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I'm done making desktop applications (2009)

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

#191

Post by sevenzero »

monooso wrote: post #36
franga2000 wrote: post #28

Not off to a great start... The "look how many steps it takes to convert shareware users" is insanely overblown. 1-4. Google, find, read... this is the same for web apps. 2. Click download and wait a few seconds. Not enough time to give up because native apps are small. Heavy JS web apps might load for longer than that. 3. Click on the executable that the browser pops up in front of you. No closing the browser or loo…

If my failing memory serves, those were valid concerns in 2009, when this was written.

These are still valid concerns given that people become less and less tech savy with actual computers

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

#192

Post by IshKebab »

hermitcrab wrote: post #93
IshKebab wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are definitely a shortage of good GUI toolkits - making one is a huge undertaking. GTK is mediocre, as you discovered. QtWidgets is extremely good though, even if it is effectively in maintenance mode. Avalonia also seems good too though I haven't used it myself.

Qt is still under very active development. Although there seems to be a lot more emphasis on QML than the widgets side of things for some time.

Yes QtQuick/QML is under active development. QtWidgets is not really.

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

#193

Post by graemep »

d3Xt3r wrote: post #182
jasomill wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but taking your video editor example, what advantages does an in-browser app provide over a native application like DaVinci Resolve, other than portability and not needing to install the application, in exchange for reduced performance, a clunkier interface, and reduced integration with the rest of the desktop platform? And if this is such a compelling value proposition for full-featured desktop productivity ap…

Portability and not having to install the app is a huge advantage. Especially on operating systems where there aren't any decent choices. Take Android for example, the Play Store is full of rubbish and adware-riddled apps, finding a decent app in there is like looking for a needle in a haystack. And whilst FDroid exists, most of the apps there are pretty basic in general, especially wrt this example (video editing).…

> Linux is in urgent need of a Photoshop-like editor (and no, GIMP doesn't cut it), but Photopea does a decent enough job for many amateurs and even some pros.

How is Photopea better than GIMP? How is it better than Krita?

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

#194

Post by werdnapk »

xp84 wrote: post #54
werdnapk wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You simply can't get hung up on what could have been. Same applies to trying to time the stock market... should have bought, should have sold. Best thing is to know there's nothing that can be done about the past and move along and deal with what you can do now instead.

You're right. What gets me though is that unlike the stock market, bitcoin was an incredibly rare occurrence where anyone could have gotten extraordinarily rich without even incurring any risk! (besides a couple evenings spent learning how to use it.) Whereas to have $10MM today in GOOG stock, I would have had to invest over $300k in 2010.

You could have bought bored apes (and any of the other scammy NFTs) and ended up losing your shirt in the end. Overall, who cares if you miss the boat on something, it's not good for the mind to dwell on it.

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

#195

Post by mitjam »

franga2000 wrote: post #28

Not off to a great start... The "look how many steps it takes to convert shareware users" is insanely overblown. 1-4. Google, find, read... this is the same for web apps. 2. Click download and wait a few seconds. Not enough time to give up because native apps are small. Heavy JS web apps might load for longer than that. 3. Click on the executable that the browser pops up in front of you. No closing the browser or loo…

And today there is a new 0: The user has and sits at a desktop computer, at all.

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

#196

Post by d3Xt3r »

graemep wrote: post #193
d3Xt3r wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Portability and not having to install the app is a huge advantage. Especially on operating systems where there aren't any decent choices. Take Android for example, the Play Store is full of rubbish and adware-riddled apps, finding a decent app in there is like looking for a needle in a haystack. And whilst FDroid exists, most of the apps there are pretty basic in general, especially wrt this example (video editing).…

> Linux is in urgent need of a Photoshop-like editor (and no, GIMP doesn't cut it), but Photopea does a decent enough job for many amateurs and even some pros. How is Photopea better than GIMP? How is it better than Krita?

- Photopea's UI is very similar to Photoshop - same tool layouts, similar iconography and even has the same keyboard shortcuts, which makes a seasoned Photoshop user feel right at home. And while you can make GIMP look somewhat like Photoshop using thirdparty scripts (like PhotoGIMP), it still falls short considerably. In some ways this is even worse as it leads to an "uncanny valley" scenario.

As for Krita, its UI is of course a lot better than GIMP, but unfortunately it's mostly skewed towards digital illustration and art creation (and it's great at it!), but less towards photo editing/image manipulation.

- Photopea has the best .PSD support of the three, which is pretty crucial for people wanting to switch from Photoshop.

- Possibly the most important feature that Photoshop users depend on these days is Content-Aware Fill and Magic Replace for object removal and background patching. GIMP lacks native functionality for this (although there are thirdparty plugins, but I haven't used them so can't comment on that). As for Krita, once again Krita lacks these tools - and most retouching tools in fact - as it's more geared towards digital art creation rather than image manipulation.

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

#197

Post by speleding »

Animats wrote: post #107

From the article: " for the last three years I’ve sold Bingo Card Creator . That's a job for a web page. It doesn't need to be installed.

I agree, but this app was created in 2006. That's when IE6 was still roaming the earth. Might have been easier to get it to work as an app.

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

#198

Post by [deleted] »

kelnos wrote: post #178
Minor49er wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you need to sloganize a reminder to yourself to not be evil, that's not a promising sign

You have to understand the time period. Microsoft was huge and had won the browser wars, and had become a convicted monopolist. Google's "don't be evil" was a way for them to say "we're regular Joes, just like you; we're not Microsoft, and we're not going to do bad stuff like they do".

[deleted]

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

#199

Post by julosflb »

jasomill wrote: post #165
d3Xt3r wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For something like Audacity (the audio program), how the heck does it make sense to put that on a website (I'm just giving a random example, I don't think they've actually done this), where you first have to upload your source file (privacy issues), manipulate it in a graphically/widget-limited browser I understand it was just an example, but you'd be surprised how far browsers have come along with technologies lik…

Sure, but taking your video editor example, what advantages does an in-browser app provide over a native application like DaVinci Resolve, other than portability and not needing to install the application, in exchange for reduced performance, a clunkier interface, and reduced integration with the rest of the desktop platform? And if this is such a compelling value proposition for full-featured desktop productivity ap…

Not having to install is huge avantage in corporate environmeent where user can't install nor run binaries that have not been approved by IT dept.

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

#200

Post by jcelerier »

rustcleaner wrote: post #135
jcelerier wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can a single webpage address & use more than 4gb of ram nowadays? I was filling 16gb of ram with a single Ableton live session in 2011.

How about a webpage shouldn't ever address & use even 4GB of RAM! :O

But that's the thing, if I'm doing audio and buying 128GB of ram for the sake of doing music with my sample libraries, and loading hundreds of parallel tracks and being able to scrub through them without lags or audio clicks, I absolutely want to be able to load them to play with them.
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