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Meta replaces WhatsApp for Windows with web wrapper

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Re: Meta replaces WhatsApp for Windows with web wrapper

#241

Post by tcfhgj »

TiredOfLife wrote: post #189
RossBencina wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Microsoft provided APIs are a disaster that keeps getting rewritten every half decade, and even Microsoft barely uses them. What are you talking about? The Windows APIs have been stable for at least 20 years.

They are talking about UI. Winforms (abandoned), WPF (abandoned), UWP (abandoned), MAUI. Windows itself was always using their own custom stuff and not any of those. The closest thing to an established framework in Windows is react native that is sprinkled here and there. And QT that OneDrive uses

you can still use all of them to write windows apps, even though they might not receive the latest & greatest shiny features

Re: Meta replaces WhatsApp for Windows with web wrapper

#242

Post by sirwhinesalot »

RossBencina wrote: post #176
sirwhinesalot wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're absolutely right that the issue is the coordination cost. It's not about the number of resources but just the fact that you need those resources to coordinate, slowing everything down. Not a problem in waterfall, since you can set the targets beforehand and just have the teams work in parallel. In an "Agile" setting though (not the manifesto version, the current practice version)? It's a huge mess. So then the…

> The Microsoft provided APIs are a disaster that keeps getting rewritten every half decade, and even Microsoft barely uses them. What are you talking about? The Windows APIs have been stable for at least 20 years.

Stable is the wrong way to view it. Frozen is the right way to view it.

You have a graveyard of frozen APIs you can use, with new features only available on the later ones.

Re: Meta replaces WhatsApp for Windows with web wrapper

#243

Post by 72deluxe »

savolai wrote: post #229
72deluxe wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am baffled by this. I wrote a cross-platform GUI for an audio signal processor in wxWidgets that rendered all of its own widgets (own Draw calls, for faders, graphic EQ, compressors, drag/drop linking of nodes for a layout, knobs, meters/scopes) and incorporated Horde3D as a 3D rendering of the arena. It ran on macOS and Windows. Another chap handled the network control code that included joining multicast groups t…

If you can deploy your wxwidgets app as a networked app in the browser too, then sure.

That's not what the issue here is.

The issue is not that a native Windows app needs to run in a browser.

The issue is that a native Windows app has been replaced by yet another browser.

Re: Meta replaces WhatsApp for Windows with web wrapper

#244

Post by tcfhgj »

rwmj wrote: post #239
tcfhgj wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

not perfect? yes terrible? no way

Every time I use it, it has some huge box over a third of the page saying I must "verify sessions". It's incredibly slow to propagate messages. Initial set up is very confusing and offers far too many choices. I've never worked out how to find rooms. Regularly someone will give me a room name and I can't find it or join it. Their entire service went down (did someone say "decentralised"?) a few months ago.

> Every time I use it, it has some huge box over a third of the page saying I must "verify sessions".

do you use element web on the phone?

> It's incredibly slow to propagate messages.

was

> Initial set up is very confusing and offers far too many choices.

thing of the past, currently there are two choices, in the future there will be only one

> I've never worked out how to find rooms. Regularly someone will give me a room name and I can't find it or join it.

let someone invite you to the room or share a link

> Their entire service went down (did someone say "decentralised"?) a few months ago.

afaik only matrix.org went down

Re: Meta replaces WhatsApp for Windows with web wrapper

#245

Post by agos »

vintagedave wrote: post #240
iamcalledrob wrote: post #126

As the person who designed and fought for this app, I am a bit sad about the change. The native app was by no means perfect, but it felt like a real productivity tool that was trying to be respectful of it's environment. I've come to the conclusion that native desktop apps are just not viable from large companies, even if there is headcount. The problem is coordination cost. If you want to launch new features and exp…

> The problem is coordination cost. If you want to launch new features and experiments here, there and everywhere, then the coordination complexity increases nonlinearly with the number of platforms. Why not use a common library, where platform teams can update what features they use from it at their own pace? Or why not use some other tech that allows multi-platform native shipping? The company I just started at, Re…

"only" is doing a lot of work here

Re: Meta replaces WhatsApp for Windows with web wrapper

#246

Post by tacker2000 »

The problem is Whatsapp is now being used more and more in a professional context, even in Europe, and it's just not a pro software by any means. Searching for old messages is a pain, the web version is slow, there is now optimized overview or folders, etc...

And now it seems that there is not even a benefit to installing the native vbersion, they will probably do the same for Mac also now.

Re: Meta replaces WhatsApp for Windows with web wrapper

#247

Post by pmontra »

wohoef wrote: post #140

But the web app is genuinely unusable. Often times takes 2+ minutes to properly load. This issue seems to be quite random though, not everyone has it.

I force reloaded it now and it took only a few seconds. It's on CPU from 2014 on a 4G connection. However we are only two data points. Meta probably has a good knowledge of the distribution of the load times.

If your spikes in load time are random it could be the connection, the amount of free RAM on your computer in that very moment, or maybe how well it is syncing with your phone. However I don't know how it handles that. It used to require an online phone but it seems that it can do without it now.

Re: Meta replaces WhatsApp for Windows with web wrapper

#248

Post by tsimionescu »

jack_tripper wrote: post #188
sirwhinesalot wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're absolutely right that the issue is the coordination cost. It's not about the number of resources but just the fact that you need those resources to coordinate, slowing everything down. Not a problem in waterfall, since you can set the targets beforehand and just have the teams work in parallel. In an "Agile" setting though (not the manifesto version, the current practice version)? It's a huge mess. So then the…

> Microsoft provided APIs are a disaster that keeps getting rewritten every half decade What a wrong and misleading statement. Not they aren't. Otherwise Winamp 2.95 from 2003 wouldn't flawlessly work on my Windows 11 install 23 years later. Same with my Unreal Tournament 99 installation that I just copied over via a CD left from my Windows 98 PC. As long as you haven't used any undocumented APIs or made your app hac…

While the old APIs keep working, Microsoft does like to come up with completely new APIs every five years or so.

If you want to do basic UI on Windows today, you can use:

  - Win32 UI
  - MFC
  - .NET WinForms
  - WinFX
  - .NET WPF
  - WinRT
  - UWP
And I'm sure there are many others that I'm forgetting.

Re: Meta replaces WhatsApp for Windows with web wrapper

#249

Post by jack_tripper »

tsimionescu wrote: post #248
jack_tripper wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Microsoft provided APIs are a disaster that keeps getting rewritten every half decade What a wrong and misleading statement. Not they aren't. Otherwise Winamp 2.95 from 2003 wouldn't flawlessly work on my Windows 11 install 23 years later. Same with my Unreal Tournament 99 installation that I just copied over via a CD left from my Windows 98 PC. As long as you haven't used any undocumented APIs or made your app hac…

While the old APIs keep working, Microsoft does like to come up with completely new APIs every five years or so. If you want to do basic UI on Windows today, you can use: - Win32 UI - MFC - .NET WinForms - WinFX - .NET WPF - WinRT - UWP And I'm sure there are many others that I'm forgetting.

Adding new APIs does not hinder your ability to use the old APIs you're familiar with.

I think apps like Notepad++ and Sumatra PDF are still written in Win32.

Re: Meta replaces WhatsApp for Windows with web wrapper

#250

Post by jack_tripper »

sirwhinesalot wrote: post #238
jack_tripper wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Microsoft provided APIs are a disaster that keeps getting rewritten every half decade What a wrong and misleading statement. Not they aren't. Otherwise Winamp 2.95 from 2003 wouldn't flawlessly work on my Windows 11 install 23 years later. Same with my Unreal Tournament 99 installation that I just copied over via a CD left from my Windows 98 PC. As long as you haven't used any undocumented APIs or made your app hac…

It's not wrong nor misleading at all. Win32 doesn't even support dark mode properly because it's effectively "deprecated" like all the others in the graveyard. Who cares if they keep working if the only way to get dark mode is to custom render the whole UI yourself? Might as well do something non-native at that point. Microsoft does not provide a serious UI library for applications to use. It provides 10 half broken…

>It's not wrong nor misleading at all.

Yeah it totally is and I explained why.

>Who cares if they keep working

A lot of people.

>if the only way to get dark mode is to custom render the whole UI yourself

Most the apps I use support dark mode: Chrome, FF, Notepad++, Jellyfin, Qbittorrent, SumatraPDF, Signal, Wiztree, WinSCP, and others I'm forgetting. Seems like it's not an impossible task for the developers.

And on Github you can find FOSS apps[1] that have implemented light/dark mode switching for their UI, so you can just copy what they're doing if you don't know where to start.

[1] https://github.com/AutoDarkMode/Windows-Auto-Night-Mode

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