8 ms·

Why oh why do people still write standard GUI applications in non-portable platform ?! Its a mystery to me

by yazriel 11y ago

kartan 11y ago
I agree on that. Unless you are developing a platform specific utility that is not meaningful in other environments, it is not a good practice to limit yourself. It also makes sense is when you are not creating a product bust just playing with a technology. Even Microsoft is now doing multi-platform tools for developers (https://code.visualstudio.com/ https://code.visualstudio.com/).
akvadrako 11y ago
Because otherwise they don't look or behave nicely.
- st3v3r 11y ago
  Or you end up writing the same product multiple times.
sergiotapia 11y ago
You either make it look beautiful in one place, or make it look like ass in three places. Or, option C: You use Electron, like Slack.
- baldfat 11y ago
  Qt looks very nice to me. But then again my preferred GUI is ncurse in my terminal (urxvt) with tmux in a tiled window manager (i3).
- sanderjd 11y ago
  I keep waiting for Slack to realize that they're a big enough company now that they can afford to make native apps that look and work better than the Electron version. I'd much rather have a real native app than a webpage inside some minimal window chrome. Different strokes for different folks I guess.
  - fokinsean 11y ago
    What would be some of the improvements making slack native? I don't have many problems with the current one other than it is quite large.
    - adrusi 11y ago
      Memory usage, CPU usage, OS integration, security.
      - fokinsean 11y ago
        Gotcha, thanks
  - shinymark 11y ago
    The Slack client looks nice but it's incredible how inefficient it is (presumably due to being a web app in an Electron wrapper). I used it recently on a low powered laptop and keystrokes sometimes took 100-300 msec to appear on screen. No other text entry application on that computer had that problem.
- cturner 11y ago
  Another option - you can do everything in a terminal. Not everyone finds minimalism beautiful, but - if you do.
  - st3v3r 11y ago
    It's still going to be a bit of a problem, as you have the Unix terminals (bash, zsh, fish, among others), and then you have the Windows terminals (cmd.exe and PowerShell).
tehwalrus 11y ago
I was disappointed to see it was OS X only, but having written several GUIs (single and cross platform), I understand the trade off they made. It really is one-platform or web, and web is not for everyone (least of all programmers writing notes about their code at work.)
- Cyph0n 11y ago
  That's my experience as well. Electron/NW.js is the best option, but 1) it's like designing a website, which can get annoying at times, and 2) the file size :(
wvenable 11y ago
Because the result is always better?
moonlighter 11y ago
There are benefits to having a pure, native app. Quiver starts literally instantaneously without any lag, partly because it's less than 5MB(!) in size. Here's a good read from the author: http://yaoganglian.com/2015/11/21/Quiver-3/ http://yaoganglian.com/2015/11/21/Quiver-3/
- kitsunesoba 11y ago
  Yep. Speaking specifically about developing for OS X only vs. multiplatform, there are big tradeoffs to be made by taking multiplatform options outright. In my eyes, nothing is as great for UI-centric desktop application development as Obj-C/Swift paired with Cocoa/AppKit. It just works so well, and though Qt is probably the best of native multiplatform solutions it’s still not comparable.
  - moonlighter 11y ago
    Exactly. I used another note taking app, aptly named "Notebooks" (http://www.notebooksapp.com http://www.notebooksapp.com), which is built with Qt. It's cross platform, open data format, and while it sort of looks and feels almost like a native app, it just doesn't compare to a true native app like Quiver.
marssaxman 11y ago
Might be a mystery but I'm really glad they keep doing it, because the alternatives are 1) all your data are belong to us, or 2) it looks terrible everywhere.
mamcx 11y ago
Then solve the mistery. What use that is truly good?
mrmondo 11y ago
IMO there is nothing worse than a non-native app, especially if it's something designed for a web browser like NodeJS and friends.

Why oh why do people still write standard GUI applications in non-portable platform ?! Its a mystery to me

by yazriel 11y ago

Why oh why do people still write standard GUI applications in non-portable platform ?! Its a mystery to me

I agree on that. Unless you are developing a platform specific utility that is not meaningful in other environments, it is not a good practice to limit yourself. It also makes sense is when you are not creating a product bust just playing with a technology. Even Microsoft is now doing multi-platform tools for developers (https://code.visualstudio.com/ https://code.visualstudio.com/).

akvadrako 11y ago

Because otherwise they don't look or behave nicely.

st3v3r 11y ago
Or you end up writing the same product multiple times.

sergiotapia 11y ago

You either make it look beautiful in one place, or make it look like ass in three places. Or, option C: You use Electron, like Slack.

baldfat 11y ago
Qt looks very nice to me. But then again my preferred GUI is ncurse in my terminal (urxvt) with tmux in a tiled window manager (i3).
sanderjd 11y ago
I keep waiting for Slack to realize that they're a big enough company now that they can afford to make native apps that look and work better than the Electron version. I'd much rather have a real native app than a webpage inside some minimal window chrome. Different strokes for different folks I guess.
- fokinsean 11y ago
  What would be some of the improvements making slack native? I don't have many problems with the current one other than it is quite large.
  - adrusi 11y ago
    Memory usage, CPU usage, OS integration, security.
    - fokinsean 11y ago
      Gotcha, thanks
- shinymark 11y ago
  The Slack client looks nice but it's incredible how inefficient it is (presumably due to being a web app in an Electron wrapper). I used it recently on a low powered laptop and keystrokes sometimes took 100-300 msec to appear on screen. No other text entry application on that computer had that problem.
cturner 11y ago
Another option - you can do everything in a terminal. Not everyone finds minimalism beautiful, but - if you do.
- st3v3r 11y ago
  It's still going to be a bit of a problem, as you have the Unix terminals (bash, zsh, fish, among others), and then you have the Windows terminals (cmd.exe and PowerShell).

tehwalrus 11y ago

I was disappointed to see it was OS X only, but having written several GUIs (single and cross platform), I understand the trade off they made. It really is one-platform or web, and web is not for everyone (least of all programmers writing notes about their code at work.)

Cyph0n 11y ago
That's my experience as well. Electron/NW.js is the best option, but 1) it's like designing a website, which can get annoying at times, and 2) the file size :(

wvenable 11y ago

Because the result is always better?

moonlighter 11y ago

There are benefits to having a pure, native app. Quiver starts literally instantaneously without any lag, partly because it's less than 5MB(!) in size. Here's a good read from the author: http://yaoganglian.com/2015/11/21/Quiver-3/ http://yaoganglian.com/2015/11/21/Quiver-3/

kitsunesoba 11y ago
Yep. Speaking specifically about developing for OS X only vs. multiplatform, there are big tradeoffs to be made by taking multiplatform options outright. In my eyes, nothing is as great for UI-centric desktop application development as Obj-C/Swift paired with Cocoa/AppKit. It just works so well, and though Qt is probably the best of native multiplatform solutions it’s still not comparable.
- moonlighter 11y ago
  Exactly. I used another note taking app, aptly named "Notebooks" (http://www.notebooksapp.com http://www.notebooksapp.com), which is built with Qt. It's cross platform, open data format, and while it sort of looks and feels almost like a native app, it just doesn't compare to a true native app like Quiver.

marssaxman 11y ago

Might be a mystery but I'm really glad they keep doing it, because the alternatives are 1) all your data are belong to us, or 2) it looks terrible everywhere.

mamcx 11y ago

Then solve the mistery. What use that is truly good?

mrmondo 11y ago

IMO there is nothing worse than a non-native app, especially if it's something designed for a web browser like NodeJS and friends.