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I love CSS, I wonder why it is not an universal standard used to define GUIs in other contexts like native mobile apps, or desktop apps. Why did Android creato

I love CSS, I wonder why it is not an universal standard used to define GUIs in other contexts like native mobile apps, or desktop apps. Why did Android creators decided to define its own way to describe GUIs, when CSS existed and could be used for that purpose? Every time I have tried to create a decent GUI for the desktop I get disappointed by the insane difficulty of the task, as with CSS you can make something look good in a few minutes.

spondyl 9y ago
I'm no Android developer but I was recently doing some of Google's basic courses and I have to say, I'd take Android's positioning system anyday. I think a mix of both would be best but just being able to specifically say put x "toLeftOf="@id/y" was very nice. Mind you, I'm someone who plays "CSS Whack-a-mole" rather than actually truly understanding how it's positioning works.
zackbloom 9y ago
Perhaps not surprisingly there's a just as large cohort of people who love how GUIs are defined in desktop and mobile applications and despise CSS. I've seen someone go so far as to redefine the entire browser rendering system, drawing every button and control onto one big HTML canvas element. They're very different ways of building a UI, and it's hard to find people with a ton of experience in both to provide perspective, much less an answer as to which is 'better'.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
pjmlp 9y ago
Because the way of native GUI programming is much more productive than the mess of trying to make piles of <div>, <span> and tags designed for text like <li> to do something meaningful.
- adrianratnapala 9y ago
  Correct. Of course if you are trying to lay out something document like (like those things we had back in the '90s called web pages), then HTML is much easier than native GUI programming.
  - pjmlp 9y ago
    Agreed, which is why I never been a big fan of Web 2.0 wave. For me, the correct path would have been the proper implementation of XHTML and related XML based languages. By now we would be enjoying something like XAML on the browser, with proper tooling like Blend, instead of workarounds like React, Angular and WebComponents.
barrkel 9y ago
My experience is exactly the opposite. Whether it's getting things vertically aligned, or consistent margins between composed UIs (so that you never need to adjust margins on a per-instantiated-component basis), or avoiding scrollbar nesting by using the full page for scrolling and then needing to absolutely position content so that app chrome correctly overlays it - CSS is painful all the time.
coldtea 9y ago
>I love CSS, I wonder why it is not an universal standard used to define GUIs in other contexts like native mobile apps, or desktop apps. Because in other domains sanity prevailed.
tyingq 9y ago
>I wonder why it is not an universal standard used to define GUIs in other contexts CSS appeared after native apps already had layout/geometry managers that understood how to deal with grids, fixed layouts, changing display sizes, etc. Most of them I've used have some way of expressing layout semantics that CSS failed to do until very recently. And they were "responsive" to resizing out of the box, if you wanted them to be.
limeblack 9y ago
I agree with this although I maybe just haven't hit android GUI understanding yet. At mininum let me convert HTML+CSS to and android compatibility view or something.

spondyl 9y ago

I'm no Android developer but I was recently doing some of Google's basic courses and I have to say, I'd take Android's positioning system anyday. I think a mix of both would be best but just being able to specifically say put x "toLeftOf="@id/y" was very nice. Mind you, I'm someone who plays "CSS Whack-a-mole" rather than actually truly understanding how it's positioning works.

zackbloom 9y ago

Perhaps not surprisingly there's a just as large cohort of people who love how GUIs are defined in desktop and mobile applications and despise CSS. I've seen someone go so far as to redefine the entire browser rendering system, drawing every button and control onto one big HTML canvas element. They're very different ways of building a UI, and it's hard to find people with a ton of experience in both to provide perspective, much less an answer as to which is 'better'.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

pjmlp 9y ago

Because the way of native GUI programming is much more productive than the mess of trying to make piles of <div>, <span> and tags designed for text like <li> to do something meaningful.

adrianratnapala 9y ago
Correct. Of course if you are trying to lay out something document like (like those things we had back in the '90s called web pages), then HTML is much easier than native GUI programming.
- pjmlp 9y ago
  Agreed, which is why I never been a big fan of Web 2.0 wave. For me, the correct path would have been the proper implementation of XHTML and related XML based languages. By now we would be enjoying something like XAML on the browser, with proper tooling like Blend, instead of workarounds like React, Angular and WebComponents.

barrkel 9y ago

My experience is exactly the opposite. Whether it's getting things vertically aligned, or consistent margins between composed UIs (so that you never need to adjust margins on a per-instantiated-component basis), or avoiding scrollbar nesting by using the full page for scrolling and then needing to absolutely position content so that app chrome correctly overlays it - CSS is painful all the time.

coldtea 9y ago

>I love CSS, I wonder why it is not an universal standard used to define GUIs in other contexts like native mobile apps, or desktop apps. Because in other domains sanity prevailed.

tyingq 9y ago

>I wonder why it is not an universal standard used to define GUIs in other contexts CSS appeared after native apps already had layout/geometry managers that understood how to deal with grids, fixed layouts, changing display sizes, etc. Most of them I've used have some way of expressing layout semantics that CSS failed to do until very recently. And they were "responsive" to resizing out of the box, if you wanted them to be.

limeblack 9y ago

I agree with this although I maybe just haven't hit android GUI understanding yet. At mininum let me convert HTML+CSS to and android compatibility view or something.