5 ms·

because there is no proper UI library that does cross platform as well as the web

• raffraffraff 10mo ago
  Not just UI. I just wrote a KDE Plasma 6 widget for systemd-networkd / networkd and it was a nightmare.
  • kosolam 10mo ago
    Why? Give more details please
• robert_dipaolo 10mo ago
  What about QT? I've used that in the past and it's really good for native apps.
  • Kelteseth 10mo ago
    We are using it for our apps, but I can see why people do not use it for new projects: 1. The state of C++ is not great. Few developers, C++ footguns, complicated build systems, and generally slow progress, see my https://arewemodulesyet.org/ https://arewemodulesyet.org/ 2. How Qt presents and licenses itself. Either you go LGPL or you have to pay big money for a commercial license, which will then infect all other apps as well. For example, when you have two Qt apps that talk to each other you must license _both_ commercially. 3. The split of Widgets and QML makes the ecosystem fragmented, because Widgets will never die. Even the Qt devs themselves are split about this. You can see this when example code for a new feature uses Widgets. QtCreator is also a nice example, where they reverted some new QML code quite a while ago and have not substantially added any new QML code since then. 4. Tooling: We use QML for everything and the tooling is not great. The language server is still super flaky and breaks, and developer tooling like the Chrome Dev Tools is virtually nonexistent. 5. Packaging is still also not great but has gotten better in the last few versions where Qt creates a deployment cmake script for you, but you still need logic for your own (vcpkg) packages.
  • rubymamis 10mo ago
    Indeed, I wrote my note-taking app using Qt with QML: https://get-notes.com https://get-notes.com
• adastra22 10mo ago
  There are quite a few. Qt, React Native, Xamarin, and Flutter come to mind.
  • mono442 10mo ago
    I wouldn't exactly call Flutter native. It uses its own rendering engine and doesn't necessarily behave like operating system native controls. It is not really different from using electron.
    • lloydatkinson 10mo ago
      What are the Linux native controls? GTK and KDE controls are native to GTK and KDE.
      • jdiff 10mo ago
        Sure, but GTK and KDE aren't also cross-platform native.
        • Exoristos 10mo ago
          Why should they be?
          • jdiff 10mo ago
            Of course, there's no need for them to be. But this conversation started out with "why do people use web based UI solutions?" and "because there is no proper UI library that does cross platform as well as the web".
    • adastra22 10mo ago
      "Native" seems to mean different things to different people. I'm mostly with you on this, but the tides are turning. In any case, the other 3 do use real native widgets.
    • prmoustache 10mo ago
• lloydatkinson 10mo ago
  My cross platform application written in C#/.NET and Avalonia strongly disagrees with this crazy assertion. I can also think of QT and GTK for other languages too.
• anthk 10mo ago
  Lazarus and Free Pascal and it will run several times faster than the web.
• breve 10mo ago
  These two are good: https://avaloniaui.net/ https://avaloniaui.net/ https://platform.uno/ https://platform.uno/
  • Ray20 10mo ago
    But we want the web into the desktop, not the desktop into the web.
  • dualogy 10mo ago
    That is both .NET stuff, Wails is one of various Go options.
• divan 10mo ago
  What's the reason not to write desktop apps in Flutter in 2025?