Making Advanced GUI Applications with Godot • Hacker News Board

Re: Making Advanced GUI Applications with Godot

#171

Post by dilandau » Tue, Aug 04, 2020, 10:29 AM UTC

miki123211 wrote: post #162

If you want to use this in a business, either for an internal tool or for an application you sell, this is a horrible idea. Godot doesn't display native widgets, so it has no support for accessibility, for example to screen readers and blind users. Some people think blind people bring too little profit to care, but this is wrong for one single reason. There are some laws mandating accessibility, and more laws are bei…

It's easier to pull out a soapbox and make ridiculous speeches like these, than to actually make a gui application.

If you're making something for free or for fun, then let curiosity guide you. Bureaucrats like yourself can comment all you want. I'll be making applications.

Re: Making Advanced GUI Applications with Godot

#172

Post by pkphilip » Tue, Aug 04, 2020, 10:29 AM UTC

I think Lazarus is a much better environment for creating desktop apps which are small, cross-platform and very fast. The component architecture is much more advanced than Godot and you have access to a huge number of components. Extending these components or creating new components is also very easy.

Re: Making Advanced GUI Applications with Godot

#173

Post by pkphilip » Tue, Aug 04, 2020, 10:31 AM UTC

Shared404 wrote: post #30

I did an Ask HN [1] about this topic a little while ago. Most relevant comment [2], from gunibert is here: The problem in a framework like GoDot is, that it is meant for Games. A game renders screens in 30/60 fps. A Desktop application like a Gtk application does exactly nothing if you dont interact with the application. If you click a button only the button gets re-rendered. This is more efficient then using somethi…

Or you can use a Lazarus IDE which is very fast to develop in, generates native cross platform binaries which are very fast and also tiny.

https://www.lazarus-ide.org/

Re: Making Advanced GUI Applications with Godot

#174

Post by fauigerzigerk » Tue, Aug 04, 2020, 10:38 AM UTC

rudedogg wrote: post #70

gavinray wrote: post #26

Godot is an incredibly good piece of technology, made by fantastic people. But I'm not sure that I can echo the sentiment here exactly. I took the time to read the entire article. This is what it boils down to for me: IF you are going to build a native desktop app with a drag-and-drop WYSIWYG editor, I think it's arguably a solid choice over QT or whatever else you might do it with. But the latter part of the article…

> It's all pixels on a screen. Any design asset you can whip up, with whatever animations and effects, can be rendered identically on a web, or native mobile/desktop app. The issue is that no one bothers to do all the OS integrations you get for free when you make a native app. Also, every web app I've used that pretends to be a desktop app has issues that make it feel off. Using Discord as an example; I have to focu…

The funny thing is, I often prefer Web/Electron apps for the simple reason that zoom always works and it always works the same way. It's hit and miss with desktop/mobile apps.

Re: Making Advanced GUI Applications with Godot

#175

Post by p0nce » Tue, Aug 04, 2020, 10:43 AM UTC

fit2rule wrote: post #148

Shared404 wrote: post #30

I did an Ask HN [1] about this topic a little while ago. Most relevant comment [2], from gunibert is here: The problem in a framework like GoDot is, that it is meant for Games. A game renders screens in 30/60 fps. A Desktop application like a Gtk application does exactly nothing if you dont interact with the application. If you click a button only the button gets re-rendered. This is more efficient then using somethi…

>game engine which has no concept about damaged regions Sorry, just: no. Game engines which don't handle rectangle updates are poorly designed junk. BTW, most game engines do keep track of regions needing update - its one of the most important aspects of performance tuning, for any app which presents objects on a screen to the user. Usually, the OS is doing this for an app in the apps own context - game engines also…

MOAI does seem very cool. I like Godot for 2D but having used it for 3D I'm a bit weary with bugs there.

Re: Making Advanced GUI Applications with Godot

#176

Post by imtringued » Tue, Aug 04, 2020, 10:45 AM UTC

I personally got so used to the look of Gnome3 + GTK that I want all my applications to either use GTK or at least try to attempt to use a similar theme. The most important factor, as petty as it may sound, is the size of the control elements. If there is a generic dark theme it's usually okay but if the standard controls look off it usually doesn't appeal to me.

Re: Making Advanced GUI Applications with Godot

#177

Post by syshum » Tue, Aug 04, 2020, 10:48 AM UTC

miki123211 wrote: post #162

If you want to use this in a business, either for an internal tool or for an application you sell, this is a horrible idea. Godot doesn't display native widgets, so it has no support for accessibility, for example to screen readers and blind users. Some people think blind people bring too little profit to care, but this is wrong for one single reason. There are some laws mandating accessibility, and more laws are bei…

>>>This might sound very harsh, but it's important to get this right early, as one bad decision here is usually irreversible.

Nothing in software is irreversible

>>Godot doesn't display native widgets, so it has no support for accessibility,

Then it would be better to evangelize adding accessibility support into Godot.

>If you want to use this in a business, either for an internal tool or for an application you sell, this is a horrible idea. There are some laws mandating accessibility, a

That largely depends on the type of application and the target. There are some LOB applications that would never need accessibility because the jobs they are for require sight and/or hearing for safety reasons. For example if you are building a LOB application that is used on Factory floor with large machinery

Re: Making Advanced GUI Applications with Godot

#178

Post by cercatrova » Tue, Aug 04, 2020, 10:53 AM UTC

If you're going to do something like this, just use Flutter. It's the same principle, draw pixels to a screen, but it has a lot of advantages over Godot for application development, such as accessibility and only rerendering components when they change.

Re: Making Advanced GUI Applications with Godot

#179

Post by rcarmo » Tue, Aug 04, 2020, 10:59 AM UTC

I have been playing around with Godot (to help my kids) and, to be honest, I had largely the same idea. For personal apps that have simple GUIs and have no formal spec, it might be just the ticket.

(I've been thinking of building an app to do photo triage, and Godot can certainly load up a bucketload of image assets and render them...)

Re: Making Advanced GUI Applications with Godot

#180

Post by rcarmo » Tue, Aug 04, 2020, 11:00 AM UTC

pkphilip wrote: post #173

Shared404 wrote: post #30

I did an Ask HN [1] about this topic a little while ago. Most relevant comment [2], from gunibert is here: The problem in a framework like GoDot is, that it is meant for Games. A game renders screens in 30/60 fps. A Desktop application like a Gtk application does exactly nothing if you dont interact with the application. If you click a button only the button gets re-rendered. This is more efficient then using somethi…

Or you can use a Lazarus IDE which is very fast to develop in, generates native cross platform binaries which are very fast and also tiny. https://www.lazarus-ide.org/

I tried Lazarus a few times and even though I spent a _long_ time writing Pascal, it's just not there yet. At least on the Mac, just getting it to install and run was a big pain.