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Inspecting Web Views in macOS

blog.jim-nielsen.com

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Re: Inspecting Web Views in macOS

#121

Post by kitsunesoba »

rhodysurf wrote: post #115
kitsunesoba wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Perhaps the explanation is that native GUI frameworks simply haven’t kept up in terms of developer experience. That depends on what one values, in my opinion. Whenever I start poking around with front end web stuff it makes me want to tear my hair out. Not because it isn't technically capable, but it all feels so slapdash, duct-taped, and chaotic compared to what I'm used to writing AppKit/UIKit, even if some aspec…

I’m guessing you haven’t tried building something serious with SwiftUI then. Because for me React is a million times more polished than SwiftUI. I was a native dev before I got into web stuff. The Apple APIs for native GUIs are so good, but they are extremely verbose, and with swift now they are closed source. It’s just not as easy (or fun tbh) to build things with

SwiftUI is promising, but still green (for now). So no, I was talking about just plain old AppKit and UIKit. No fancy declarative syntax, but plenty capable.

Closed source isn’t great, but I’ll take that tradeoff for how much less frequently I need to reach for a third party library or write widgets from scratch.

Re: Inspecting Web Views in macOS

#122

Post by jmull »

rhodysurf wrote: post #117
lucasyvas wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a web developer that primarily codes in React for the last 5 years, I strongly disagree. I use it because of the ecosystem and I think everyone does. It's not that fast, and it's quite verbose. That's besides the point though, because I doubt Apple chose React because they "enjoyed" it here. I like web tech but I also think it's not worth it for this use case (even if it is shared with the web). What naturally hap…

It’s definitely a bit disingenuous to call React verbose when you are comparing it to Cocoa et all.

The previous poster wasn't comparing it to Cocoa when calling react verbose.

Re: Inspecting Web Views in macOS

#123

Post by marcellus23 »

boogies wrote: post #33

Source-available variants of [GNU's Not] Unix have often been on the leading edge of user interfaces, from immitating the Xerox PARC desktop metaphor before Windows did (X11 initial release: June 1984, Windows: November 1985) to adding intrusive ads to the main system menu / search around the time Windows 8 was released. But it’s interesting to see macOS’s proprietary UI now apparently following GNOME’s example of po…

Apple has been doing that for ages, see e.g. the iTunes music store or Apple Music.

Re: Inspecting Web Views in macOS

#124

Post by tambourine_man »

I think at some point Apple will just have to recognize that the web UI has won. I say that with a heavy heart, I enjoy them as a developer but despise them as a user.

But it's really hard to compete. On the browser side, the vendor must only implement the standards as correctly and fast as possible, while the community tries all sorts of crazy paradigms and supports the ones that eventually stick.

On the native side, the vendor must anticipate the trend, invest and support it. If it chooses the wrong one or the implementation is bad, it's years down the toilet. I fear that SwiftUI is taking that path.

Re: Inspecting Web Views in macOS

#125

Post by dymk »

junon wrote: post #66
dymk wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ImGui makes UI programming declarative in structure the exact same way React makes UI programming declarative. React brings to the table is the general concept of immediate mode UI programming. So does ImGUI. Reaching for React doesn't mean it's the only thing the programmers knew, it means it's a general pattern that arises in UI programming.

No, it absolutely does not. ImGUI is a completely, totally different model of GUI programming.

Sorry, but they are the same concept. They’re both immediate mode GUI tools that provide a way to declaratively describe the UI in an imperative language.

Re: Inspecting Web Views in macOS

#126

Post by vlovich123 »

tambourine_man wrote: post #124

I think at some point Apple will just have to recognize that the web UI has won. I say that with a heavy heart, I enjoy them as a developer but despise them as a user. But it's really hard to compete. On the browser side, the vendor must only implement the standards as correctly and fast as possible, while the community tries all sorts of crazy paradigms and supports the ones that eventually stick. On the native side…

I don’t think it has anything to do with trends. It’s about $$. Web UIs are infinitely faster to develop, there’s typically better tooling (larger ecosystem), and there’s many developers which means you can get them cheap.

The counter though is that Web UIs have struggled and continue to struggle with performance - specifically the RAM usage is insane for what the equivalent native UI. RAM is tightly coupled with standby time in sleep since RAM is the most expensive component at that phase. Turning off banks of RAM is important but you can’t do that if the banks are still in use.

Re: Inspecting Web Views in macOS

#127

Post by vlovich123 »

exikyut wrote: post #81
SheinhardtWigCo wrote: post #61

> Here’s an idea: guess at new features in macOS by using the work of Safari team members as a leading indicator. Shh, please... we don't want WebKit releases to look like xnu releases

Hmmmm. I wonder which OS will support in-kernel JIT for JavaScript first. :v (/s ... I hope??)

Why would it need to be in-kernel? What advantage does that serve?

For what it’s worth there’s JavaScriptCore (at least for mobile) which is the only way to do JIT on iOS. It’s constantly criticized as being slower than competing JavaScript JITs while Apple counters that it’s an important security barrier.

Re: Inspecting Web Views in macOS

#128

Post by tksb »

avianlyric wrote: post #111
johnfn wrote: post #10

Wow. I always thought the argument in favor of using web technologies on the desktop was that cross-platform became easier. And yet here is an example of the most unambiguously single-platform app I can possibly imagine, and under the hood it uses web - and React of all things! Crazy.

It has the advantage of allowing the iCloud team to update the preferences panel without the need to release macOS updates. Allowing them to decouple iCloud updates from the macOS release cycle. Sure you could use something like SwiftUI and create some simple DSL to dynamically build a native UI. But at that point you’re basically building a slightly crappier, less flexible version of HTML. So might as well use HTML+…

Still, they could've probably made some strides with React Native on macOS and the win-win that entails. UX improves in these instances + arguably RN benefits from the Apple buy-in.

Re: Inspecting Web Views in macOS

#129

Post by kizer »

ehnto wrote: post #52

I have noticed web being used as a platform for UI in a bunch of programs, particularly within games.

It’s replaced ScaleForm (the Flash powered UI option) in many places it seems. I’d love to know what kinds of techniques are used for really flashy UIs. There are a few companies solely focused on this middleware (web-based UI in video games).

Re: Inspecting Web Views in macOS

#130

Post by emkoemko »

nguyenkien wrote: post #114
emkoemko wrote: post #74

why does this matter? on GNOME i can pull up the javascript development console for the whole desktop this is nothing new.

Gnome use javascript with native UI. Apple simply use webview.

ohh wow that seems inefficient to use a browser
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