Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Meta replaces WhatsApp for Windows with web wrapper

windowslatest.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

271–280 of 402 posts

Re: Meta replaces WhatsApp for Windows with web wrapper

#271

Post by sirwhinesalot »

jack_tripper wrote: post #250
sirwhinesalot wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 G…

Are you speaking as a user? I'm speaking as a dev. Of the applications you mentioned only a couple actually use the Win32 controls (like Notepad++) and they custom render them to get dark mode. That's a lot of extra work they had to do, essentially draw the whole look themselves.

Chrome is not native. FF is not native. Qbitorrent is not native (it uses Qt, right there in the name). Signal is not native, it's a web page bundled with Chromium (aka, an Electron app). WinSCP only this year actually started using the right font! But at least that one is native I'll give you that.

The GitHub you sent doesn't really have anything to do with the discussion.

Re: Meta replaces WhatsApp for Windows with web wrapper

#272

Post by GoblinSlayer »

72deluxe wrote: post #190
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…

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…

Bubbles are antipattern that only adds more padding to already excessive padding.

Re: Meta replaces WhatsApp for Windows with web wrapper

#273

Post by snarfy »

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…

Yes, they are optimized for the developer, not the end user. It's a terrible situation that repeats all too often.

The developer makes a highly optimized native app that is a hit with the user. Now that it's a hit, the developer is now big company. And big company needs telemetry, A/B experiments, fast iteration. They can't just sit around waiting for the original developer to spend more years crafting another masterpiece. Due to tech, sign-ins, or what have you the app is also a kind of monopoly. Since it's a monopoly, quality doesn't matter. It can be a bloated electron thing and nobody can do anything about it other than suck it.

Re: Meta replaces WhatsApp for Windows with web wrapper

#274

Post by ptx »

Arainach wrote: post #54
runiq wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a web app just doesn’t work very well when you want it open all the time. Pin tab, problem solved?

Now you have to switch apps to the browser, find which browser window has the session you want, switch to the tab, etc., instead of just switching to WhatsApp app via keyboard or taskbar directly. The ergonomics are significantly worse. I want most of my browser windows full screen. I don't want my instant messenger full screen. Using it in a browser means I have to have one size, and resizing one changes the other.…

Just open it in a separate browser window then? Different windows can have different sizes and get separate buttons in the taskbar.

I guess if you're using Microsoft's ill-advised window grouping feature it would work less well (require more clicks), but breaking websites out into entirely separate programs just so we can have separate windows because Microsoft screwed up the window management functionality seems like a very inefficient workaround.

Re: Meta replaces WhatsApp for Windows with web wrapper

#275

Post by Bayko »

tacker2000 wrote: post #246

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.

My Brazilian friend told me they use Whatsapp as a replacement for Slack since they don't want to pay for Slack As an Indian, I can confirm the same here for many companies

Re: Meta replaces WhatsApp for Windows with web wrapper

#276

Post by GoblinSlayer »

Gud wrote: post #221
jagged-chisel wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they want fungible engineers, yes. They don’t want to pay extra for an expert in wxWidgets and Horde3D. They don’t want to wait while that expert’s replacement comes up to speed on Horde3D. They don’t even want to wait for any existing engineers to learn these two technologies. They know web, they can manage web - web is “less risky.”

You don’t need to be an expert in wxWidgets to send some text messages…

npm instal vxwigdes doesn't work

Re: Meta replaces WhatsApp for Windows with web wrapper

#277

Post by ale42 »

josephg wrote: post #183
cm2187 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see the same bugs. It looks like after ICQ, writing a chat app has become an impossible computer science problem (skype, teams, whatsapp,…). How did that ancient civilisation from the 90s managed to build a functional chat app? The know how is lost to times.

The more time passes, the more impressed I am with mIRC. It was an incredibly fully featured chat client - with hundreds of features, and its own scripting language for more advanced use. All that in a 4mb download. It probably still works great, to this day. As a teenager, I thought we'd get better at making software over time. Not worse.

It still works great and it's still being updated! https://www.mirc.com/news.html

Re: Meta replaces WhatsApp for Windows with web wrapper

#278

Post by ale42 »

jeroenhd wrote: post #235
cm2187 wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SSL and basic encryption isn’t exactly rocket science today. I have not used the telegram desktop app but their web app is completely broken.

Secure, end-to-end, multi-device encryption isn't easy. Plenty of people try and fail to build secure messengers based on top of PGP and Signal's protocol. I don't use the Telegram web app, but their native apps work excellently. The insertion of ads has been a major disappointment but the chat UX itself is still great, even on native Linux.

But Telegram end-to-end encryption is optional as far as I know.

Re: Meta replaces WhatsApp for Windows with web wrapper

#279

Post by 6510 »

72deluxe wrote: post #190
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…

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…

yes, precisely that. Or if you want to generalize further: Companies have staff and processes to "improve" the product, process and productivity. After a few years, when they've done a marvelous job (worth every penny) the job doesn't exist anymore but they continue to tinker and ruin their creation.

In my manual labor occupation the office folk often try to get away with a horribly inefficient schedule designed to make their job easy. I often have to remind them that they work for me. I do the actual work, your job is to optimize it.

This to me is the same thing as replacing a rather decent desktop client with a web wrapper. This is their update, its obviously bad for the customer. The excuse is to make further updates easier. There is reason to think these will also be bad for the customer.

Someone once explained to me that the process of everything we build and create is very similar. If some young sector has a wildly different approach one should be very skeptical. It happens that an architect still has work to do after delivering the drawings. Sometimes it is necessary to recall thousands of cars.

Ideal would be to have a perfect construction drawing then build the machine. The architect moves on and designs the next garden. A plumber puts the pipes in, tests if everything works then goes to the next construction site. The difference with software is that, when done, it can last forever. The opposite of what the industry pretends to be true.

Re: Meta replaces WhatsApp for Windows with web wrapper

#280

Post by dangus »

eviks wrote: post #21
dangus wrote: post #2

People use WhatsApp on the computer? From the Windows Store of all places? Must be a tiny percentage, which is why this version is now a basic web wrapper now. Anyway, I’d remind everyone that “using” RAM doesn’t mean “would not function with less RAM.” Many applications just use a lot if it’s available. RAM is not really something you explicitly ration.

Before reminding everyone of a theory, did you check where that theory applies in this discussion of an app in practice? Also, even in theory the issue isn't only with "wouldn't function", but "would function slower due to eg disk swaps / cause other apps to function slower".

Well, the author of the article sure didn’t check. They just opened the task manager and got mad.
Post reply on HN