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The State of Desktop Applications in Node.js

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Re: The State of Desktop Applications in Node.js

#21

Post by Iftheshoefits »

mid-kid wrote: post #4

The web wasn't made to be used as a desktop app replacement, and it will never be. Quit trying to make it that way, and start using a widget toolkit like you should. Hell, if you love html/js so much, there's a big chance you won't dislike QML. The web is for sharing content, not for games, text editors, and all that stuff. I see google trying to blur the lines between that, but why is it necessary? Just because peop…

The hype around HTML/JS as a substitute or replacement for native development has little to do with developer laziness and more to do with commoditizing software development labor.

Native is hard relative to (the nearly thoughtless) slapping together of JS and CSS frameworks to "build" an "app." It requires paying people more and taking more time to develop.

Re: The State of Desktop Applications in Node.js

#22

Post by callum85 »

depr wrote: post #7
mid-kid wrote: post #4

The web wasn't made to be used as a desktop app replacement, and it will never be. Quit trying to make it that way, and start using a widget toolkit like you should. Hell, if you love html/js so much, there's a big chance you won't dislike QML. The web is for sharing content, not for games, text editors, and all that stuff. I see google trying to blur the lines between that, but why is it necessary? Just because peop…

Also, if you're making a desktop app you don't have to use HTML/JS, why on earth would you use those if you don't absolutely have to?

It's OK that you don't like using HTML/JS, but a lot of people do like using them (which is also OK), and those people are the target audience for things like node-webkit.

Re: The State of Desktop Applications in Node.js

#24

Post by callum85 »

FooBarWidget wrote: post #11
callum85 wrote: post #2

Last time I tried building a 'blank' node-webkit app for OS X (using https://github.com/Dica-Developer/generator-node-webkit ), the resulting .app came to ~100MB. Does anyone know the base size for an atom-shell app?

Seriously, does anybody nowadays care about a 100 MB desktop app? I developed my first app in 1997 with Delphi and it was only 200 KB, so from that perspective I always cringe when I see that an app I've developed is multiple MB. But in all seriousness, do users actually care? Every time I download an OS X app, it's at least 50 MB, but I find that even I don't care anymore because downloading 50 MB nowadays only take…

I would agree with you if you were talking about 20MB. I think that would be my threshold for not caring about how big an app is, i.e. even if it's something really basic like a countdown timer app I would be OK with it being up to 20MB, because as you say, connections are fast and space is cheap. But 100MB? I don't know.

Re: The State of Desktop Applications in Node.js

#25

Post by snide »

We ended up building Mac and Windows apps for http://www.webhook.com built on a Node / Chromium shells. Essentially we're a Wordpress competitor, but Node powered, and wanted to provide a simple one-click install for people that didn't know how to work their command line or how to install Node properly. This solution ended up working great. It basically allowed us to build a non-destructive sandbox dev environment for them that had a UI experience similar to the CMS itself. Better yet, the app points to hosted JS and CSS files so really there's never a need to "update" the app. When we have feature or bug changes, we just push out new files and everything just works.

This kind of stuff isn't for all apps, but for our use case it was almost too good to be true. We built everything out in about two to three weeks. I don't know how long it would have taken for us to do something similar with true Desktop tooling.

Here's a video of the end result in case anyone in interested...

https://vimeo.com/108922566

Re: The State of Desktop Applications in Node.js

#26

Post by Iftheshoefits »

bpizzi wrote: post #13
mid-kid wrote: post #4

The web wasn't made to be used as a desktop app replacement, and it will never be. Quit trying to make it that way, and start using a widget toolkit like you should. Hell, if you love html/js so much, there's a big chance you won't dislike QML. The web is for sharing content, not for games, text editors, and all that stuff. I see google trying to blur the lines between that, but why is it necessary? Just because peop…

> The web is for sharing content, not for games, text editors, and all that stuff. I see google trying to blur the lines between that, but why is it necessary? Because innovation happens when you start thinking out of the box?

Innovation can happen when you start thinking out of the box. That doesn't mean it does happen. I don't find much about "webdev" to be terribly innovative. In many ways it is a large step backwards or sideways.

Re: The State of Desktop Applications in Node.js

#27

Post by rhengles »

dnissley wrote: post #14
depr wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, if you're making a desktop app you don't have to use HTML/JS, why on earth would you use those if you don't absolutely have to?

What is the alternative to building a cross-platform desktop app that isn't tied to the browser security model? Build a different app for every platform?

When I set out, a few years ago, to build a gui app in JS in Windows (but cross-platform), I found RingoJS which is a wrapper around Java. My entire app could be in a single .js file, with access to all Java libs. For the widget library, I chose SWT. I built a few very simple apps, despite having never programmed in Java before. Later, I found how to run my .js file directly with RhinoJS and SWT from the command line.

I'm pretty confident that this is the simplest way to build desktop apps in JS in Windows :)

Re: The State of Desktop Applications in Node.js

#28

Post by jiggy2011 »

callum85 wrote: post #24
FooBarWidget wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously, does anybody nowadays care about a 100 MB desktop app? I developed my first app in 1997 with Delphi and it was only 200 KB, so from that perspective I always cringe when I see that an app I've developed is multiple MB. But in all seriousness, do users actually care? Every time I download an OS X app, it's at least 50 MB, but I find that even I don't care anymore because downloading 50 MB nowadays only take…

I would agree with you if you were talking about 20MB. I think that would be my threshold for not caring about how big an app is, i.e. even if it's something really basic like a countdown timer app I would be OK with it being up to 20MB, because as you say, connections are fast and space is cheap. But 100MB? I don't know.

You could install more than 1000 apps on a moderate SSD at 100MB each. How many apps does the average person have installed?

Re: The State of Desktop Applications in Node.js

#29

Post by ncphillips »

snide wrote: post #25

We ended up building Mac and Windows apps for http://www.webhook.com built on a Node / Chromium shells. Essentially we're a Wordpress competitor, but Node powered, and wanted to provide a simple one-click install for people that didn't know how to work their command line or how to install Node properly. This solution ended up working great. It basically allowed us to build a non-destructive sandbox dev environment fo…

Super cool!

Re: The State of Desktop Applications in Node.js

#30

Post by kyllo »

FooBarWidget wrote: post #11
callum85 wrote: post #2

Last time I tried building a 'blank' node-webkit app for OS X (using https://github.com/Dica-Developer/generator-node-webkit ), the resulting .app came to ~100MB. Does anyone know the base size for an atom-shell app?

Seriously, does anybody nowadays care about a 100 MB desktop app? I developed my first app in 1997 with Delphi and it was only 200 KB, so from that perspective I always cringe when I see that an app I've developed is multiple MB. But in all seriousness, do users actually care? Every time I download an OS X app, it's at least 50 MB, but I find that even I don't care anymore because downloading 50 MB nowadays only take…

I can confirm that I don't use Atom because of the overhead of the browser engine. It takes about 30 seconds to launch, and it hangs frequently, which to me is unacceptable for a program that edits plain text files.
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