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Trello Desktop for Mac and Windows: Get More Done Without Distractions

blog.trello.com

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Re: Trello Desktop for Mac and Windows: Get More Done Without Distractions

#21

Post by joshuacc »

stevekinney wrote: post #2

I haven't had a chance to download it yet, but my suspicion says it's probably an Electron application. What do you all feel about this practice of taking long-lived web applications and getting them out of a tab and into a desktop shell with a place on the dock/task bar and the ability to Atl/Control-Tab?

> What do you all feel about this practice of taking long-lived web applications and getting them out of a tab and into a desktop shell with a place on the dock/task bar and the ability to Atl/Control-Tab?

I intentionally do this with Chrome's Tools > More Tools > Add to Desktop > Open as New Window option. Wrapping Spotify Web, Outlook 365 and HipChat into their own "application"s lets me treat them as if they are native apps, but for some reason it uses a lot less resources than the actual native apps.

Re: Trello Desktop for Mac and Windows: Get More Done Without Distractions

#22

Post by kitotik »

drinchev wrote: post #11

It actually is an electron app λ /Applications/Trello.app/Contents ◆ tree -L 2 . ├── Frameworks │ ├── Electron\ Framework.framework │ ├── Trello\ Helper\ EH.app │ ├── Trello\ Helper\ NP.app │ └── Trello\ Helper.app ├── Info.plist Tried it. It's a bit laggy and seems not much different than the website itself.

Yeah, extremely disappointed in this.

I’ve been a heavy Trello advocate since it launched, but the lack of real native clients puts a pretty low ceiling on it’s usefulness at scale.

Atlassian has plenty of native developers on their team, not sure why they would take this route...

Re: Trello Desktop for Mac and Windows: Get More Done Without Distractions

#23

Post by aschampion »

joshuacc wrote: post #21
stevekinney wrote: post #2

I haven't had a chance to download it yet, but my suspicion says it's probably an Electron application. What do you all feel about this practice of taking long-lived web applications and getting them out of a tab and into a desktop shell with a place on the dock/task bar and the ability to Atl/Control-Tab?

> What do you all feel about this practice of taking long-lived web applications and getting them out of a tab and into a desktop shell with a place on the dock/task bar and the ability to Atl/Control-Tab? I intentionally do this with Chrome's Tools > More Tools > Add to Desktop > Open as New Window option. Wrapping Spotify Web, Outlook 365 and HipChat into their own "application"s lets me treat them as if they are n…

> but for some reason it uses a lot less resources than the actual native apps.

Because most "actual native apps" now are not native apps but electron or some other HTML + JS + CSS wrapper running an entire separate browser to render the app. By running the web page as separate windows you're effectively getting the same app but sharing the browser overhead.

Re: Trello Desktop for Mac and Windows: Get More Done Without Distractions

#24

Post by chriswbarrett »

joshuacc wrote: post #21
stevekinney wrote: post #2

I haven't had a chance to download it yet, but my suspicion says it's probably an Electron application. What do you all feel about this practice of taking long-lived web applications and getting them out of a tab and into a desktop shell with a place on the dock/task bar and the ability to Atl/Control-Tab?

> What do you all feel about this practice of taking long-lived web applications and getting them out of a tab and into a desktop shell with a place on the dock/task bar and the ability to Atl/Control-Tab? I intentionally do this with Chrome's Tools > More Tools > Add to Desktop > Open as New Window option. Wrapping Spotify Web, Outlook 365 and HipChat into their own "application"s lets me treat them as if they are n…

Holy crap, thanks! I was considering wrapping a small tool I made in electron but this fixes the need entirely

Re: Trello Desktop for Mac and Windows: Get More Done Without Distractions

#25

Post by simonswords82 »

I live in a web browser day to day. I'm constantly in and out of Teamwork, Harvest, Google Drive, Slack, Google Analytics etc etc.

Trello is also a core part of our workflow (we're custom software developers) and so Cmd/Ctrl + T to open a new tab and type in "tre"... to load Trello is basically muscle memory at this point.

All of that is to say, what's the need for a "native" app? I say "native" because it's Electron, which isn't really native per se. But still, why??

Re: Trello Desktop for Mac and Windows: Get More Done Without Distractions

#26

Post by rorykoehler »

stevekinney wrote: post #2

I haven't had a chance to download it yet, but my suspicion says it's probably an Electron application. What do you all feel about this practice of taking long-lived web applications and getting them out of a tab and into a desktop shell with a place on the dock/task bar and the ability to Atl/Control-Tab?

Pointless. Works great in the browser. Won't install this

Re: Trello Desktop for Mac and Windows: Get More Done Without Distractions

#27

Post by bluedino »

kitotik wrote: post #22
drinchev wrote: post #11

It actually is an electron app λ /Applications/Trello.app/Contents ◆ tree -L 2 . ├── Frameworks │ ├── Electron\ Framework.framework │ ├── Trello\ Helper\ EH.app │ ├── Trello\ Helper\ NP.app │ └── Trello\ Helper.app ├── Info.plist Tried it. It's a bit laggy and seems not much different than the website itself.

Yeah, extremely disappointed in this. I’ve been a heavy Trello advocate since it launched, but the lack of real native clients puts a pretty low ceiling on it’s usefulness at scale. Atlassian has plenty of native developers on their team, not sure why they would take this route...

A true native client would be a lot of work. Maintain feature parity without adding new features. Identical UI including all the quirks. Is having a native app going to gain them any users? Maybe for user who can't have a browser installed, but they might not be able to have an internet connection either...

Re: Trello Desktop for Mac and Windows: Get More Done Without Distractions

#28

Post by aschampion »

chrisco255 wrote: post #15
Willson50 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely some sort of electron app. Certain things are broken like trying to use your webcam to take a profile photo because it doesn't know how to ask for browser permissions. I really hope this trend stops soon.

This trend isn't going anywhere. It's efficient from a human resources perspective. It is very expensive to build and maintain products across native desktop (Mac and Windows), mobile (iOS and Android) and web. That's 5 platforms. Web on its own is hard enough with probably 6 or 7 different browser platforms and various screen sizes to accommodate. Electron is a godsend, sub-native performance or not.

> It is very expensive to build and maintain products across native desktop

Yet (modulo mobile) somehow companies managed to do this in the 90s with far less productive development tools. The difference is the diluted power of the consumer: when software was a purchased product made for Ks of subscribing customers, small contingents of customers being upset about subpar UI and performance was a real threat to the viability of your business. Now Outlook or any Amazon app can be absolute slow, buggy garbage on nearly every platform (and they are), but the enormous customer base (diluting collective action) and entrenchment of locked-in platforms and data mean there's little incentive to obsess about product quality. Instead companies prioritize cost reduction, new customer acquisition (focusing on product chrome refreshes instead of robustness), or just give over to development momentum apathetic to quality.

Re: Trello Desktop for Mac and Windows: Get More Done Without Distractions

#29

Post by reustle »

simonswords82 wrote: post #25

I live in a web browser day to day. I'm constantly in and out of Teamwork, Harvest, Google Drive, Slack, Google Analytics etc etc. Trello is also a core part of our workflow (we're custom software developers) and so Cmd/Ctrl + T to open a new tab and type in "tre"... to load Trello is basically muscle memory at this point. All of that is to say, what's the need for a "native" app? I say "native" because it's Electron…

I also live in the browser and prefer everything to be in it, but I do know plenty of people who prefer their desktop apps, especially some windows users.

Re: Trello Desktop for Mac and Windows: Get More Done Without Distractions

#30

Post by itp »

seanalltogether wrote: post #13
stevekinney wrote: post #2

I haven't had a chance to download it yet, but my suspicion says it's probably an Electron application. What do you all feel about this practice of taking long-lived web applications and getting them out of a tab and into a desktop shell with a place on the dock/task bar and the ability to Atl/Control-Tab?

Notifications are always the killer feature for me on desktop and it's one of the main reasons i don't use gmail/hangouts/google calendar in the browser. Sure you can keep them open all day in a browser window, but i don't want permanent browser windows open all day.

I exclusively use those applications inside the browser and I have had no complaints about notifications. They ask for permission, I grant it, and I get (native, at least on OS X) notifications that match the rest of my system.

Genuinely curious, is there something I'm missing out on / some way they work better out of the browser?

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