81–90 of 155 posts
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Name a native UI framework that enables seamless cross-platform deployment without extensive testing on each platform. Go ahead, I'll wait.
There's two platforms. Two. Windows and MacOS. Let's not pretend there's dozens. Why does one have to jump through hoops for two simple platforms? Just write the UI code twice. It's not rocket science really. Same goes for Android/iOS.
Business user here. I remember how much work I could get done in Outlook 2007 using a 1024x768 monitor on a crap workstation with 1GB RAM. I admit that this performance was often chilled by the many pitfalls of on-premise Exchange setups, lack of interop with non-Exchange services, and lack of standards-compatible email formats. Today's Outlook is less buggy, but slower. This new version gives me the chills. I can un…
In 2023 it seems like no one wants to use anything other than JS and CSS to build a native desktop application. I would be interested in seeing a desktop environment that just cuts to the chase and makes the entire desktop a web view so that developers don’t need to package things into extra layers. Weren’t there a few failed mobile OSes that tried this in the early 2010s?
Palm Pre's webOS (2009) is the most famous. After an acquisition by HP (2010-2013), it was acquired by LG's (with patents going to Qualcomm). The only other major entrant, Firefox, was short lived (2014-2015). Chrome OS (2011-) only sort of counts; I don't think the OS chrome is using Chrome, just the same underlying drawing libraries, but it does run webapps. Before that was a neat Linux project Pyrodesktop (2007) w…
The main problem is that Microsoft is trying to use a WebView. If they really want a single cross-platform app, they should develop a native framework that will work everywhere instead of shoving everything into a web engine.
They already have MAUI. I don't have direct professional experience with it, but the message I'm getting from those who have used it, is that it's cumbersome. With people instead just sticking with XF/Uno/Avalonia (Avalonia being closer to Flutter in how it doesn't actually tap into the platform's native frameworks).
Cross-platform desktop apps, should at least cover Windows, OSX and Linux (appImage/Flatpak) as a baseline. Avalonia works well enough, but MAUI just muddied the waters. With the massive efforts towards web-ui in general, it's really not surprising that many devs/shops are just shrinkwrapping with Electron. Even if there are far lighter options for embedded browser usage of the system's browser engine. In the end, the state of desktop apps sucks all around.
For unrelated reasons, I found myself in a state of rage and removed the Edge browser from my Windows installation in it's entirety.
Outlook no longer works...I guess you need Edge, or maybe some components are shared...
I am now using Thunderbird.
I just felt like sharing...
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vscode is an Electron app and is great and more responsive than its "native" competitor apps from JetBrains.
That's damning with faint praise, though, isn't it?
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VS Code is primarily an editor, while JetBrains's products are IDEs. You can add extensions to make VS Code more an IDE. And I'd like to see benchmarks proving your point. If you're using VS Code as an editor, others like Sublime Text, Notepad++, Kate and TextMate make it seem very slow.
If your definition of IDE is that everything has to be done using menus and that it needs to be super slow, you are right. If you look at actual functionality then VSCode is as much of an IDE as Eclipse.
But you're wrong on the menu side. They have keyboard shortcuts for everything. And you can program your own if you don't like the provided ones.
The main problem is that Microsoft is trying to use a WebView. If they really want a single cross-platform app, they should develop a native framework that will work everywhere instead of shoving everything into a web engine.
vscode is an Electron app and is great and more responsive than its "native" competitor apps from JetBrains.
Of course most Electron apps don't have near the same level of effort or foresight when it comes to performance. Discord probably the second most common electron app, and Teams being third. Both of which, at the very least, have issues. Some could be overcome, or at least be more consistent with WASM built controllers, but that whole space needs some maturing and improved tooling. I've played with Tauri and Yew and think it's pretty nifty, but there's a lot of work to getting parity with say React+MUI.
React+MUI itself is pretty good. But even then, on a relatively large team with some relatively inexperienced devs, you can wind up with dependency trees that are insane, huge and slow. Taking that and going through the extra hurdles that the likes of Electron, Tauri or others add is burdonsome to say the least. It can be very nice, but usually isn't.
And while I empathize with the teams using Electron, I can even support the ideas. In the end, it's the outcome that matters. I'm not one of the never-electron types. But I also recognize the issues. I use Tabby for my terminal, which is fast enough, but still takes 3-4 seconds to load. I use VS Code which is usually a couple seconds as well. It drops off dramatically from there.
There are massive advantages a browser renderer offers... it gets all taken away by importing whatever library comes up in your npm search for any given thing.
In 2023 it seems like no one wants to use anything other than JS and CSS to build a native desktop application. I would be interested in seeing a desktop environment that just cuts to the chase and makes the entire desktop a web view so that developers don’t need to package things into extra layers. Weren’t there a few failed mobile OSes that tried this in the early 2010s?