with no other user-facing devices. Creating…

Great reply, thanks very much!

Re: Building a new Windows 3.1 app in 2019: A Slack Client

#245

Post by ldh » Sun, Dec 22, 2019, 4:30 PM UTC

sdegutis wrote: post #199

mileycyrusXOXO wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't like Qt is some bizarre arcane wizardry. You give a web developer a few days and they can productively be contributing to a Qt app.

Yeah but then the dev has to investigate how to solve certain patterns in Qt's ways which they already know how to solve in the web frameworks, and just like with natural languages, sometimes there are no straightforward ports for concepts, and it requires a ton of extra work that you couldn't foresee until getting halfway through the whole project. Adopting new tech is not without serious costs and risks. Also, no G…

Electron is bad enough from a user perspective, but it's downright horrible to see how it's instilled a rather defeatist approach in front-end developers.

"But I already know Javascript, it's too hard to figure out something else"

Re: Building a new Windows 3.1 app in 2019: A Slack Client

#246

Post by bensherman228 » Sun, Dec 22, 2019, 7:03 PM UTC

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Re: Building a new Windows 3.1 app in 2019: A Slack Client

#247

Post by forgotmypw38 » Mon, Dec 23, 2019, 4:07 AM UTC

shakna wrote: post #59

forgotmypw3 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you happen to end up in those environments again, I would appreciate it if you take a look at my prototype web-based message board. It's designed for compatibility, and I've tested a lot of Netscapes and IE4, but nothing on Win311 yet. If you want to leave a comment, you can do so right on the message board. It should work, more likely with JS off.

> It should work, more likely with JS off. Many of the 3.1-era browsers didn't have a concept of JS yet. If you're relying on noscript at all it won't work. I did try and check if this was the case, but both links in your profile that it could have been lead to "not found" dreamhost sites.

I feel obligated to comment, so that others are not led astray by parent comment, which is INCORRECT:

works just fine in pre-JS browsers, at least all of the ones I've tried.

It works exactly as designed: Text between and is displayed in browsers without JS enabled (or supported).

I am not aware of any browsers where this is not the case, and I've tested in many, including Mosaic 1.x-3.x, NN 1.x-4.x, Opera up to 3.62, and others.

(You probably happened to visit my site during an upgrade. Sorry about that.)

Re: Building a new Windows 3.1 app in 2019: A Slack Client

#248

Post by jcelerier » Mon, Dec 23, 2019, 11:16 AM UTC

harshitaneja wrote: post #149

shaan7 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His point is that this bare bones get/post app in Electron will be much, much "larger".

And that is why it would foolish for them to post a barebones slack client in electron. But they don't publish that. They have published a full featured client that is cross platform. I am not a fan of electron and would very much prefer a desktop app. But we are finally seeing emergence of desktop applications from major players for Linux because of electron. It's not ideal but so wasn't the previous solution.

> But we are finally seeing emergence of desktop applications from major players for Linux because of electron

It's not like Maya, Steam, Chrome, Firefox, Skype, Adobe Reader, Houdini, DaVinci, Nuke, TeamViewer, Blender... haven't been working on Linux for ages (or more recently Bitwig, Reaper...). And conversely it's not like every Electron app has a linux build.