Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Porting a 100% local app to the web

actualbudget.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 81 posts

Re: Porting a 100% local app to the web

#31

Post by lovasoa »

mynegation wrote: post #27
pjmlp wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Electron has always been redundant, the approach daemon + local browser has worked since browsers exist, and then there are web views anyway. The problem is that those approaches require the developers to actually care about what browser the user has installed instead of pushing Chrome everywhere.

I disagree. I have not seen many applications that take daemon + local browser approach. What are the examples? Yes, each Electron app ships a copy of node and Chromium engine, but user gets icon on a desktop, ability to manage windows with whatever window manager and utilities, hotkeys, tray icons, dedicated menu etc.

I was thinking about the browser+daemon approach for an application that I maintain, and would also be very interested if someone has done it and has feedback to give.

Re: Porting a 100% local app to the web

#32

Post by aphit »

jlongster wrote: post #5
amun-ra wrote: post #3

Interesting app, how does it compare to YNAB?

The only thing similar is how the budgeting system works, and even that is going to change soon. Soon you'll be able to choose between a zero-based budget or a simpler report-style budget that just shows income vs expense (and provide some features help track things). There's also the big difference that the app is local and we provide end-to-end encryption. An example of a feature that YNAB doesn't have at all is cu…

https://docs.youneedabudget.com/article/611-manage-payees#ca...

It seems like, at least the first mentioned use case in Actual's documentation, is covered by YNAB already.

Re: Porting a 100% local app to the web

#33

Post by cxr »

Spivak wrote: post #4

As much as it seems the general tone of HN is firmly against having the File System APIs in browsers it really is the bridge that enables truly offline webapps to work. The fact that the only consistent persistence story is to send your data to a server you don’t control makes everything harder. If we want users to really own their data we have to give webapps somewhere to put it that’s in the user’s control.

There's nothing inherent to Web apps that's forcing the hand of developers to send user data to a server outside the user's control (i.e. opting not to give the choice of sending it to a server the user does control). Keeping user data on servers that the Web app developer controls is a decision that developers make because control over user data is usually an adversarial conflict, and when given to power to do developers go for the choice that works out to their advantage.

Re: Porting a 100% local app to the web

#34

Post by jlongster »

aphit wrote: post #32
jlongster wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only thing similar is how the budgeting system works, and even that is going to change soon. Soon you'll be able to choose between a zero-based budget or a simpler report-style budget that just shows income vs expense (and provide some features help track things). There's also the big difference that the app is local and we provide end-to-end encryption. An example of a feature that YNAB doesn't have at all is cu…

https://docs.youneedabudget.com/article/611-manage-payees#ca... It seems like, at least the first mentioned use case in Actual's documentation, is covered by YNAB already.

Sure, but that's all it can do. You could categorize the same payee differently based on dates or notes, and really anything you want to do. In the future it'll create rules to automatically mark recurring transactions, etc.

Re: Porting a 100% local app to the web

#35

Post by millstone »

kfk wrote: post #23

If the app lives in full isolation and your focus is data ownership desktop is probably better, but I struggle to understand how it can be better tech for any other use case. I work in a big company so maybe I am biased but 1) every app eventually has to integrate with some other app; 2) every app eventually is used by more than 1 person; in both 1 and 2 desktop pretty much breaks (unless you use version control for…

Desktop apps can reach higher quality. Compare e.g. Apple Keynote to Google Slides, the difference is obvious.

Re: Porting a 100% local app to the web

#38

Post by leipert »

millstone wrote: post #35
kfk wrote: post #23

If the app lives in full isolation and your focus is data ownership desktop is probably better, but I struggle to understand how it can be better tech for any other use case. I work in a big company so maybe I am biased but 1) every app eventually has to integrate with some other app; 2) every app eventually is used by more than 1 person; in both 1 and 2 desktop pretty much breaks (unless you use version control for…

Desktop apps can reach higher quality. Compare e.g. Apple Keynote to Google Slides, the difference is obvious.

Ha. Wanted to counter your argument with: Keynote is older. It is, but just by 3 years, (2003 vs 2006).

Depending on the features you use your argument might fall flat though, how do I collaborate on a presentation? How can I easily share a presentation with a set of folks?

I like Keynote a lot, but Slides has it’s use cases as well.

Re: Porting a 100% local app to the web

#39

Post by mav3rick »

mynegation wrote: post #27
pjmlp wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Electron has always been redundant, the approach daemon + local browser has worked since browsers exist, and then there are web views anyway. The problem is that those approaches require the developers to actually care about what browser the user has installed instead of pushing Chrome everywhere.

I disagree. I have not seen many applications that take daemon + local browser approach. What are the examples? Yes, each Electron app ships a copy of node and Chromium engine, but user gets icon on a desktop, ability to manage windows with whatever window manager and utilities, hotkeys, tray icons, dedicated menu etc.

It is insane for a browser to be a runtime for every desktop app. This is why people complain about 16 GB memory being too little.

Re: Porting a 100% local app to the web

#40

Post by millstone »

leipert wrote: post #38
millstone wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Desktop apps can reach higher quality. Compare e.g. Apple Keynote to Google Slides, the difference is obvious.

Ha. Wanted to counter your argument with: Keynote is older. It is, but just by 3 years, (2003 vs 2006). Depending on the features you use your argument might fall flat though, how do I collaborate on a presentation? How can I easily share a presentation with a set of folks? I like Keynote a lot, but Slides has it’s use cases as well.

Keynote actually has pretty great real-time collaboration [1], though it does have more friction than GSlides, not least of which because it requires a Mac.

I agree GSlides has its uses. Web apps are good for ephemeral tasks, but I use desktop apps for stuff I care about.

1: https://support.apple.com/guide/keynote/intro-to-collaborati...

Post reply on HN