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Web Apps on macOS Sonoma 14 Beta

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Re: Web Apps on macOS Sonoma 14 Beta

#3

The slow death of Electron & Co? Electron apps like Discord, Slack, etc. don't seem to gain any benefit from being wrapped in Electron anymore. Have one codebase, one app, that works everywhere and can now even be "installed" with Safari.

You're probably right with regard to Slack, Discord. However, some Electron apps require access to the filesystem or other APIs that these installed web pages wont't support (as far as I know). FS access is listed as a wishlist item in the article.

Electron still has a lot going for it if you need access to system APIs or you want it to be cross platform.

Re: Web Apps on macOS Sonoma 14 Beta

#4

The slow death of Electron & Co? Electron apps like Discord, Slack, etc. don't seem to gain any benefit from being wrapped in Electron anymore. Have one codebase, one app, that works everywhere and can now even be "installed" with Safari.

You're probably right with regard to Slack, Discord. However, some Electron apps require access to the filesystem or other APIs that these installed web pages wont't support (as far as I know). FS access is listed as a wishlist item in the article. Electron still has a lot going for it if you need access to system APIs or you want it to be cross platform.

Why don't apps that require additional access write a "runtime" daemon their website can connect to?

Actually that might be a security nightmare

Re: Web Apps on macOS Sonoma 14 Beta

#5

The slow death of Electron & Co? Electron apps like Discord, Slack, etc. don't seem to gain any benefit from being wrapped in Electron anymore. Have one codebase, one app, that works everywhere and can now even be "installed" with Safari.

One can only hope.

We keep having this idea since MSHTML and XUL,and thankfully it eventually goes out of fashion.

I already have a browser, an OS Web widgets, no need to package a browser with the application other than laziness.

Everyone shipping Electron is yet another ChromeOS advocate.

Re: Web Apps on macOS Sonoma 14 Beta

#6
I don't want to be nit-picky and it might seem like a minor nuisance, but developers will need the ability to display a small banner/prompt to educate user's about the possibility of installing the website like a regular app, otherwise it will be lost on casuals. I really hope that Apple implements this fully and doesn't use strategic loopholes to sabotage Web Apps in small but clever ways.

Re: Web Apps on macOS Sonoma 14 Beta

#7
I would love to be able to ship apps in this, with a code bundle, so we don't need to ship a full Electron engine for every app. Even better, I wish someone would standardise it so we could still write one, ship to all platforms.

Re: Web Apps on macOS Sonoma 14 Beta

#8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're probably right with regard to Slack, Discord. However, some Electron apps require access to the filesystem or other APIs that these installed web pages wont't support (as far as I know). FS access is listed as a wishlist item in the article. Electron still has a lot going for it if you need access to system APIs or you want it to be cross platform.

Why don't apps that require additional access write a "runtime" daemon their website can connect to? Actually that might be a security nightmare

This sounds like what Figma does to support custom fonts in their webapp!

https://help.figma.com/hc/en-us/articles/360039956894-Access...

Re: Web Apps on macOS Sonoma 14 Beta

#10
post #5

The slow death of Electron & Co? Electron apps like Discord, Slack, etc. don't seem to gain any benefit from being wrapped in Electron anymore. Have one codebase, one app, that works everywhere and can now even be "installed" with Safari.

One can only hope. We keep having this idea since MSHTML and XUL,and thankfully it eventually goes out of fashion. I already have a browser, an OS Web widgets, no need to package a browser with the application other than laziness. Everyone shipping Electron is yet another ChromeOS advocate.

But your "a browser" is different for other people, which one do you expect devs to target?
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