5 ms·

What happend to using native platform controls? All these toolkits look out of place on any platform.

jermaustin1 8y ago
This has always been my feeling. Unless you are a designer and are trying to design a consistent look and feel for your application, why wouldn't you just design for the native look and feel?
- civility 8y ago
  As more and more apps are web based, this seems like an antiquated notion. Consistency lost, and I doubt it's important any more. Why should "desktop apps" follow those rules at all? Even Apple and Microsoft violate their own rules with their flagship applications.
  - tonyedgecombe 8y ago
    Some of us still care.
  - kitsunesoba 8y ago
    I disagree simply because the push toward electron and the like are rooted more in developer convenience and the corporate drive to turn client developers into a one-size-fits-all dirt cheap bottomless resource than in any kind of user preference. Also, a big part of an individual’s platform preference boils down to things like conventions, look + feel, workflow, etc. By using electron one is tossing these choices made by the user in the garbage bin in favor of whatever the developer feels like supporting or what the designer thinks would be fun to design.
    - aikah 8y ago
      > Also, a big part of an individual’s platform preference boils down to things like conventions, look + feel, workflow, etc. By using electron one is tossing these choices made by the user in the garbage bin in favor of whatever the developer feels like supporting or what the designer thinks would be fun to design. Other multi-platform toolkits do not do better. They all violate platform's conventions. QT, Swing, GTK and co do have their own look and feel and conventions that do not match the platform's they are in, so I don't see how worst the web is in that aspect. Don't single out web techs on that specific aspect.
      - kitsunesoba 8y ago
        Qt at least tries to feel native (unless you’re using Qt Quick) and goes further than the others listed in feeing native. If one cares, it’s pretty easy to make a Qt app feel “almost native”. That said, I favor projects that have per-platform true native clients with a platform agnostic core over those that chase the “dream” of write once run everywhere. Transmission is a great example of how well this can work.
        O_H_E 8y ago
        Yeah, I greatly respect transmission for that design
    - civility 8y ago
      Efficiency in the market and development process drove client developers to be a dirt cheap bottomless resource. Before iPhone apps (and later Android), you could create a new application and sell it in a box for a good living. The only "box apps" which most people will still pay for are grandfathered in things like Photoshop, Matlab, and Office. Even new video games are mostly in-app purchases or ad-based. I don't like electron based apps, but that's not what devalued developers. Besides, I wasn't talking specifically about electron-based apps, I was talking about apps in general which don't use the native widget toolkits. Also, I can't speak for everyone, but my preference for a platform boils down to whether it provides a Unix shell and how pushy it is about forcing me to download updates or upload personal information. Consistent widget look and feel just doesn't matter when I spend most of my time in a browser or shell anyways.
  - SllX 8y ago
    > Even Apple and Microsoft violate their own rules with their flagship applications. Sometimes there's violating your own rules to push the State of the Art forward and this will eventually become the new standard. Then there's violating your own rules because you don't value consistency. Most organizations with enough software are pretty guilty of that latter one, but destroying any semblance of consistency because it is economically convenient for the development team doesn't seem like a step forward to me.
Asooka 8y ago
X11 doesn't have native controls. The closest would be motif, or Xaw, but nobody sane uses those. GTK and Qt are both equally "native". Chrome uses its own GTK-derived UI lib, IIRC . As long as OP's ui implements accessibility and follows the desktop's settings as close as feasible, I see no problem.
jerf 8y ago
"What happend to using native platform controls?" This appears to be X11-specific, and X11 essentially does not have native platform controls. Also if you're in X11 you've quite likely already given up any real hope of all your windows looking the same. You also seem to be casually assuming this would be cross-platform, but this would be the equivalent of implementing something in raw Win32 API calls. There's zero cross-platform concerns here, on the grounds it'll never be cross-platform. In fact, given that it's pretty likely the move to Wayland would be completed by the Linux community before this project could reach a point where it would be something you might consider using seriously for a non-trivial project, it's debatable whether it's even good for one platform.
jimjimjim 8y ago
even in win32 land this idea is going away. more and more windows applications are theming/drawing their own look and feel onto their UIs to give more consistency across the organization's applications rather than consistency with windows.

This has always been my feeling. Unless you are a designer and are trying to design a consistent look and feel for your application, why wouldn't you just design for the native look and feel?

civility 8y ago
As more and more apps are web based, this seems like an antiquated notion. Consistency lost, and I doubt it's important any more. Why should "desktop apps" follow those rules at all? Even Apple and Microsoft violate their own rules with their flagship applications.
- tonyedgecombe 8y ago
  Some of us still care.
- kitsunesoba 8y ago
  I disagree simply because the push toward electron and the like are rooted more in developer convenience and the corporate drive to turn client developers into a one-size-fits-all dirt cheap bottomless resource than in any kind of user preference. Also, a big part of an individual’s platform preference boils down to things like conventions, look + feel, workflow, etc. By using electron one is tossing these choices made by the user in the garbage bin in favor of whatever the developer feels like supporting or what the designer thinks would be fun to design.
  - aikah 8y ago
    > Also, a big part of an individual’s platform preference boils down to things like conventions, look + feel, workflow, etc. By using electron one is tossing these choices made by the user in the garbage bin in favor of whatever the developer feels like supporting or what the designer thinks would be fun to design. Other multi-platform toolkits do not do better. They all violate platform's conventions. QT, Swing, GTK and co do have their own look and feel and conventions that do not match the platform's they are in, so I don't see how worst the web is in that aspect. Don't single out web techs on that specific aspect.
    - kitsunesoba 8y ago
      Qt at least tries to feel native (unless you’re using Qt Quick) and goes further than the others listed in feeing native. If one cares, it’s pretty easy to make a Qt app feel “almost native”. That said, I favor projects that have per-platform true native clients with a platform agnostic core over those that chase the “dream” of write once run everywhere. Transmission is a great example of how well this can work.
      - O_H_E 8y ago
        Yeah, I greatly respect transmission for that design
  - civility 8y ago
    Efficiency in the market and development process drove client developers to be a dirt cheap bottomless resource. Before iPhone apps (and later Android), you could create a new application and sell it in a box for a good living. The only "box apps" which most people will still pay for are grandfathered in things like Photoshop, Matlab, and Office. Even new video games are mostly in-app purchases or ad-based. I don't like electron based apps, but that's not what devalued developers. Besides, I wasn't talking specifically about electron-based apps, I was talking about apps in general which don't use the native widget toolkits. Also, I can't speak for everyone, but my preference for a platform boils down to whether it provides a Unix shell and how pushy it is about forcing me to download updates or upload personal information. Consistent widget look and feel just doesn't matter when I spend most of my time in a browser or shell anyways.
- SllX 8y ago
  > Even Apple and Microsoft violate their own rules with their flagship applications. Sometimes there's violating your own rules to push the State of the Art forward and this will eventually become the new standard. Then there's violating your own rules because you don't value consistency. Most organizations with enough software are pretty guilty of that latter one, but destroying any semblance of consistency because it is economically convenient for the development team doesn't seem like a step forward to me.

Asooka 8y ago

X11 doesn't have native controls. The closest would be motif, or Xaw, but nobody sane uses those. GTK and Qt are both equally "native". Chrome uses its own GTK-derived UI lib, IIRC . As long as OP's ui implements accessibility and follows the desktop's settings as close as feasible, I see no problem.

jerf 8y ago

"What happend to using native platform controls?" This appears to be X11-specific, and X11 essentially does not have native platform controls. Also if you're in X11 you've quite likely already given up any real hope of all your windows looking the same. You also seem to be casually assuming this would be cross-platform, but this would be the equivalent of implementing something in raw Win32 API calls. There's zero cross-platform concerns here, on the grounds it'll never be cross-platform. In fact, given that it's pretty likely the move to Wayland would be completed by the Linux community before this project could reach a point where it would be something you might consider using seriously for a non-trivial project, it's debatable whether it's even good for one platform.

jimjimjim 8y ago

even in win32 land this idea is going away. more and more windows applications are theming/drawing their own look and feel onto their UIs to give more consistency across the organization's applications rather than consistency with windows.