4 ms·

I hear this all the time for various webapps and I'm curious about why. Is it because you want to be able to cmd/alt-tab rather than ctrl-tab to the window?

giancarlostoro 11y ago
Isolating a service to a program, as well as being able to close the browser fully without closing down music. Throughout my day I open and close my browser often enough.
- V-2 11y ago
  You could open a separate browser just for SoundCloud.
  - izacus 11y ago
    Or rather open a smaller app which has UI and behaviour built for music playback not display of html.
    - V-2 11y ago
      SoundCloud the webapp already seems to have its UI designed for music playback (it's a very slick and responsive design, by the way). Whether the UI of the standalone app is more polished that's debatable, but as far as "isolating a service to a program" and "being able to close the browser fully without closing down music" go - in and of themselves - using another browser in paralel looks sort of equivalent to it. I don't rule out there could be some other advantages of this solution, like smaller memory footprint etc., I addressed the specific reasons given by the parent commenter
      - Ntrails 11y ago
        Depending on how your OS displays tabbed browser content it can be harder to access one tab/window of many in a single application than a single unique program. It also means that it has the same volume level as the rest of your browser using system volume (if anyone but me does..) In general I'm a user who never downloads apps on my phone (unless there's something I find unsuited to my browser) - but for a music player I want it to be quickly isolated for skipping, pause, etc etc.
      - giancarlostoro 11y ago
        That's also another factor, in-browser stability is subject to each individual end user. A native client helps improve stability in the overall browser.
lifthrasiir 11y ago
As a person consistently dealing with lots of tabs (50+) having another tab for solely playing the music is not welcomed. Tab pinning helps, but not much.
- hemdawgz 11y ago
  I use Chrome's Add to Desktop feature for SoundCloud and other webapps, which adds a shortcut to launch the webpage in a dedicated window (without the browser chrome, etc.) The window is managed separately from your normal browser windows (if any) and acts like a first-class native app.
  - rhizome 11y ago
    Nice one, news to me. Ensure "Open as window" is checked for it to open without chrome.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
Razengan 11y ago
Why not prefer native apps to webapps? Better performance, a better fit into the OS's look-and-feel, and ability to interface with other OS-wide features such as accessibility and automation etcetera. Although, Soundnode doesn't seem to be a true native app, as others have pointed out.
- rplnt 11y ago
  I doubt the better performance is true since it's essentially the same technology that would be used on the web. One performance hit you take is loading the resources once.. but you also need to download the app.
  - mobiuscog 11y ago
    But you don't need a web browser...
    - nacs 11y ago
      I'm pretty sure this app is basically a browser though -- it looks like it's using Electron or nw.js to wrap HTML in a Webkit view.
- esailija 11y ago
  Ideally web app and its data is instantly accessible anywhere, not just on your desktop. They bypass any possible install restriction (or AppStore restriction, which is why Apple is deliberately keeping Safari in 2010). The look & feel argument is total bullshit at least for me. Every native app I am using is completely different. The only consistent look & feel is with ms office apps like excel, word and powerpoint. Performance is also a lot about how and who wrote the app rather than if the app is native. It's just harder and requires a lot of knowledge to make javascript app perform well, but it's not some impossibility. And yes, standards are still creating too high level APIs and it takes forever to gain more and more access to the same things native apps have. But that will get better due to extensible web manifesto.
  - 11y ago

giancarlostoro 11y ago

Isolating a service to a program, as well as being able to close the browser fully without closing down music. Throughout my day I open and close my browser often enough.

V-2 11y ago
You could open a separate browser just for SoundCloud.
- izacus 11y ago
  Or rather open a smaller app which has UI and behaviour built for music playback not display of html.
  - V-2 11y ago
    SoundCloud the webapp already seems to have its UI designed for music playback (it's a very slick and responsive design, by the way). Whether the UI of the standalone app is more polished that's debatable, but as far as "isolating a service to a program" and "being able to close the browser fully without closing down music" go - in and of themselves - using another browser in paralel looks sort of equivalent to it. I don't rule out there could be some other advantages of this solution, like smaller memory footprint etc., I addressed the specific reasons given by the parent commenter
    - Ntrails 11y ago
      Depending on how your OS displays tabbed browser content it can be harder to access one tab/window of many in a single application than a single unique program. It also means that it has the same volume level as the rest of your browser using system volume (if anyone but me does..) In general I'm a user who never downloads apps on my phone (unless there's something I find unsuited to my browser) - but for a music player I want it to be quickly isolated for skipping, pause, etc etc.
    - giancarlostoro 11y ago
      That's also another factor, in-browser stability is subject to each individual end user. A native client helps improve stability in the overall browser.

lifthrasiir 11y ago

As a person consistently dealing with lots of tabs (50+) having another tab for solely playing the music is not welcomed. Tab pinning helps, but not much.

hemdawgz 11y ago
I use Chrome's Add to Desktop feature for SoundCloud and other webapps, which adds a shortcut to launch the webpage in a dedicated window (without the browser chrome, etc.) The window is managed separately from your normal browser windows (if any) and acts like a first-class native app.
- rhizome 11y ago
  Nice one, news to me. Ensure "Open as window" is checked for it to open without chrome.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]

Razengan 11y ago

Why not prefer native apps to webapps? Better performance, a better fit into the OS's look-and-feel, and ability to interface with other OS-wide features such as accessibility and automation etcetera. Although, Soundnode doesn't seem to be a true native app, as others have pointed out.

rplnt 11y ago
I doubt the better performance is true since it's essentially the same technology that would be used on the web. One performance hit you take is loading the resources once.. but you also need to download the app.
- mobiuscog 11y ago
  But you don't need a web browser...
  - nacs 11y ago
    I'm pretty sure this app is basically a browser though -- it looks like it's using Electron or nw.js to wrap HTML in a Webkit view.
esailija 11y ago
Ideally web app and its data is instantly accessible anywhere, not just on your desktop. They bypass any possible install restriction (or AppStore restriction, which is why Apple is deliberately keeping Safari in 2010). The look & feel argument is total bullshit at least for me. Every native app I am using is completely different. The only consistent look & feel is with ms office apps like excel, word and powerpoint. Performance is also a lot about how and who wrote the app rather than if the app is native. It's just harder and requires a lot of knowledge to make javascript app perform well, but it's not some impossibility. And yes, standards are still creating too high level APIs and it takes forever to gain more and more access to the same things native apps have. But that will get better due to extensible web manifesto.
- 11y ago