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ElectronJS alternative: SciterJS – HTML/CSS/JS in 4.5 MB executable

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Re: ElectronJS alternative: SciterJS – HTML/CSS/JS in 4.5 MB executable

#11

Post by csande17 »

Klonoar wrote: post #4

Please, please stop comparing built in platform webviews and alternatives like Sciter to Electron. You can hate on Electron all you want (I do too) but it's a totally different beast to almost all these other solutions. It's all fun and games until you realize that to get half the junk Electron throws you for free, you'll wind up building it yourself in these solutions.

Arguments like these are a lot more compelling when they include some specific features that are missing. Too often, "includes everything you need for free!" translates to "weighs down your binary with a hundred megabytes of functionality no one actually uses."

Re: ElectronJS alternative: SciterJS – HTML/CSS/JS in 4.5 MB executable

#12

Post by mwill »

gigel82 wrote: post #9
dimeatree wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Check out his github profile, it exists in another repo

No, it doesn't, they're using GitHub to store binary builds of this closed-source project.

This is one of my biggest pet peeves, the worst offender is companies that have a github logo on their page, you click through, and their only repos are binaries, or documentation. It's hard not to see it as intentionally misleading.

Re: ElectronJS alternative: SciterJS – HTML/CSS/JS in 4.5 MB executable

#13

Post by eitland »

gigel82 wrote: post #7
est wrote: post #2

Shipping .exe and .dll directly in github source repo?

It looks like the author was trying to crowd-fund open-sourcing this project: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/c-smile/open-source-sci... I think we'd be better off trying to slim down Chromium or reviving the idea of using the built-in OS WebView control (which is mostly Chromium nowadays anyway), at least that would be a standard web environment.

I've already pledged.

Helping in avoiding making Chromium the default is icing on top of the cake.

Edit: I also want a massively cut down, blazingly fast rendering engine for a subset of html that is big enough for Wikipedia. Specifically I want it to be paired with a strictly limited version of something like Javascript, only limited and with batteries included.

Dynamically updating content on user clicks should be OK, running general calculations should be hard.

Re: ElectronJS alternative: SciterJS – HTML/CSS/JS in 4.5 MB executable

#14

Post by ptrott2017 »

Sciter is a very nice engine with a solid API/SDK and rock solid engineering behind it. For developers building efficient UI apps it can be a real alternative method to things like electron or as a lighter alternative to QT with QML script. However until now it was only available under commercial licence.

Andrew Fedoniouk ( a.k.a. c-smile Sciter's original developer) has a kickstarter to fund open sourcing and supporting additional development to make it more accessible javascript developers. Learn more here:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/c-smile/open-source-sci...

Re: ElectronJS alternative: SciterJS – HTML/CSS/JS in 4.5 MB executable

#15

Post by benatkin »

barumi wrote: post #10
est wrote: post #2

Shipping .exe and .dll directly in github source repo?

That's a collosal red flag.

It depends on what you're looking for.

It's similar to other third-party component libraries out there. There are open source and closed source ones.

With the closed source ones you can take a leap of faith and trust the developer of the project, how it's documented, what it does, and decide whether or not to use it. If you submit to an app store, they can decide whether to approve it.

There are closed-source third-party component libraries out there that have a lot less info about the project and the creator than this one, that get distributed to end users.

GitHub has quite a large and varied audience. Some expect GitHub to have only open source software that can be vetted by examining the source code. For those it's a red flag. There are plenty of other developers for which it isn't a red flag, though.

Re: ElectronJS alternative: SciterJS – HTML/CSS/JS in 4.5 MB executable

#16

Post by NetOpWibby »

ptrott2017 wrote: post #14

Sciter is a very nice engine with a solid API/SDK and rock solid engineering behind it. For developers building efficient UI apps it can be a real alternative method to things like electron or as a lighter alternative to QT with QML script. However until now it was only available under commercial licence. Andrew Fedoniouk ( a.k.a. c-smile Sciter's original developer) has a kickstarter to fund open sourcing and suppor…

55 hours to go and not even a third of the goal completed. I’m an optimistic guy but I don’t see this happening.

EDIT: I wouldn’t mind being wrong.

Re: ElectronJS alternative: SciterJS – HTML/CSS/JS in 4.5 MB executable

#17

Post by Klonoar »

csande17 wrote: post #11
Klonoar wrote: post #4

Please, please stop comparing built in platform webviews and alternatives like Sciter to Electron. You can hate on Electron all you want (I do too) but it's a totally different beast to almost all these other solutions. It's all fun and games until you realize that to get half the junk Electron throws you for free, you'll wind up building it yourself in these solutions.

Arguments like these are a lot more compelling when they include some specific features that are missing. Too often, "includes everything you need for free!" translates to "weighs down your binary with a hundred megabytes of functionality no one actually uses."

The argument has been beaten to death by every thread on the topic here, so I don't particularly feel the need to take the bait.

Your comment also implies that I'm cosigning Electron being a bloated slug of an environment; I'm not. You will never unseat it by offering a pale imitation of it in place of it, though - and these comparisons result in little more than that.

Re: ElectronJS alternative: SciterJS – HTML/CSS/JS in 4.5 MB executable

#18

Post by ptrott2017 »

jblazevic wrote: post #8

What I find very interesting here is the QuickJS engine used in this. Developed by none other than Fabrice Bellard!

C-smile (OP) ported Fabrice Bellard's gcc code to standard C (without gcc extensions).

The Sciter engine currently uses TIScript - a language c-smile orginally developed and the kickstarter proposal is to open source Sciter as is, then replace TIScript with the QuickJS engine. (TIScript is a very nice scripting language in itself that is easily picked up by JS devs)

The standard C version of QuickJS can be compiled using visual studio on windows as can be seen in this repo: https://github.com/c-smile/quickjspp

(Edit to update to latest repo)

Re: ElectronJS alternative: SciterJS – HTML/CSS/JS in 4.5 MB executable

#19

Post by ptrott2017 »

NetOpWibby wrote: post #16
ptrott2017 wrote: post #14

Sciter is a very nice engine with a solid API/SDK and rock solid engineering behind it. For developers building efficient UI apps it can be a real alternative method to things like electron or as a lighter alternative to QT with QML script. However until now it was only available under commercial licence. Andrew Fedoniouk ( a.k.a. c-smile Sciter's original developer) has a kickstarter to fund open sourcing and suppor…

55 hours to go and not even a third of the goal completed. I’m an optimistic guy but I don’t see this happening. EDIT: I wouldn’t mind being wrong.

yeah i just found the kickstarter when I was replying to this thread. Off to go and sign up for it now...

Re: ElectronJS alternative: SciterJS – HTML/CSS/JS in 4.5 MB executable

#20

Post by gitgud »

gigel82 wrote: post #7
est wrote: post #2

Shipping .exe and .dll directly in github source repo?

It looks like the author was trying to crowd-fund open-sourcing this project: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/c-smile/open-source-sci... I think we'd be better off trying to slim down Chromium or reviving the idea of using the built-in OS WebView control (which is mostly Chromium nowadays anyway), at least that would be a standard web environment.

Under the Kickstarter information:

> "...Some of these directions better suit Open Source development model for many reasons."

So they want $100,000 to give people the source code. Then they're saying it will suit Open Source Development (also requesting free labour from the community).... this is a red flag

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