Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

There's another way to write GUI apps for Windows

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

1–10 of 10 posts

There's another way to write GUI apps for Windows

#1

Post by rlinge »

After seen this and comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40839208 , I have somethings to say. Now days people like to use Electron or Qt, but there's another way, use the Chrome.

After wrote the Webd (a less than 90KB file web sharing/managing server https://webd.cf/webd/ ). I thought I could use this way to write other apps, a webserver run locally, all UI things in browser. And it give one more benefit, remote controllable(by other PCs or mobile devices).

That's all.

Re: There's another way to write GUI apps for Windows

#3

Post by no_time »

I don't understand why don't all Electron apps do this instead. It's the worst of both worlds. Losing out on being remotely controllable AND having a duplicate copy of all the things that make up a web browser but without being able to share it with the instance you already have open.

I guess being able to style the titlebar is REALLY important to design departments.

Re: There's another way to write GUI apps for Windows

#6

Post by rlinge »

no_time wrote: post #3

I don't understand why don't all Electron apps do this instead. It's the worst of both worlds. Losing out on being remotely controllable AND having a duplicate copy of all the things that make up a web browser but without being able to share it with the instance you already have open. I guess being able to style the titlebar is REALLY important to design departments.

I believe it is due to the widespread popularity of Electron. What is widely popular is not necessarily the most perfect, but it is more developer-friendly.

In recent years, developers and companies have become less concerned about the memory, storage, and CPU usage on users' devices.

Re: There's another way to write GUI apps for Windows

#8

Post by [deleted] »

no_time wrote: post #3

I don't understand why don't all Electron apps do this instead. It's the worst of both worlds. Losing out on being remotely controllable AND having a duplicate copy of all the things that make up a web browser but without being able to share it with the instance you already have open. I guess being able to style the titlebar is REALLY important to design departments.

[deleted]

Re: There's another way to write GUI apps for Windows

#9

Post by rlinge »

troymc wrote: post #2

OctoPrint has been doing that since 2012. It's a clever idea. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OctoPrint

I use this method because I happen to know how to develop web servers and work with HTML/JavaScript. That's why I chose this approach. I assume they are in a similar situation, or they might have other considerations. Over the past decade, there has not been a truly perfect and convenient way to develop GUIs. Everyone has been trying different approaches.

Re: There's another way to write GUI apps for Windows

#10

Post by rlinge »

umen wrote: post #4

all web desktop is slow and crap . Qt is c++ and near native GUI and full native backend . so its something else don't compare them its not the same

Yes, Qt is a perfect choice for many developers, but there are also some developers who can't fully master C++. For example, I'm not smart enough to learn C++ and can only use C. Fortunately, there are some C language UI libraries available.
Post reply on HN