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Wavacity – a FOSS port of Audacity to the web

wavacity.com

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Re: Wavacity – a FOSS port of Audacity to the web

#61

Post by StevePerkins »

mock-possum wrote: post #60
bigyikes wrote: post #3

Wow, this is incredible! I was not expecting it to work on mobile Safari of all things, but it does! The UI is even usable. Audacity is an indispensable utility. It’s great to see it and other “real” software on the web. I’m reminded of Photopea[1] which is a web clone of Photoshop. [1]: https://www.photopea.com/

I agree that it running on mobile safari is incredible - I wouldn’t call the UI ‘usable’ though, it’s a straight duplicate of the desktop UI, which isn’t geared for mobile by any stretch of the imagination, and is actually unusable on my iPhone due to (I assume) far too small a clickable area for most controls. A UI rework to incorporate mobile-friendly design would be a ton of effort, but it would really take this p…

Does EVERY desktop application really need to run on mobile? Some apps are just... call me crazy... desktop apps! (NOTE: "native vs. browser-based" is separate distinction from "desktop vs. mobile".)

That's not to say that there can't be mobile audio apps, or mobile whatever. I just think that's a separate app, and should be designed and written as a mobile app from conception.

I realize that a large cohort finds desktop applications uncool today, but I'm just so frustrated with the idea that serious and powerful desktop interfaces need to crippled in order to fit into a "mobile-first" (a.k.a. "lowest-common denominator") paradigm. For audio listening, that's fine. But for serious audio creation and editing? FUCK an iPhone, sheesh.

Re: Wavacity – a FOSS port of Audacity to the web

#62

Post by Lammy »

evrimoztamur wrote: post #2

Alright, it's at a kind of uncanny valley situation where we have Windows XP applications running real-time in our browsers. Is the end-game just a universal sandboxed VM that's cross-platform? What do we do next?

> What do we do next?

The next step will be the same stack except the browser engine will be running in """The Cloud""" and streamed to your consumption-only device like an OnLive/Stadia/PSNow game. Everything already has dedicated video-decoding hardware so it will probably be sold as better for battery life to rely on that instead of the unpredictable load of your own local OS and browser engine.

Re: Wavacity – a FOSS port of Audacity to the web

#63

Post by clintfred »

thyrox wrote: post #56

Wow this is just incredible! Seeing this and software like photopea I can now start to feel that HTML has become powerful enough that almost any desktop app can now be built for the web just as same. A lot of people/companies tried their best to impede this progress (1) for promoting app stores but I'm so glad we are finally getting there regardless. Better late than never! (1) https://thenewstack.io/apples-browser-e…

I agree it's awesome, but I think we have WebAssembly more to thank than HTML. :-)

Re: Wavacity – a FOSS port of Audacity to the web

#64

Post by gochi »

StevePerkins wrote: post #61
mock-possum wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that it running on mobile safari is incredible - I wouldn’t call the UI ‘usable’ though, it’s a straight duplicate of the desktop UI, which isn’t geared for mobile by any stretch of the imagination, and is actually unusable on my iPhone due to (I assume) far too small a clickable area for most controls. A UI rework to incorporate mobile-friendly design would be a ton of effort, but it would really take this p…

Does EVERY desktop application really need to run on mobile? Some apps are just... call me crazy... desktop apps! (NOTE: "native vs. browser-based" is separate distinction from "desktop vs. mobile".) That's not to say that there can't be mobile audio apps, or mobile whatever. I just think that's a separate app, and should be designed and written as a mobile app from conception. I realize that a large cohort finds des…

You can use GarageBand perfectly fine on an iPhone, no reason Audacity can't do the same. It's literally just a UI issue, easily remedied especially on the web.

Re: Wavacity – a FOSS port of Audacity to the web

#65

Post by copperx »

coliveira wrote: post #59
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Back in the 80s, when 90% of software development consisted of using a database and the tooling provided by the database supplier, and creating a front end to enter/edit/view the database contents, the results were called "applications". In the 2020s, when 90% of software development consists of using a database, tooling supplied by various open source projects and some choice of web front- and backends to create a f…

For most companies, the real application is the database. Everything else is just a UI to view/edit the database contents.

Close. An app isn't valuable without the extensive business rules.

Re: Wavacity – a FOSS port of Audacity to the web

#66

Post by causality0 »

mock-possum wrote: post #60
bigyikes wrote: post #3

Wow, this is incredible! I was not expecting it to work on mobile Safari of all things, but it does! The UI is even usable. Audacity is an indispensable utility. It’s great to see it and other “real” software on the web. I’m reminded of Photopea[1] which is a web clone of Photoshop. [1]: https://www.photopea.com/

I agree that it running on mobile safari is incredible - I wouldn’t call the UI ‘usable’ though, it’s a straight duplicate of the desktop UI, which isn’t geared for mobile by any stretch of the imagination, and is actually unusable on my iPhone due to (I assume) far too small a clickable area for most controls. A UI rework to incorporate mobile-friendly design would be a ton of effort, but it would really take this p…

Are you using an old iPhone with a tiny screen or have you not tried turning it sideways? It's extremely usable in landscape. My sausage fingers don't have trouble hitting any buttons.

Re: Wavacity – a FOSS port of Audacity to the web

#68

Post by tambourine_man »

russellbeattie wrote: post #46
meepmorp wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to that link, all the browsers do implement the non-experimental parts of that API. The other features seem to be ones that Chrome has shipped unilaterally - the links to the standards docs seem to only have Google authors for those bits.

OK. Let me rephrase. If all browsers would support the very useful set of experimental FSA APIs implemented in Chrome/Edge's desktop browsers, then these types of web apps would be even more usable. There was nothing biased in my comment - even Chrome for Android doesn't support these APIs.

What useful features aren’t implemented in other browsers?

Re: Wavacity – a FOSS port of Audacity to the web

#69

Post by bjackman »

ahilss wrote: post #32

Wavacity developer here. I released this a year ago under the name "wavvy" but needed to rename the project because of a trademark conflict. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32688646

What motivated you to build this? Just because it's cool (it is cool!) or to serve a practical need?

Re: Wavacity – a FOSS port of Audacity to the web

#70

Post by autoexec »

StevePerkins wrote: post #61
mock-possum wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that it running on mobile safari is incredible - I wouldn’t call the UI ‘usable’ though, it’s a straight duplicate of the desktop UI, which isn’t geared for mobile by any stretch of the imagination, and is actually unusable on my iPhone due to (I assume) far too small a clickable area for most controls. A UI rework to incorporate mobile-friendly design would be a ton of effort, but it would really take this p…

Does EVERY desktop application really need to run on mobile? Some apps are just... call me crazy... desktop apps! (NOTE: "native vs. browser-based" is separate distinction from "desktop vs. mobile".) That's not to say that there can't be mobile audio apps, or mobile whatever. I just think that's a separate app, and should be designed and written as a mobile app from conception. I realize that a large cohort finds des…

> I realize that a large cohort finds desktop applications uncool today, but I'm just so frustrated with the idea that serious and powerful desktop interfaces need to crippled in order to fit into a "mobile-first" (a.k.a. "lowest-common denominator") paradigm.

Yeah, my primary issue with this sort of thing is that there is very little personal A/V content I'd feel comfortable uploading to some random server in the first place, but I agree that there are some tools better suited for the desktop and more specifically a keyboard and mouse.

The problem is that a very sizable part of the population doesn't have a desktop. It's not that they think it's uncool exactly but for a lot of people, kids especially, all they have are cell phones and tablets which were designed first and foremost for content consumption. I can't blame developers for wanting to target the needs of that audience to whatever extent they can.

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