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Ubuntu Makes Flutter ‘Default Choice’ for Future Desktop Apps

omgubuntu.co.uk

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Re: Ubuntu Makes Flutter ‘Default Choice’ for Future Desktop Apps

#61

Post by Barrin92 »

jjnoakes wrote: post #51
Barrin92 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slack, Spotify, Signal and Whatsapp desktop, Skype, Discord, MS Teams are all built on web tech. I think even Office 365 nowadays has a lot of the UI stuff written in react native. A lot of older linux software is non-web based but that's not the average desktop user.

> I think even Office 365 nowadays has a lot of the UI stuff written in react native. Where can I read about this?

I think I read about this on twitter from one of the webpack devs a few years ago, might have been this chain. (https://twitter.com/TheLarkInn/status/1006746626617008128)

I think for react native in windows apps more generally the github page is a good start

https://github.com/Microsoft/react-native-windows

Re: Ubuntu Makes Flutter ‘Default Choice’ for Future Desktop Apps

#62

Post by eropple »

scaladev wrote: post #55
ta988 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Faster than? Do you compare applications that do similar things?

Take a look at desktop Telegram when you have some time. It bundles its own fork of Qt (which inflates its shared memory usage as nobody else is using the library), has a very polished UI and all the same features as any other modern messenger, and runs circles around any Electron application I've ever seen. On my machine from 2014 it starts instantly and the memory usage never goes above 200-250 MBs, which is not id…

I just started VSCode on my desktop. Its "_startup_ memory", with something like two dozen extensions installed, is sitting at 170MB. I also just started Discord on my desktop. Its "_startup_ memory" is 39MB.

Now Slack's a pig at 380MB, fresh-opened, sure. But reality doesn't really seem to oblige these kinds of claims in 2021.

Re: Ubuntu Makes Flutter ‘Default Choice’ for Future Desktop Apps

#63

Post by scaladev »

axaxs wrote: post #58
jeswin wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Canonical is just all over the place. We should encourage experimentation and risk taking. No company can always get things right. Phones are a duopoly, but I'm glad they tried. Unity was fairly decent, but in the end adopting Gnome benefitted everyone. Ads were the only bad idea I can think of; but hey I've been using their wonderful software for 15 years now at a total cost of zero.

In theory I agree, but Canonical really seem to do it over and over. Whether it's NIH or something else, it seems every time technology starts shifting, Ubuntu goes its own way only to drop it a year or two later. Unity/compiz, Mir , Ubuntu One, Upstart, Bazaar. And currently baking are Snaps and LXD. This isn't to say any of these are bad products, but it has real effects to the end user, who invest time in somethin…

Don't forget that snaps came almost a year before flatpak. This is being parroted all over HN and still many don't know it and blame Canonical for reinventing the wheel, which is why I'm posting this.

(I agree with your general idea and the rest of your comment.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snap_(package_manager)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatpak

Re: Ubuntu Makes Flutter ‘Default Choice’ for Future Desktop Apps

#65

Post by chasd00 »

scaladev wrote: post #59
zelon88 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since electron is basically a headless browser, you would be opening up any app with an XSS vulnerability to any other app running in the runtime.

Headless? It even has the same debug console as the ordinary Chromium. Basically the only thing it misses is the URL bar and navigation buttons. It's just a browser with some OS integration slapped on the side.

True, I’ve always thought of electron as phonegap/Cordova for desktops.

Re: Ubuntu Makes Flutter ‘Default Choice’ for Future Desktop Apps

#66

Post by scaladev »

eropple wrote: post #62
scaladev wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take a look at desktop Telegram when you have some time. It bundles its own fork of Qt (which inflates its shared memory usage as nobody else is using the library), has a very polished UI and all the same features as any other modern messenger, and runs circles around any Electron application I've ever seen. On my machine from 2014 it starts instantly and the memory usage never goes above 200-250 MBs, which is not id…

I just started VSCode on my desktop. Its "_startup_ memory", with something like two dozen extensions installed, is sitting at 170MB. I also just started Discord on my desktop. Its "_startup_ memory" is 39MB. Now Slack's a pig at 380MB, fresh-opened, sure. But reality doesn't really seem to oblige these kinds of claims in 2021.

Are you looking at a single worker process out of about 10? This is such a frequent mistake it's not even funny. Do something resembling a proper measurement: run `free -m` (or the alternative on your OS) before starting VSCode, and then right after it finishes loading, ideally on a completely bare system to reduce noise.

Here are my numbers for a freshly installed 1.53.2 with zero plugins and no configuration:

  used
  2882

  used
  3404
OK, it's "only" 522 MBs for a bare-bones text editor which requires "two dozen plugins" to make somewhat usable.

Re: Ubuntu Makes Flutter ‘Default Choice’ for Future Desktop Apps

#67

Post by krzyk »

SMFloris wrote: post #48
candiddevmike wrote: post #4

I wish they would expand on what's wrong with Qt or GTK. Flutter support on both Windows and Linux is pretty bad. In my opinion, electron is a better choice for cross platform desktop UI--VScode is a shining example of what that can accomplish. And they're in for a lot of work if they want to customize Flutter so it doesn't look material or cupertino. Also, their big contribution to Flutter is getting it on the snap…

I didn't see it back when I was doing Qt, but writing a Qt app for every platform is hard. In theory you can have Qt apps on Android, iOs, Linux, etfc but in all fairness, it is just too much of a hassle. Big headache with toolchains, dependencies, it is just not worth it nowadays. "Write once, run everywhere" was a nice motto for Qt and I even bought it for a while but yet again does not work in practice. Flutter, o…

How does e.g. Telegram does it? Isn't it QT?

Re: Ubuntu Makes Flutter ‘Default Choice’ for Future Desktop Apps

#69

Post by cassepipe »

jeswin wrote: post #39
candiddevmike wrote: post #4

I wish they would expand on what's wrong with Qt or GTK. Flutter support on both Windows and Linux is pretty bad. In my opinion, electron is a better choice for cross platform desktop UI--VScode is a shining example of what that can accomplish. And they're in for a lot of work if they want to customize Flutter so it doesn't look material or cupertino. Also, their big contribution to Flutter is getting it on the snap…

> VScode is a shining example of what that can accomplish I see this mentioned quite often here, but that's not a valid argument in favour of Electron Apps. VSCode is the primary focus for a user when it's active - so it's fine if it takes up a significant proportion of a machine's resources. Now if a bunch of background taskbar apps, calculators and notepads start doing the same, user experience is going to go downh…

I just bought an Onivim license cause I wanted to treat myself and they're using Revery as an Electron replacement. Not sure I understand why it is faster, but I have to say the startup time is almost instantataneous and it's really responsive on a Linux 2014 i5 4Go laptop (whereas VScode ...). So it might be a good alternative.

Re: Ubuntu Makes Flutter ‘Default Choice’ for Future Desktop Apps

#70

Post by thiht »

jeswin wrote: post #39
candiddevmike wrote: post #4

I wish they would expand on what's wrong with Qt or GTK. Flutter support on both Windows and Linux is pretty bad. In my opinion, electron is a better choice for cross platform desktop UI--VScode is a shining example of what that can accomplish. And they're in for a lot of work if they want to customize Flutter so it doesn't look material or cupertino. Also, their big contribution to Flutter is getting it on the snap…

> VScode is a shining example of what that can accomplish I see this mentioned quite often here, but that's not a valid argument in favour of Electron Apps. VSCode is the primary focus for a user when it's active - so it's fine if it takes up a significant proportion of a machine's resources. Now if a bunch of background taskbar apps, calculators and notepads start doing the same, user experience is going to go downh…

> it's fine if it takes up a significant proportion of a machine's resources

I currently run 2 VScode instances and they literally total 70 MB. So no, it's not significant, on the contrary actually.

And to be fair, even if it was 700 MB, I wouldn't care. Even older machines have at least 4 GB memory.

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