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I'm done making desktop applications (2009)

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Re: I'm done making desktop applications (2009)

#11

Post by jpnc »

BuildTheWorld wrote: post #9

Now that websites can use the File System Access API to load and save files, the Desktop is "solved" for me. Everybody can use my software simply by opening the url in their browser. The new challenge is phones. Mobile browsers do not support the File System Access API. What is a solution to this? Is there a reputable service that converts a web page into an Android/iOS app so that it can load and save files?

One thing I'm missing is pkcs11 API in browsers. This seems to not make sense to US devs from what I could see but if you're in EU you can probably commiserate.

Re: I'm done making desktop applications (2009)

#12

Post by groestl »

chadcmulligan wrote: post #8

You could perhaps imagine web apps as a form of 2FA, half the app is on the client, and the other half is on the server and continually authenticating each other by communicating with each other. There's no reason you can't do this with desktop apps, put a chunk of the functionality on the server and obtain security that way. The trouble with web apps is compute and storage performance, for a web app you're limited b…

> half the app is on the client, and the other half is on the server and continually authenticating each other

This is not what 2FA is.

Re: I'm done making desktop applications (2009)

#13

Post by bb88 »

BuildTheWorld wrote: post #9

Now that websites can use the File System Access API to load and save files, the Desktop is "solved" for me. Everybody can use my software simply by opening the url in their browser. The new challenge is phones. Mobile browsers do not support the File System Access API. What is a solution to this? Is there a reputable service that converts a web page into an Android/iOS app so that it can load and save files?

Phones just don't make a good analog to computers with a robust file system browser. My experience is if you're downloading something on a phone, it's never going be used again. It will sit there until a factory reset.

How many restaurant menus have I downloaded read once and never cleared off? I don't know. I also don't care. If I did care, I would want to use "Save As..." and save to google drive.

Re: I'm done making desktop applications (2009)

#14

Post by asdff »

chadcmulligan wrote: post #8

You could perhaps imagine web apps as a form of 2FA, half the app is on the client, and the other half is on the server and continually authenticating each other by communicating with each other. There's no reason you can't do this with desktop apps, put a chunk of the functionality on the server and obtain security that way. The trouble with web apps is compute and storage performance, for a web app you're limited b…

What did you have in mind with the browser being a limiting factor? It seems to me you can run stuff in the browser that makes use of all your local resources and can save things as well, considering tools like jupyter notebooks.

Re: I'm done making desktop applications (2009)

#15

Post by JoshStrobl »

devwastaken wrote: post #10
BuildTheWorld wrote: post #9

Now that websites can use the File System Access API to load and save files, the Desktop is "solved" for me. Everybody can use my software simply by opening the url in their browser. The new challenge is phones. Mobile browsers do not support the File System Access API. What is a solution to this? Is there a reputable service that converts a web page into an Android/iOS app so that it can load and save files?

File system access API is a chromium feature.

File System API is a baseline feature supported across all major vendors. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/File_System...

Re: I'm done making desktop applications (2009)

#16

Post by asdff »

BuildTheWorld wrote: post #9

Now that websites can use the File System Access API to load and save files, the Desktop is "solved" for me. Everybody can use my software simply by opening the url in their browser. The new challenge is phones. Mobile browsers do not support the File System Access API. What is a solution to this? Is there a reputable service that converts a web page into an Android/iOS app so that it can load and save files?

You can do this with javascript on android at least

Re: I'm done making desktop applications (2009)

#17

Post by qsort »

chadcmulligan wrote: post #8

You could perhaps imagine web apps as a form of 2FA, half the app is on the client, and the other half is on the server and continually authenticating each other by communicating with each other. There's no reason you can't do this with desktop apps, put a chunk of the functionality on the server and obtain security that way. The trouble with web apps is compute and storage performance, for a web app you're limited b…

> Its not really an issue for a bingo card creator, it is if you're making blender or autocad.

This is obviously valid, but considering how powerful even low-end computers are these days, I'd say that most of the stuff we do on a computer is more like bingo card creator than blender or autocad.

Software that is slow in spite of this is generally slow because it does a thousand network requests in the background.

A 2009-era argument could have been that desktop apps are more respectful of your privacy, but that ship has long sailed due to pervasive telemetry, and it wasn't really ever true for mobile anyway.

Re: I'm done making desktop applications (2009)

#18

Post by dandy23 »

BuildTheWorld wrote: post #9

Now that websites can use the File System Access API to load and save files, the Desktop is "solved" for me. Everybody can use my software simply by opening the url in their browser. The new challenge is phones. Mobile browsers do not support the File System Access API. What is a solution to this? Is there a reputable service that converts a web page into an Android/iOS app so that it can load and save files?

I partly agree with you, but File System Access API requires Chrome. Other browsers do not support it. And this API does not support checking for file changes on the file system, eg. To reload a changed file like desktop editors do.

Re: I'm done making desktop applications (2009)

#19

Post by dandy23 »

bb88 wrote: post #13
BuildTheWorld wrote: post #9

Now that websites can use the File System Access API to load and save files, the Desktop is "solved" for me. Everybody can use my software simply by opening the url in their browser. The new challenge is phones. Mobile browsers do not support the File System Access API. What is a solution to this? Is there a reputable service that converts a web page into an Android/iOS app so that it can load and save files?

Phones just don't make a good analog to computers with a robust file system browser. My experience is if you're downloading something on a phone, it's never going be used again. It will sit there until a factory reset. How many restaurant menus have I downloaded read once and never cleared off? I don't know. I also don't care. If I did care, I would want to use "Save As..." and save to google drive.

Phones have as robust file system browsers as desktop computers.

It's probably just that the users of phones are not that "robust" and organized to care where the files are.

Re: I'm done making desktop applications (2009)

#20

Post by wiseowise »

galad87 wrote: post #6
thejosh wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue webapps killed them. Most applications now adays are just electron wrappers. WebApps also allow a much more flexible update schedule, and other benefits. Downside: apps now need gigabytes of memory for simple apps. Upside: Linux is now a lot more easier to use as a lot of things are web based. :-)

Are the benefits for the developers or for the users? Does a more flexible update schedule means less QA because you can just push more updates?

> Are the benefits for the developers or for the users?

Both?

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