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

ToDesktop – Web app to desktop app in minutes

todesktop.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–87 of 87 posts

Re: ToDesktop – Web app to desktop app in minutes

#81

Post by JSavageOne »

ehutch79 wrote: post #80
JSavageOne wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some benefits of websites as apps - Instantly supports all operating systems and mobile devices - No need to download/install some .exe files (or your OS equivalent) with all the associated security risks - A web app will likely get updated more frequently since it's easier to develop and update I think VS Code proves that web apps can deliver

In order to use websites as a desktop app, i would think you need to download a binary and run it. Otherwise it's just a normal web app?

With a Progressive Web App you can just download it as a desktop or mobile app by clicking on the download app icon in the URL bar

Re: ToDesktop – Web app to desktop app in minutes

#82

Post by asoneth »

ToucanLoucan wrote: post #73
asoneth wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And especially given that a whole lot of these apps aren't built by scrappy underdog devs but massive firms that could extremely easily afford native developers I understand why someone would think that, but in my experience the economics for product owners aren't significantly different between scrappy underdogs and massive firms. First, most new products start as a web app. If the product is profitable (or convin…

I mean, we had software for a good long time before Electron and it's contemporaries were an option. Somehow we still had prototypes, somehow we still had companies churning out native platform-specific software because there wasn't another way to do it. Now we certainly have more options but like, what good is more options that suck? I would personally love to have more software that is more expensive, is updated le…

> because there wasn't another way to do it

Precisely. In some domains most customers will always choose the cheaper option. In those cases web apps resulted in a race to the bottom. Companies in those domains simply could not afford to cling to native software if they wanted to remain competitive.

But of course you still find lots of native software in domains where a critical mass of customers are willing to pay more (or sacrifice functionality) for qualities like performance, security, reliability, etc. For example: games, fintech, military, virtual reality, video production, realtime controllers. I've worked in a couple of those domains and in those cases I am confident that web apps are a very long way away from displacing native applications.

> everyone involved in it should be ashamed of the product they're turning out

Before judging people for their decisions it's worth understanding why they make them.

I know many developers who take pride in writing extremely performant software. All of them have either shifted to work for companies that are willing to pay them to do that or they've swallowed their pride to feed their kids and they scratch that itch by tinkering with open source or game dev on the weekends.

> Now we certainly have more options but like, what good is more options that suck?

I am not arguing that this situation makes your life better. It doesn't. I sympathize with your frustration and I also like using (and making) performant software.

What I am trying to do is explain how we got here because I think it could help us find a way out. We either have to make performant software significantly cheaper to build or we have to convince customers to pay significantly more for it.

Re: ToDesktop – Web app to desktop app in minutes

#83

Post by jonny_eh »

JSavageOne wrote: post #81
ehutch79 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In order to use websites as a desktop app, i would think you need to download a binary and run it. Otherwise it's just a normal web app?

With a Progressive Web App you can just download it as a desktop or mobile app by clicking on the download app icon in the URL bar

But that isn't what was shared on HN. Why are we talking about PWAs?

Re: ToDesktop – Web app to desktop app in minutes

#84

Post by kbd »

mthoms wrote: post #74
kbd wrote: post #72

It's been frustrating that for years Mac has had no native way to create a site-specific browser. Chrome can do it for you on Windows. On Mac there is stuff like Fluid, but for reasons I don't remember every time I try it I wind up being frustrated. Finally the Mac is getting a built-in way to create a SSB in Sonoma.

Orion Browser works pretty well for SSBs. But I can’t wait for native support.

> Orion Browser works pretty well for SSBs.

Wow! I've been a fan of Orion for a while and I didn't know it did that. Lo and behold, "Tools -> Install This Site as an App". Thank you for the pointer!

Re: ToDesktop – Web app to desktop app in minutes

#85

Post by ToucanLoucan »

asoneth wrote: post #82
ToucanLoucan wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, we had software for a good long time before Electron and it's contemporaries were an option. Somehow we still had prototypes, somehow we still had companies churning out native platform-specific software because there wasn't another way to do it. Now we certainly have more options but like, what good is more options that suck? I would personally love to have more software that is more expensive, is updated le…

> because there wasn't another way to do it Precisely. In some domains most customers will always choose the cheaper option. In those cases web apps resulted in a race to the bottom. Companies in those domains simply could not afford to cling to native software if they wanted to remain competitive. But of course you still find lots of native software in domains where a critical mass of customers are willing to pay mo…

> Before judging people for their decisions it's worth understanding why they make them.

I do understand. I understand it's infinitely cheaper to build a shitty webapp and port it to every platform. I know exactly why this stuff is so ubiquitous. Hell, I've even tried it over a few weekends here and there. There was a time I was looking to get into React simply because everyone and their mother is using it for all the reasons you've outlined here. Eventually though I found a job where a native app is much preferred for exactly the reasons you outline here: It runs better, and our leadership is one that's prepared to lay out a chunk of change to have software they're proud to show off and sell.

In short: I know exactly what the tradeoffs are and why they're made. Doesn't mean I'm not going to judge them for it. It's great web tooling but when used this way it results in mediocre garbage applications that are magnitudes larger than they need to be, more often than not by some combination of developers or management that fundamentally don't care that it runs and feels like shit, and that tells me something about their long term product viability.

Re: ToDesktop – Web app to desktop app in minutes

#86

Post by literallyroy »

toddmorey wrote: post #53
ToucanLoucan wrote: post #11

I'll be honest: I make a concentrated effort to avoid these apps that are just a website stuffed into a (usually quite gigantic) executable for a number of reasons: - They always feel sluggish. Animations are jittery. Text input that does things (contextual search for example) jitters and jumps instead of smoothly performing it's task. - Scrolling, especially scrolling that loads content, is also often jittery and la…

I think web tech (even as resource hungry as it tends to be) is the right abstraction until your product & team is big enough to properly staff and develop for each platform. Looking at you, Slack. It's time to step up to native. I look at it this way: Any app deploying to four platforms (web, Mac, Linux, Windows) is going to involve some level of non-native abstraction. (Whatever Adobe seems doing for their UI kit i…

Tauri does exactly that — uses the bundled browser instead of packaging a new one.

Re: ToDesktop – Web app to desktop app in minutes

#87

Post by devmor »

mike_hearn wrote: post #79
devmor wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my mind, a trial of the service isn't something that I'd be distributing to end users. If I were trialing your service, it'd be to figure out how it works into my dev process and the decision to purchase would come before I'm sending executable out to anyone but my dev team. At that point, it's locked in to an extent - I'm not going to want to tell my users "Actually, don't update the app using the automatic updat…

That sort of trial already works. ToDesktop is a service but Conveyor is a tool, so you provide your own web server in our case. If the web server you set for updates is localhost then you don't have to pay or sign up, you can just download it and use it until you're satisfied it fits. Now, what if you want to distribute within your team? Well, then your compadres would need to run a localhost server too if they want…

I think you're in a different bucket than the OP's product, in that case. A fair price to trial at that stage of development is a lot different than charging $99/mo from the get-go.

From my view, as a solo dev with a lot of small clients and personal projects, I start a lot of projects that make their way into the hands of collaborators but never make it to a project that's ready to finish. I would loathe to pay that kind of price for those.

But if I'm at the point where I have beta testers and other kinds of non-client/dev personnel, I'm a lot more ready to put down significant cash for dev tooling.

Post reply on HN