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Ask HN: How do you create a cross-platform GUI without using Electron?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you create a cross-platform GUI without using Electron?

#81

Post by torstenvl »

mjevans wrote: post #13

It would be really nice if there was a shared widget API that would work for the major operating systems. If most of simple app could work on Windows, OSX, maybe mobile (Android / iOS) and Linux / BSD. Something that was mostly native for all of them. Currently the only alternative to Electron that is similar is a program that hosts a local webserver and the local browser is pointed at it, but that's a second class e…

I think wxWidgets fills this role pretty nicely. It's what, e.g., Audacity and FileZilla use.

Re: Ask HN: How do you create a cross-platform GUI without using Electron?

#82

Post by greysphere »

cedws wrote: post #65

This thread doesn't inspire confidence. It's mostly small and unproven projects, some maintained by hobbyists. I think the mess we're in with GUIs is because we've failed to find a way to convey at a very high level what the inputs and outputs of software are. In a utopian world, you'd define what you want the user to see and how the user can interact with the information. Something would then work out how to lay tha…

3 seems like a subset of 1.

Re: Ask HN: How do you create a cross-platform GUI without using Electron?

#83

Post by diskzero »

irq-1 wrote: post #52
diskzero wrote: post #7

There are several options, each with their own pros and cons. Qt [1] The main codebase is C++, but bindings are available for Python and several other languages. I have developed and shipped multiple cross-platorm applications using Qt, using both C++ and Python. Documentation and source code examples are readily available. JUCE [2] Another C++ framework, with Python bindings. The focus is on music and audio apps, bu…

From https://juce.com/get-juce "JUCE is dual licenced under both the JUCE licence and the GPLv3."

Pricing isn't too bad if you don't want to go the GPL route.

If your funding or revenue is $50k and under, there is no cost, but there is a "Made with JUCE" splash screen.

If your funding or revenue is $500k and under, $800 one time fee and there is no splash screen.

You can pay $2600 once with no revenue or funding limit and no splash screen.

Free for education.

Re: Ask HN: How do you create a cross-platform GUI without using Electron?

#84

Post by cpach »

pengo wrote: post #43

We write apps like this in Object Pascal using Lazarus. Think Delphi but open source. We have a suite of framework-specific developer apps for tasks like packaging deployments, managing common database tasks, onboarding new clients etc. They were written on Linux using Lazarus, then recompiled on MacOS and Windows as required. There are occasionally OS-specific variations for small pieces of these apps, but Object Pa…

Cool! May I ask what project you’re working on?

Re: Ask HN: How do you create a cross-platform GUI without using Electron?

#85

Post by rm7 »

boban_dj wrote: post #46
ofou wrote: post #8

any good open source one?

godot: https://godotengine.org/ most of godot UI itself is made with godot engine

I'm thinking of using godot for the GUI on a decently complex Windows application. I'm concerned that Microsoft is no longer interested in desktop applications and I don't want to embark on something that has no long term future.

Re: Ask HN: How do you create a cross-platform GUI without using Electron?

#86

Post by jamil7 »

It’s too early to judge but Jetbrains are working on a desktop implementation of Jetpack Compose, the new Android UI framework. It draws to skia like Flutter so also not really “native” if that’s important to you. https://www.jetbrains.com/lp/compose/

Re: Ask HN: How do you create a cross-platform GUI without using Electron?

#87

Post by pjmlp »

prewett wrote: post #76
cosmotic wrote: post #62

Java and Swing are still a great option.

Ugh, I'd rather have the electron app. I've never seen a Java application that didn't garishly stand out, the widgets do not act at all native, and it's inevitably sluggish. Although, the biggest offenders I've used are Eclipse and IntelliJ IDEA, both of which at least have some excuse. I hate using both, though, and VS Code, which I believe is Electron-based, does not feel sluggish the way the other two do.

VSCode is full of C++ to work around Electron's bloat, in fact I am still looking forward to the day at very least gets rebooted in React Native.

Here is an example of an audio workstation software done in a mix of Java and C++,

https://www.bitwig.com/overview/

What most UI/UX projects don't need is programmer art.

Re: Ask HN: How do you create a cross-platform GUI without using Electron?

#88

Post by yellowapple »

I've had decent experiences with Python and Qt5. Windows was historically the painful part, but FBS¹ makes that a lot less painful nowadays. Tk also works reasonably well if you don't need the features and native integration that Qt offers (and I'm pretty sure FBS can handle Tkinter apps just fine).

The .NET ecosystem is another solid choice for cross-platform desktop app development (and nowadays even mobile, too). Avalonia² in particular looks promising, and is probably what I'd try using first should I ever be tasked with developing a desktop app again.

EDIT: Also, since you mentioned it already for Linux, GTK works well enough on Windows and (IIRC) macOS, too.

----

¹: https://build-system.fman.io/

²: https://avaloniaui.net/

Re: Ask HN: How do you create a cross-platform GUI without using Electron?

#90

Post by cosmotic »

prewett wrote: post #76
cosmotic wrote: post #62

Java and Swing are still a great option.

Ugh, I'd rather have the electron app. I've never seen a Java application that didn't garishly stand out, the widgets do not act at all native, and it's inevitably sluggish. Although, the biggest offenders I've used are Eclipse and IntelliJ IDEA, both of which at least have some excuse. I hate using both, though, and VS Code, which I believe is Electron-based, does not feel sluggish the way the other two do.

It takes a bit of care for java apps to look native. Though no electron apps look native, and they all look pretty garish to me. IDEA can be pretty snappy and the Jetbrains team is pretty good at fixing performance problems.
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