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A new wave of Linux applications

tuxphones.com

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Re: A new wave of Linux applications

#411

Post by pinephoneguy »

nikodunk wrote: post #128
seltzered_ wrote: post #18

This could be less about device convergence and more about UX improvements and design coherence among apps. Some examples of what's been happening: - Touchpad gestures through various efforts: https://linuxtouchpad.org - Gnome: libAdwaita: https://blogs.gnome.org/alexm/2021/12/31/libadwaita-1-0/ - Core workflows getting better first-class approaches rather than being another app to install: (e.g. screenshots & screen…

Excellent links - thank you so much for the resources. I'm very excited to see what the Pinephone Pro brings as a platform to build towards in this regard. I'm already eyeing shipping some apps on Flathub! I hope the React Native => Flathub pipeline gets built out, similar to what Ubuntu is doing with Flutter => Snap. Exciting times!

I will never run your app if you build it this way, that sounds absolutely awful. Just write a GTK app or if that's too hard a CLI app since the CLI is first class on the PinePhone.

Re: A new wave of Linux applications

#412

Post by pinephoneguy »

goldcountry wrote: post #2

That's cool and all, but who is actually out here using a linux phone?

I do. I run Fluxbox on PostMarketOS. I use dino with jmp.chat for mms. I use emacs diary+git for calendar. I have some custom power management service I wrote shortly after getting the phone so it gets long battery life. My bank and brokerage both have decent web sites.

I'll never go back to a non-Linux phone, I'd rather not have a phone at all than tolerate the older mobile OSes.

Re: A new wave of Linux applications

#413

Post by pinephoneguy »

fsflover wrote: post #63
quanticle wrote: post #58

Furthermore, the variety of projects that are enabling convergence on their applications is growing at a fast rate, with KDE, GNOME, Nitrux, Elementary and Jingling among others shifting their interest on mobile-ready and touch-friendly applications for the future of Linux. So, in other words, Linux desktop applications are going the same way as "desktop" applications on Windows and MacOS. I put "desktop" in sarcasm…

No, GNU/Linux phones can run desktop applications scaled down in such a way that they stay usable. See examples here: https://puri.sm/posts/converging-on-convergence-pureos-is-co... .

I just run them with unit scaling. The digitizer is accurate enough, especially if you live an OSK window open and stick to keyboard shortcuts. I prefer the extra screen realestate.

Re: A new wave of Linux applications

#414

Post by bagacrap »

floatboth wrote: post #351
Jenk wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I do not understand why the default is so thin. For scroll/touch users, the scrollbar has become an indicator only, and not so much a tool for scrolling, to show where on the document the window is.

For mouse too, actually. I grew up with scroll wheel mice so I literally never had a reason to use a scrollbar to scroll.

really? what about really long pages? I frequently have to grab the thumb and because the scroll wheel takes ages

Re: A new wave of Linux applications

#416

Post by smoldesu »

rjzzleep wrote: post #408
kodah wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

libadwaita and Kirigami are huge improvements for the desktop app ecosystem from what I've seen as a user. When I started to delve into desktop applications I quickly realized there's a couple hurdles I face: 1. QT was an ecosystem shock to me. I barely knew what to do to get started and got lost easily. 2. Do these applications work outside of Linux; more directly, do they have dynamic dependencies? From my experien…

libAdwaita is an attempt at providing a consistent framework for making GUI applications in Linux. People commenting on MacOS UX often forget that people creating Mac GUI applications aren't magically better at doing UX than Linux users. It's orders of magnitude easier to make ok looking GUI applications on a mac. Besides the fact that cocoa on mac has evolved over a decade(when linux people were busy constantly rein…

> Besides the fact that cocoa on mac has evolved over a decade(when linux people were busy constantly reinventing gtk themeing engines and display servers)

I'll be the first one to concede that Wayland has been more or less a monumental waste of development effort, but can you point to the constant reinvention of themeing engines? Stylesheet modification has been a thing for decades now, there's very little that needed to be done to accomodate for them, at least from a GTK development standpoint (that I'm aware of).

Re: A new wave of Linux applications

#417

Post by GekkePrutser »

grey_earthling wrote: post #195
nomel wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me, phone os is an easy way to get to apps, switch between apps, and handle notifications. It appears to be something else for you. What is an ideal phone for you, and how would Linux help achieve that experience?

That's pretty much my use-case too. I want my laptop, but smaller :) Primarily, I want software I can trust, because I trust that the developers' motives are aligned with my own: a useful tool that I'm in control of. In my experience, most Free software fits that bill; whereas most proprietary software seems more interested in persuading me to buy something or sign up for something that I don't want. (Most, not all;…

> Bluntly, Free software is usually much less full of skeevy bullshit.

Yes and it's amazing how much smaller, faster and battery-efficient it can be without all the marketing and tracking crap.

Most apps on F-Droid are a few MB as opposed to tens of MBs for the play store ones. Most are well written and efficient. The quality of these has really increased the last couple of years.

Re: A new wave of Linux applications

#418

Post by GekkePrutser »

deckard1 wrote: post #366
stjohnswarts wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until I can plug my phone into a keyboard/mouse/monitor and have a powerful workstation I don't care that much about linux desktop apps being on my phone. My phone is backup/on-the-road browser, messaging applicance, and a phone 95% of the time.

Samsung has DeX. They also did Linux on DeX at one point but stopped. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_DeX https://www.slashgear.com/samsung-linux-on-dex-is-dead-here-...

DeX is pretty useful yes. A bit compromised though by Samsung's latest phones skimping out on the memory side, the S22 has the same amount that the S10 came with 3 years ago. DeX really needs lots of RAM as you'll typically have multiple apps open unlike on a phone screen. Once you run out browser tabs will start refreshing as soon as they so much as lose focus...

Really 12GB or even 16 would be much better for DeX. But you can only get 12 now on the ultra and not everyone likes massive phones.. I don't anyway.

Even if 8GB may be enough now it won't be as apps get bigger. It was nice in the beginning on my S8 but the last years I had it I hardly used DeX anymore as the experience became too slow and the refreshing too annoying. For example, just moving away from a form in a browser tab to copy something from my password manager would result in the browser tab refreshing upon return and the form inputs lost..

Re: A new wave of Linux applications

#419

Post by Sophistifunk »

mappu wrote: post #210
Tmpod wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For Qt (QML/QtQuick; Widgets are no linger the preferred method afaik) you have qmetaobjects-rs, which is reeally nice.

QML is practically electron - it's runtime interpreted declarative UI plus a Javascript engine. QML still has only rudimentary support for AOT compilation. Both the old qmlcompiler and the new qmlsc compiler are commercial-only: https://www.qt.io/blog/the-new-qtquick-compiler-technology . LGPL users only get the interpreter. Widgets is still the 'Real Qt'. Some very modern, responsive-layout desktop apps like Telegra…

> practically electron - it's runtime interpreted declarative UI plus a Javascript engine

Except, none of that is what's wrong with Electron. What's wrong with Electron is the bloat inherent in being an entire web browser, and the fact that the DOM+CSS is terrible for UI development.

Re: A new wave of Linux applications

#420

Post by theteapot »

seltzered_ wrote: post #18

This could be less about device convergence and more about UX improvements and design coherence among apps. Some examples of what's been happening: - Touchpad gestures through various efforts: https://linuxtouchpad.org - Gnome: libAdwaita: https://blogs.gnome.org/alexm/2021/12/31/libadwaita-1-0/ - Core workflows getting better first-class approaches rather than being another app to install: (e.g. screenshots & screen…

What's a core workflow in this context?
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