4 ms·

I used HTC a lot and waited for the other browsers to implement it. XBL came around but waited many years until it became web components. Great post!

DaiPlusPlus 9y ago
All this talk of HTCs reminds me of HTAs: HTML Applications. https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb250409(v=vs.85).aspx https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb250409(v=vs.85).a... They behaved like a native app, with control over their native chrome, and without any browser sandboxing: their JavaScript (JScript) or VBScript could use COM components to access to the file-system and other features, including loading other binaries in-process. File-system access was through Scripting.FileSystemObject, for example. Some built-in Windows components were/are built as HTAs, like the previous versions of the Microsoft AntiMalware / Windows Defender UI. I tried to use it for a project in 2013 but couldn't because HTAs are forced to run in Quirks-mode, so you can't use IE11's Edge mode, unfortunately. Best of all: they ran while needing only a few megabytes of RAM. Compare with Electron-based apps and it makes me weep because this, right here, is evidence that a Web-View can be used as the basis for an application, using a platform that was available since 1998/1999, without it dragging my PC down.
- vittore 9y ago
  This! I love simplicity of electron but it is absurdly resource hungry.
  - DaiPlusPlus 9y ago
    I don't agree that Electron is simple. Electron runs a Node.js instance as a websever and application server in-proc, while also running Blink/WebKit for each frame instance. There's no consolidation going on, and I feel for a majority of Electron applications there's no need for the Node instance because all they're serving is an Angular app using the built-in `chrome.` APIs. What would be simple is if a script tag in a single HTML file could access the filesystem or Windows registry - but under Electron they can't.
- insin 9y ago
  I still use them - IE9 being the highest available engine is just as bad as you remember, but being able to quickly whip up a few-hundred KB app HR can all use off a network drive to automate tedious tasks like recurring data-driven document generation, with a decent React UI, is worth some of the pain.
- ricardobeat 9y ago
  You can still do this, and in OSX too using MacGap (or writing a tiny webview wrapper yourself). The main reasons this is not widely done are incomplete device APIs, no control over browser versions/features - app might break at any moment for different subsets of users, and the lack of cross-platform compatibility. Electron actually solves most of those pain points despite the heft.
  - DaiPlusPlus 9y ago
    Does the Cocoa WebView expose any kind of non-sandboxed COM-like API for system access? That was what made HTAs so useful.

DaiPlusPlus 9y ago

All this talk of HTCs reminds me of HTAs: HTML Applications. https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb250409(v=vs.85).aspx https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb250409(v=vs.85).a... They behaved like a native app, with control over their native chrome, and without any browser sandboxing: their JavaScript (JScript) or VBScript could use COM components to access to the file-system and other features, including loading other binaries in-process. File-system access was through Scripting.FileSystemObject, for example. Some built-in Windows components were/are built as HTAs, like the previous versions of the Microsoft AntiMalware / Windows Defender UI. I tried to use it for a project in 2013 but couldn't because HTAs are forced to run in Quirks-mode, so you can't use IE11's Edge mode, unfortunately. Best of all: they ran while needing only a few megabytes of RAM. Compare with Electron-based apps and it makes me weep because this, right here, is evidence that a Web-View can be used as the basis for an application, using a platform that was available since 1998/1999, without it dragging my PC down.

vittore 9y ago
This! I love simplicity of electron but it is absurdly resource hungry.
- DaiPlusPlus 9y ago
  I don't agree that Electron is simple. Electron runs a Node.js instance as a websever and application server in-proc, while also running Blink/WebKit for each frame instance. There's no consolidation going on, and I feel for a majority of Electron applications there's no need for the Node instance because all they're serving is an Angular app using the built-in `chrome.` APIs. What would be simple is if a script tag in a single HTML file could access the filesystem or Windows registry - but under Electron they can't.
insin 9y ago
I still use them - IE9 being the highest available engine is just as bad as you remember, but being able to quickly whip up a few-hundred KB app HR can all use off a network drive to automate tedious tasks like recurring data-driven document generation, with a decent React UI, is worth some of the pain.
ricardobeat 9y ago
You can still do this, and in OSX too using MacGap (or writing a tiny webview wrapper yourself). The main reasons this is not widely done are incomplete device APIs, no control over browser versions/features - app might break at any moment for different subsets of users, and the lack of cross-platform compatibility. Electron actually solves most of those pain points despite the heft.
- DaiPlusPlus 9y ago
  Does the Cocoa WebView expose any kind of non-sandboxed COM-like API for system access? That was what made HTAs so useful.