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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

#171

Post by horsawlarway »

inque3d wrote: post #39
nly wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very much in the same vein as Duktape[0]. It looks like Duktape is smaller and has a more useful standard library, but is slower and doesn't support ES2020 features. https://duktape.org/index.html https://bellard.org/quickjs/bench.html

Not just es2020, Duktape doesn't even support arrow functions and classes. QuickJS seems interesting, but I couldn't manage to compile it on Windows (without MSYS2).

Duktape supports ES5, with only partial support for anything ES6+ (and not much partial support, at that).

That said - having used Duktape in production, it's a very handy little library. Small, easy to drop into projects, great way to add support for custom user scripts or to run js code somewhere outside of a browser context.

Also - insanely easy to target still, despite the lack of ES6+, as long as you already have babel somewhere in your build pipeline.

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

#172

Post by c-smile »

jlokier wrote: post #152
c-smile wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is so special in Unity/Unreal engine style model in this regard?

I don't see how the Unity/Unreal suggestion helps with open sourcing if that's a goal here. Those engines are closed source. For obtaining revenue and building a community their model works well. Just not an open source community. Unity is free for people and companies to use if their revenue is For any business whose revenue then grows to > $100k/year, the business can easily afford the relatively low license fee of…

Thanks, that's probably the most realistic financing schema in Sciter.JS regards. But as you said it is not Open Source, why btw?

BTW: Sciter already works inside Unreal Engine pipeline as plugin: https://sciter.com/see-sciter-lite-unreal-engine-in-theaters...

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

#173

Post by c-smile »

jancsika wrote: post #161
c-smile wrote: post #110

Sciter's author here. What would be strategies in case of Kickstarter campaign will fail? In principle I can publish it for free as it is now but I definitely don't want it to be one more of abandon-ware projects that are open sourcing as the end of life. In general OS development is significantly more costly (for the author) as closed source one - for many reasons. So OS development needs steady stream of funding. S…

> What would be strategies in case of Kickstarter campaign will fail? I think you chose the wrong goal here. I don't think you really want a one-time, lump sum donation to "unlock" your code under a FOSS license. I would think you want regular, recurring payments to keep you in the job of writing the code that pushes the project forward. Judging from the cron job of "Electron-so-fat" posts here on HN, there may be an…

"1. you work on the next feature in private"

That's precisely what I did with Sciter development all these years.

"3. release a video of you demo'ing the feature"

That's what the Kickstarter campaign is all about.

"5. if not, you delete it"

Yep :)

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

#174

Post by thrownaway954 »

someone explain to why if this was a commercial product for all these years and the _numerous_ (my god that list is impressive) clients that are using it, they need $100K to make it open source? Last I heard github is free. am i missing things?

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

#175

Post by c-smile »

tambourine_man wrote: post #99
madeofpalk wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Until, at least, all major modern OSes come with a built in scriptable headless browser engine One of the main advantages of shipping your own browser like Electron or SciterJS is that it's a fixed, stable target where you can be a lot more confident about browser compatibility because you're only supporting a single browser + version.

Exactly, but we can check for feature support and adapt accordingly. We did it for the seen for years.

What if you have no browser for the platform at all?

What should you do if you need your app to run on W2000 for example (IE 6.0 anyone?) ?

Sometimes people do need that: https://sciter.com/necromancing-sciter-on-windows-2000/

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

#177

Post by Klonoar »

jeremyjh wrote: post #129
Klonoar wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, no: you can do the same stuff with Electron, and you _won't_ be saddled with the issues inherent to WKWebView that Apple still hasn't fixed years later. There are also web features that Safari notoriously does not implement that you'd have access to in Edge. Webview2 on Windows is also going through a weird period where you can't rely on it "just working" without the end user installing a runtime. There is a…

I don't know why you are being downvoted. Personally I consider Electron to be cancer but this comment is very informative and raises some very valid points. For some reason it is 2020 and there is no fully qualified solution for cross platform desktop application development. Every option has massive downsides, gotchas, rough edges and limitations.

Meh, it's downvotes due to blind Electron hate. I'm not too surprised nor bothered by it.

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

#178

Post by gigel82 »

est wrote: post #73
gigel82 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 think we'd be better off trying to slim down Chromium https://github.com/weolar/miniblink49

Whatever little I could gather from Google translate sounds very interesting.

I wish someone did a deep dive (in English) on what this is and how to use it (with focus on disk space and runtime performance characteristics).

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

#179

Post by watersb »

deergomoo wrote: post #90
tomashubelbauer wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think for "all major modern OSS" to apply we need at least Windows and macOS support. Internet Explorer never fit this description. Edit: This comment is wrong - looks like IE did fit this description before my time. :-)

People forget that when OS X launched IE was the default browser :)

IE on Mac was a different code base, different layout engine, and did not run ActiveX plugins.

It was a good browser at the time, and helped move the OS X platform forward. Perhaps even a vital part of the software support available at release.

But it wasn't IE6.

All that corporate ActiveX, DCOM software could not be deployed on it.

Microsoft grew multiple platforms to address this, for 20 years, but that's another story (that may also be relevant to the article).

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

#180

Post by mike_ivanov »

pwdisswordfish4 wrote: post #164
c-smile wrote: post #110

Sciter's author here. What would be strategies in case of Kickstarter campaign will fail? In principle I can publish it for free as it is now but I definitely don't want it to be one more of abandon-ware projects that are open sourcing as the end of life. In general OS development is significantly more costly (for the author) as closed source one - for many reasons. So OS development needs steady stream of funding. S…

Open source development doesn't have to be more costly than closed source, except in this case it might be if you end up believing the people who tell you that the best way to be successful is to cut off your ability of ever again getting a commercial contract out of the kinds of organizations who want to build proprietary apps on your work by publishing under a permissive license like BSD or MIT. > What would be str…

Yes, that's the right solution. GPL + a commercial license. It works for Qt, it works for Java, and it works for many other projects.
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