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Electron.Net: Build cross platform desktop apps using .NET core and ASP.NET core

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Re: Electron.Net: Build cross platform desktop apps using .NET core and ASP.NET core

#71

Post by kristiandupont »

shakna wrote: post #65
kristiandupont wrote: post #38

Ok, I normally find myself disagreeing with HN every time Electron comes up. Basically, I think the upsides are worth the size and performance tradeoffs. However, this seems to be almost an entire server deploy as well as a complete renderer all in one package. That does seem excessive to me for a desktop app.

> However, this seems to be almost an entire server deploy as well as a complete renderer all in one package. That does seem excessive to me for a desktop app. That's precisely what Electron is. So what's the difference if you're okay with one?

Does this not include node as well as .net core?

Re: Electron.Net: Build cross platform desktop apps using .NET core and ASP.NET core

#72

Post by FlorianRappl »

I don't get this thing. Why do you need to run a webserver an render webpages when we have more powerful alternatives for cross-platform apps?

Also if you need interactivity you need JS anyway, so you can switch your server side rendering to client side rendering, thus eliminating the need for this wrapper anyway.

Maybe I am missing something (and if someone tells me I am missing .NET libs then my response is Edge.js, https://github.com/tjanczuk/edge).

Re: Electron.Net: Build cross platform desktop apps using .NET core and ASP.NET core

#73

Post by [deleted] »

alkonaut wrote: post #21

Can't we just make a proper, easy to use portable desktop application framework please? I really don't care what language is used so log as JS is avoidable (It can still be a compilation target so it could even be JS), and I can make a snappy desktop app that takes 10 not 100mb. I'm not even sure which one I'm hoping for at the moment. Xamarin seems to have bet fully on mobile. Avalonia looks nice but feels like it w…

[deleted]

Re: Electron.Net: Build cross platform desktop apps using .NET core and ASP.NET core

#74

Post by j_s »

yoodenvranx wrote: post #41
alkonaut wrote: post #21

Can't we just make a proper, easy to use portable desktop application framework please? I really don't care what language is used so log as JS is avoidable (It can still be a compilation target so it could even be JS), and I can make a snappy desktop app that takes 10 not 100mb. I'm not even sure which one I'm hoping for at the moment. Xamarin seems to have bet fully on mobile. Avalonia looks nice but feels like it w…

> Can't we just make a proper, easy to use portable desktop application framework please? We should just go back to Delphi, it was/is one of the best ways of doing GUIs.

The usual problem is that the various cross-platform UI toolkits not only fall into the uncanny valley but also only support one programming language best (in this case, Pascal). Only the incentives of the biggest cross-platform browser vendors align in such a way that they pursue native UI effectively.

Recent discussion: Why I use Object Pascal | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15490345 (2017Oct:268points,233comments)

Re: Electron.Net: Build cross platform desktop apps using .NET core and ASP.NET core

#76

Post by lwansbrough »

j_s wrote: post #64
matthewmacleod wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a glib answer, given that literally nobody writes UI code that talks directly to X for obvious reasons.

It was not intended as a glib answer -- can you provide any aspect of the given requirements that are not met by X11? It is an interesting exercise to consider it as an alternative to Electron. "Not hard to use" was not mentioned, but definitely correlates with popularity. Apple and Microsoft do not target it as a business decision, but X11 is available on both of these platforms with commercial support. > nobody wri…

The trouble is not in finding a solution that works on desktops for Linux, macOS and Windows -- we have that already 10 times over.

What is needed is a protocol which can be targeted by the average JS UI framework creator. It needs to be fairly light weight, and exist mostly as a layer below any sort of framework. If that's X11, so be it, but I haven't seen it running in a browser before.

One such use case would be a JS library which handles the protocol at a fairly low level, allowing someone to create a custom ReactJS renderer which targets the protocol instead of the DOM. Hook up a protocol receiver in your favourite native language, and now you've got native UI driven by React + JS.

Re: Electron.Net: Build cross platform desktop apps using .NET core and ASP.NET core

#77

Post by pjmlp »

cm2187 wrote: post #53
bsaul wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It feels like devs now want to write apps without spending any real effort on them." I think what people are fed up with, is to spend effort learning the "method du jour" of putting a button on a screen and updating the view on a click. This is pretty much a solved problem, and has been since MVC was invented in the 70s (not saying it's perfect, but it does the job). So there should be an easy an portable way of doi…

It's even worse than that. It makes apps expensive and slower to develop across platforms, makes different version more complicated to maintain and keep in sync, creates more attack surface, etc. And even from a non technical point of view, there is a consistency of experience across platforms point of view. There are very good reasons to have fully cross platform apps that you develop only once. And in general, I do…

I rather have a portable application that takes advantage of the best features on each platform that it runs, than the minimum common denomitor that is the web.

Ergo developers taking the easy route to the expense of user's overall UI/UX.

Thankfully all web based mobile OSes bombed so far.

Re: Electron.Net: Build cross platform desktop apps using .NET core and ASP.NET core

#78

Post by ttd »

alkonaut wrote: post #21

Can't we just make a proper, easy to use portable desktop application framework please? I really don't care what language is used so log as JS is avoidable (It can still be a compilation target so it could even be JS), and I can make a snappy desktop app that takes 10 not 100mb. I'm not even sure which one I'm hoping for at the moment. Xamarin seems to have bet fully on mobile. Avalonia looks nice but feels like it w…

I've had good luck so far with Xamarin.Mac + traditional WPF for macOS and Windows respectively, with a PCL containing 90% of the shared code. Xamarin.Mac doesn't seem neglected to me, and the forums are decently active for support.

Re: Electron.Net: Build cross platform desktop apps using .NET core and ASP.NET core

#79

Post by shakna »

kristiandupont wrote: post #71
shakna wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, this seems to be almost an entire server deploy as well as a complete renderer all in one package. That does seem excessive to me for a desktop app. That's precisely what Electron is. So what's the difference if you're okay with one?

Does this not include node as well as .net core?

Electron itself includes node. That's not a difference.

Re: Electron.Net: Build cross platform desktop apps using .NET core and ASP.NET core

#80

Post by AlexeyBrin »

lucaspottersky wrote: post #75

so, could somebody make a quick summary of what's currently available for building desktop apps (self-contained that doesn't require the user to install a runtime)?

FreePascal executables. AFAIK, a compiled FreePascal GUI app does not need the user to install a runtime. I assume Win32 apps also runs on different versions of Windows without installing a runtime.
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