When are we going to get back truly native apps?
Flutter Desktop works great, and there are a bunch of nice GUI libraries for Rust, also some new developments for the JRE.
Tauri – Electron alternative written in Rust
31–40 of 435 posts
Re: Tauri – Electron alternative written in Rust
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
Everyone is basically using Chrome or Safari nowadays - so WebKit. Very little incompatibilities to consider compared to writing something that works on different WebView implementations
WebKit and Blink have many significant differences, especially when it comes to supporting newer features. In terms of incompatibilities they're about as different as Gecko is from Blink, if not more so.
Not sure how familiar you are with the history of browser engines, but Blink and WebKit are definitely more similar than Gecko and Blink.
Gecko comes from the heritage of Netscape. Blink comes from the chain of KHTML > WebKit WebCore. They don't share any points, while Blink probably wouldn't have existed without WebKit.
But yes, today there are differences between WebKit and Blink.
Re: Tauri – Electron alternative written in Rust
#33I wonder if the processing / size overhead of Chromium / Node could be reduced by making both more modular? I.e. compiling only the features you need. But I guess Chromium isn't built for that.
Re: Tauri – Electron alternative written in Rust
#34If anyone wants to know how it works: > [leverages] WebKit on macOS, WebView2 on Windows and WebKitGTK on Linux. So cross-platform compatibility isn't guaranteed, unlike Electron. https://github.com/tauri-apps/tauri
"cross-platform compatibility" isn't guaranteed on the web either, yet somehow "cross-platform compatible" websites exist. It isn't a problem that's so difficult it requires wrapping a 60Mb runtime around every individual app instance.
I'm not sure why downvoting is needed. What's said is true: on the web we already have to deal with different browsers and versions. It should be a fact of life for web developers. And things today are still infinitely better than back in the IE 6 days: many modern features work on all major targets. Why do people insist so much on engine consistency for "desktop web apps"?
Re: Tauri – Electron alternative written in Rust
#35[deleted]
Re: Tauri – Electron alternative written in Rust
#36I'm using electron for https://www.monsterwriter.app/ and i'm looking for a lightweight alternative since a while. This seems to be a good fit. I guess when you can reduce the api calls to bindings (accessing filesystem, network, etc.) cross platform compatibility should not be a problem.
Have you tried Sciter?
no, but looks like it natively builds for m1 :)
Re: Tauri – Electron alternative written in Rust
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
Everyone is basically using Chrome or Safari nowadays - so WebKit. Very little incompatibilities to consider compared to writing something that works on different WebView implementations
Luckily, that is not the case. In Germany, FF still has 20% on Desktop and 10% total (and I wonder if those numbers are maybe too low, as FF blocks those trackers by default).
That means that there are about 8 million people using Firefox in Germany.
The world has more than 3 billion internet users
Re: Tauri – Electron alternative written in Rust
#38If someone is looking for the Go alternative, there is Wails.
Re: Tauri – Electron alternative written in Rust
#39I'm using electron for https://www.monsterwriter.app/ and i'm looking for a lightweight alternative since a while. This seems to be a good fit. I guess when you can reduce the api calls to bindings (accessing filesystem, network, etc.) cross platform compatibility should not be a problem.
I would be curious if anybody onboarded an Tauri application into the Mac App Store and if it builds for M1?
It cheerfully builds and runs on M1.
Re: Tauri – Electron alternative written in Rust
#40If anyone wants to know how it works: > [leverages] WebKit on macOS, WebView2 on Windows and WebKitGTK on Linux. So cross-platform compatibility isn't guaranteed, unlike Electron. https://github.com/tauri-apps/tauri
"cross-platform compatibility" isn't guaranteed on the web either, yet somehow "cross-platform compatible" websites exist. It isn't a problem that's so difficult it requires wrapping a 60Mb runtime around every individual app instance.
Most cross compatibility issues have been resolved in browsers. Firefox and Chrome are pretty much at parity, Edge is chrome and Safari is the exception.
Web views are less standardized though and require more finesse.