Earlier quoted context omitted.
GTK4 still doesn't support native rendering of window controls, so unless you're willing to create a faux "native" theme, your application will look like it doesn't belong on anything other than a Gnome desktop. I think it's idiotic and childish that the devs stick to their guns like this when there's clearly a high demand for a crucial feature like this. I dislike the project as a developer. Don't get me wrong, I'm…
> GTK4 still doesn't support native rendering of window controls Sorry, this ship has sailed, and I find that bringing "native" into an argument simply invalidates the argument. That "native" has changed so much over the years shows that there isn't one "truth". The fact that things like Electron and Flutter and other toolkits exist clearly demonstrates that end users don't give one iota of damn whether a control is…
There's a few code editors out there integrating heavily with macOS that get featured here on HN once a while, and every time the comments are filled with people complimenting how well it works with the operating system and how nicely it integrates.
People also complain all the time about how Google sticks to material design on iPhone, even though the rest of the device follows an entirely different standard. If users really didn't care about native controls, that wouldn't be a problem at all.
When an application fits into the system, it's generally celebrated, but we've reached the point where we stopped expecting any form of integration anymore because every application is Javascript wrapped into a copy of Chromium now, if you even get a desktop version of the application in the first place.
the fact that Electron and Flutter and React Native and others exist clearly demonstrates that developers don't give one iota of a damn whether a control is native or not. These are tools of developer comfort, not of user comfort. Users don't care what you use to build your applications, as long as your app does the things they want to do well.
I don't see anyone celebrating the diversity of ways the different X buttons on their desktop looks, but I do see people enjoying the native look. To me, that seems like proof that this is a feature people are missing but not vocalising rather than that people don't care about.
In the end, people enjoy native experiences more, but native experiences cost more time and effort to produce and therefore more money. Consumers want free or cheap apps so businesses use cross-platform toolkits to reduce cost and effort, but these platforms certainly don't prove that users don't give a damn. They prove that they value having an app for cheap over having a good app for more money.