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Deno Desktop

docs.deno.com

231–240 of 418 posts

Re: Deno Desktop

#231
Deno Desktop supports two backends as of now: CEF (Chromium) and Webview

You can get your app sizes as low as 15mb with `deno desktop --compress` (in canary)

A tiny "raw" windowing backend exists for WebGPU rendering as well

Re: Deno Desktop

#232

> deno desktop is opinionated about those tradeoffs: > Small by default, full Node compatibility I tried `deno desktop index.ts` with the 5-line Hello world in the article. Result (Windows 10): 442 MB. Ouch. I thought it would be smaller than an Electron build, but it's far worse. Did I do something wrong? (libcef.dll: 247 MB) (deno-test.dll: 78 MB <- contains the hello world)

Try the webview backend: `deno desktop --backend webview`

The docs say that's the default:

https://docs.deno.com/runtime/desktop/backends/#webview-(def...

Re: Deno Desktop

#233
post #26

I'm happy for competition in this space, specially because Deno can run true TypeScript directly and not just strip types like the current Node implementation. With that said, this is going to eat a lot of Tauri market. Why would I use Tauri now? The 150mb of additional bundle size is just an extra 1 to 10 seconds of download time in most internet connections and you get a reliable rendering engine.

If you want desktop and mobile builds.

Tauri 2.0 added support for iOS and Android builds as targets.

Re: Deno Desktop

#234
post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People build web apps for an array of browsers and huge ranges of versions. en masse they don't. They just target the latest Chrome

I agree and disagree, you can't target everything, but most (not shit) devs will target at least Safari - 1 or 2, simply because the iPhone market is too good to miss out on. And Safari being, well, Safari, means targeting that is a pretty safe bet for anything else.

Depends on the region, no one where I work has an iPhone or a current Mac, so stuff gets tested on FF and Chrome, and Safari gets thoughts and prayers. We would test on Safari if it were simple, but alas.

Re: Deno Desktop

#235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have seen users having trouble with pixel soup UIs. They may not think "This should be in a native toolkit", but they do think "How the hell do I subscribe to a folder in the new Outlook?".

Right, but bad UI's was not uncommon before webviews, if anything the spartan-ness of the web often simpified patterns whilst reliance on weird hotkeys in desktop apps isn't uncommon.

>reliance on weird hotkeys in desktop apps isn't uncommon

The only examples I can think of are actions that are intentionally not easy to reach. How exactly it's done is platform-specific, but the (mis)feature doesn't come from the platform and can be implemented in other ways on other platforms.

- Apple UIs hide some power user functionality behind obscure hotkeys

- Similar: Shift-Delete to permanently delete (Windows, KDE) - Similar: Shift-right click to "Open With..." (Windows, KDE)

- In desktop apps that FOR SOME REASON try to look more like web apps, the hidden menu bar can be restored with Alt or Alt-M (Firefox, KDE)

Re: Deno Desktop

#236
I think the last time I tried Deno for desktop it didn't allow for fullscreen webview apps. that was a showstopper for our kiosk apps. I'll have to revisit that issue and see if it's resolved now. I'm glad to see Deno continuing to march on.

Re: Deno Desktop

#237

Hmm suppose you have a node GUI-less application. What would you pack it in to have something reasonably self contained to deploy?

Deno actually has had a built in compile to binary feature * I've used it before a few times.

* https://docs.deno.com/runtime/reference/cli/compile/

Re: Deno Desktop

#238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Web devs are used to their target being evergreen, so I suppose you could opt in or out of that model: "just give me what you got".

> Web devs are used to their target being evergreen I would think/hope web developers are used to “just give me what you got”. Any other mindset leads to “you must install to see this site”. It’s Electron devs that are used to that.

I love how we’re now reinventing the browser as a much worse version of itself. What if instead of one or two general Web browsers we make everyone install 10 random versions that can only open one website?

Re: Deno Desktop

#239
post #202
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who cares if it looks native? Native UIs change all the time too and not always for the better.

I change clothes all the time too, still match the pieces of clothing each time. There's aesthetic value to coherence. There's also design, usability value. I have Telegram, Steam and Firefox opened right now and each one of them displays different minimize/maximize/close buttons on the top right. That's not ideal.

So if you already wear clown shoes does that mean that you have to wear only clown costumes?

Re: Deno Desktop

#240
post #198
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good to know. Does it also preclude features like enums?

Huh, I was going to mention Node's `--experimental-transform-types`, but that was completely removed in v26: https://github.com/nodejs/node/pull/61803

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