81–90 of 292 posts
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It's a fake OS in the sense that it's actually an application, not something that can be ran as an operating system like Linux or Windows. I've been a bit careful with my wording when advertising this, I wouldn't want to give the wrong impression.
Would "desktop environment" be a more appropriate description?
This is actually a great proof of concept for using Godot as a cross-platform framework for desktop applications. The distribution package is incredibly simple -- just a single executable and a data file -- and performance is excellent. This seems much superior to Flatpak and the like as a way to offer fully self-contained distro-agnostic binary packages, and vastly superior to Electron in the performance department.…
This would be sooo much worse from a UI point of view. All nice OS features (good text rendering, uniform text editing interface, accessibility, transparency) would all get chucked out the window. I also don't think Godot is inherently more performant for any random UI than Electron is. It happens that most Godot apps are performant because they're made by the type of people who want to use videogame engines and thus…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This would be sooo much worse from a UI point of view. All nice OS features (good text rendering, uniform text editing interface, accessibility, transparency) would all get chucked out the window. I also don't think Godot is inherently more performant for any random UI than Electron is. It happens that most Godot apps are performant because they're made by the type of people who want to use videogame engines and thus…
> All nice OS features (good text rendering, uniform text editing interface, accessibility, transparency) would all get chucked out the window. Could you explain this to someone who doesn't program and knows nothing about how os internals? My naive question is wouldn't the OS/DE/WM still take care of the above for an application?
This is the same difference between an system like Flutter and native App toolkits (I'm going to talk about Flutter because I know more about it). It has massive advantages on portability - Flutter rendering is very predictable on different phones because the only thing that can vary is screen size. The subtle variations between OS versions and phone manufacturer UI skins don't screw things up.
There are downsides: You need to implement all the common stuff that you'd normally get for free. This includes native look and feel - Flutter has to have all the Android and Apple widgets. It also includes text rendering accessibility, etc. etc.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This would be sooo much worse from a UI point of view. All nice OS features (good text rendering, uniform text editing interface, accessibility, transparency) would all get chucked out the window. I also don't think Godot is inherently more performant for any random UI than Electron is. It happens that most Godot apps are performant because they're made by the type of people who want to use videogame engines and thus…
> All nice OS features (good text rendering, uniform text editing interface, accessibility, transparency) would all get chucked out the window. Could you explain this to someone who doesn't program and knows nothing about how os internals? My naive question is wouldn't the OS/DE/WM still take care of the above for an application?
With a game engine the OS is basially handing you a blank canvas and telling you to draw what you want. With a GUI toolkit like GTK or Qt, the "OS" is handing you a bunch of pre-made parts and you get to arrange them on the page how you like.
If you're writing a game, the former is obviously better. If you're writing a standard application, the latter is usually better. By "better" I mean higher quality output, and less work to construct.
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This would be sooo much worse from a UI point of view. All nice OS features (good text rendering, uniform text editing interface, accessibility, transparency) would all get chucked out the window. I also don't think Godot is inherently more performant for any random UI than Electron is. It happens that most Godot apps are performant because they're made by the type of people who want to use videogame engines and thus…
I have never encountered an Electron app that can even display the results of keystrokes in a timely manner, and that includes vscode. All Electron apps waste system resources to an obscene degree. Also, Electron apps have already thrown away OS conventions to the point that user interface consistency has become a thing of the past. I don't believe that either choice is ideal, but if Godot were ubiquitous instead of…
For what they are most of these screens are far better than HTML counterparts. UI is snappier and more special effects.
Game UIs off the menu have always been better than web pages too. Look at say baldurs gate 3. I don't think such a UI is easily pulled off in web. Possible but awkward to build.
Dang! I just realized github no longer works on my old macbook running firefox 78.15.0esr (64-bit). BigTech wants me to buy a new macbook or switch to chrome. Edit: it's actually no laughing matter. I'm pretty devastated. :-(
The Godot IDE itself is a "game" as in it is entirely built using Godot APIs. Makes me wonder if it would actually be a good environment to build portable business apps, sort of like a modern Visual Basic.
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This would be sooo much worse from a UI point of view. All nice OS features (good text rendering, uniform text editing interface, accessibility, transparency) would all get chucked out the window. I also don't think Godot is inherently more performant for any random UI than Electron is. It happens that most Godot apps are performant because they're made by the type of people who want to use videogame engines and thus…
Exactly. People hate on Electron because they have bad experiences with many Electron apps, but that's not because Electron is inherently terrible, it's because most developers choose Electron because it requires the lowest amount of effort. When you start with that as your single reason for choosing a tech stack, it's unsurprising that optimizing performance never happens. VSCode works because they chose Electron fo…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This would be sooo much worse from a UI point of view. All nice OS features (good text rendering, uniform text editing interface, accessibility, transparency) would all get chucked out the window. I also don't think Godot is inherently more performant for any random UI than Electron is. It happens that most Godot apps are performant because they're made by the type of people who want to use videogame engines and thus…
I have never encountered an Electron app that can even display the results of keystrokes in a timely manner, and that includes vscode. All Electron apps waste system resources to an obscene degree. Also, Electron apps have already thrown away OS conventions to the point that user interface consistency has become a thing of the past. I don't believe that either choice is ideal, but if Godot were ubiquitous instead of…