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Sciter – Multiplatform HTML/CSS UI Engine for Desktop and Mobile Applications

sciter.com

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Re: Sciter – Multiplatform HTML/CSS UI Engine for Desktop and Mobile Applications

#61

Post by cosmotic »

realharo wrote: post #15
cosmotic wrote: post #5

HTML/CSS based native interfaces are some of the hardest to use, least reliable, least accessible, least robust interfaces I encounter; The demo interfaces on their website all fit into the unusable pot. I admit most/all of the interfaces I've personal used are using electron/webkit/ie to render which are all quite bloated. Is this different? It's not entirely clear and would be an important differentiator. I still d…

I had a similar discussion on reddit a long time ago, and posted this screenshot of various Linux music players compared to Spotify. https://i.imgur.com/K44tJ2Y.png Lots of native UIs (especially from the past) tend to all have the same "grey boxes" look. I don't see how that's universally better. Another example was this part of Slack UI https://i.imgur.com/O71fdP5.png - how would you even do something like that wit…

Drab gray boxes may not be as 'engaging' or 'visually rich' but they are more accessible and usable. You know what's interactive, what components relate to what and how they affect the application.

The slack UI is a counter-example of a good UI. It's confusing, it's unpredictable, it's inaccessible. They made the application look like a fancy website instead of an application. That's a bad thing, not a good thing. There should be no attempt to replicate it. Using it as a benchmark to evaluate how flexible a UI framework is a non-starter.

Re: Sciter – Multiplatform HTML/CSS UI Engine for Desktop and Mobile Applications

#62

Post by cosmotic »

c-smile wrote: post #46
cosmotic wrote: post #5

HTML/CSS based native interfaces are some of the hardest to use, least reliable, least accessible, least robust interfaces I encounter; The demo interfaces on their website all fit into the unusable pot. I admit most/all of the interfaces I've personal used are using electron/webkit/ie to render which are all quite bloated. Is this different? It's not entirely clear and would be an important differentiator. I still d…

Sciter's author here. > HTML/CSS based native interfaces are some of the hardest to use, least reliable, least accessible, least robust interfaces I encounter This has nothing with HTML/CSS per se but rather questions to particular products. Same complain may apply to any UI. > The best native apps look and behave natively; "Native app" term these days is something almost non existent. In these terms Microsoft Office…

UWP are an interesting example. They are the most 'native' (at least looking) kind of application on windows 10 but I realize they aren't using win32 (which I think is what we both mean when we refer to native). Regardless, UWP are terrible; they are very hard to use and look awful, if not flat and uncluttered.

Office is a bad example as well; that team is notorious for choosing new/different interface controls just to be different. They try to back it up with studies but the studies are flawed. Accordion and Ribbon come to mind, as does the silly fake shadow they had a few years ago.

Still to this day, the drab boring win32 applications are the best performing and easiest to use.

Re: Sciter – Multiplatform HTML/CSS UI Engine for Desktop and Mobile Applications

#63

Post by SkyMarshal »

c-smile wrote: post #48

Sciter's author here. Couple of words about "native UI" and on statements like: "I (a hard-core software developer) prefer gray boxes". You (as a software developer), is one of 1% of UI users. But rest of us (99%, sic!) consume UI in form of Web sites, right? So "Native UI" these days shall look closer to default Bootstrap theme then to something that OS provides. My wife (as an example) has Windows notebook, iPhone…

> Sciter Engine is a single, compact DLL of 5+ Mb in size. Application using it are 10+ times smaller than the ones built with Electron or Qt.

With the HackerNews crowd you should just lead with this. In fact, just answer every question and critique with this. Here’s an example:

HN commenter: “I’m a hard core software developer and I prefer gray boxes to native UI.”

c-smile: “Sciter Engine is a single, compact DLL of 5+ Mb in size. Application using it are 10+ times smaller than the ones built with Electron or Qt.”

HN commenter: “Oh hell yeah, I prefer native UI to gray boxes now. Where do I sign up?”

(I include myself in this satire as one of the HN commenters :D )

Re: Sciter – Multiplatform HTML/CSS UI Engine for Desktop and Mobile Applications

#64

Post by LockAndLol »

So did they write their own layout and JS engine? Or does this use Blink / another dependency under the hood?

I found this https://sciter.com/developers/engine-architecture/ but it doesn't say if it's all written from scratch or using other libs.

Re: Sciter – Multiplatform HTML/CSS UI Engine for Desktop and Mobile Applications

#65

Post by LockAndLol »

stareatgoats wrote: post #16

This has been posted a few times to HN [0] and I've looked into it superficially without actually trying it out. For the benefit of anyone interested, these are my tentative conclusions. Please correct me if I've misunderstood anything. Sciter is a small company (single person ?) project, but the list of enterprise clients is an assurance. Their flavor of Javascript (TIscript) diverged from ECMAScipt more than 10 yea…

Out of curiosity, do you use a rich editor or do you insert those links like that yourself?

Re: Sciter – Multiplatform HTML/CSS UI Engine for Desktop and Mobile Applications

#66

Post by kroltan »

LockAndLol wrote: post #65
stareatgoats wrote: post #16

This has been posted a few times to HN [0] and I've looked into it superficially without actually trying it out. For the benefit of anyone interested, these are my tentative conclusions. Please correct me if I've misunderstood anything. Sciter is a small company (single person ?) project, but the list of enterprise clients is an assurance. Their flavor of Javascript (TIscript) diverged from ECMAScipt more than 10 yea…

Out of curiosity, do you use a rich editor or do you insert those links like that yourself?

Not GP, but I do that manually. Inline links often get in the way of the content, if you're using them as reference or support material. I still use inline links if it's central to the point of the comment.

Re: Sciter – Multiplatform HTML/CSS UI Engine for Desktop and Mobile Applications

#67

Post by fredsanford »

edandersen wrote: post #35

Using screenshots of Norton Internet Security is not good marketing.

The first time I saw that goofy symantec UI 10 or more years ago I named it the clownterface...

And quickly uninstalled it. A supposed "enterprise" application that makes your whole machine unstable.

Re: Sciter – Multiplatform HTML/CSS UI Engine for Desktop and Mobile Applications

#68

Post by stareatgoats »

LockAndLol wrote: post #65
stareatgoats wrote: post #16

This has been posted a few times to HN [0] and I've looked into it superficially without actually trying it out. For the benefit of anyone interested, these are my tentative conclusions. Please correct me if I've misunderstood anything. Sciter is a small company (single person ?) project, but the list of enterprise clients is an assurance. Their flavor of Javascript (TIscript) diverged from ECMAScipt more than 10 yea…

Out of curiosity, do you use a rich editor or do you insert those links like that yourself?

yes, what kroltan said. Picked it up around here, don't really use it anywhere else.

Re: Sciter – Multiplatform HTML/CSS UI Engine for Desktop and Mobile Applications

#69

Post by paulryanrogers »

c-smile wrote: post #55
paulryanrogers wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Native to the platform is the common meaning on HN. Native to users is a good point, though orthogonal to reasons HN users may prefer platform-native: lower memory and CPU usage, platform style, familiar shortcuts and behavior.

> orthogonal to reasons That's my impression too. I suspect that those "gray boxes" talks (a.k.a. buttons a la turrets of Panzerkampfwagen VI Tiger) are orthogonal to GUI in general. Yet "memory and CPU usage" is also orthogonal to HTML/CSS per se. One of strict requirements of AntiVirus applications is to to consume as low memory and CPU as possible. And most of AVs are using HTML/CSS UI these days. And so Sciter co…

> And most of AVs are using HTML/CSS UI these days.

If AV background and scanner processes use those then that's yet another reason to drop them like a bad habit. (The other reason being they increase the attack surface area.)

Re: Sciter – Multiplatform HTML/CSS UI Engine for Desktop and Mobile Applications

#70

Post by infogulch »

c-smile wrote: post #55
paulryanrogers wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Native to the platform is the common meaning on HN. Native to users is a good point, though orthogonal to reasons HN users may prefer platform-native: lower memory and CPU usage, platform style, familiar shortcuts and behavior.

> orthogonal to reasons That's my impression too. I suspect that those "gray boxes" talks (a.k.a. buttons a la turrets of Panzerkampfwagen VI Tiger) are orthogonal to GUI in general. Yet "memory and CPU usage" is also orthogonal to HTML/CSS per se. One of strict requirements of AntiVirus applications is to to consume as low memory and CPU as possible. And most of AVs are using HTML/CSS UI these days. And so Sciter co…

I've always found AV programs to be slow, unresponsive, laggy, [pick-your-adjective] etc. I suppose a lot of that is caused by the dumb things they do (e.g. hook into the OS and synchronously scan every byte written to disk, or packet received) rather than what UI engine they use.
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