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> I work with a Qt-like C++ GUI framework (JUCE), but we've seen increasing portions of our front-end work replaced with Electron/React Native. working on Max/

> I work with a Qt-like C++ GUI framework (JUCE), but we've seen increasing portions of our front-end work replaced with Electron/React Native. working on Max/MSP by any chance ? > Those who might suggest that Qt covers that role have to explain why, even though it has been capable of fast, attractive apps for a long time, nobody built Slack, Discord, Atom or VSCode in it. But someone built Telegram with it, which is of fairly equivalent complexity (https://aozoeky4dglp5sh0-zippykid.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/telegram-calls-desktop.jpg https://aozoeky4dglp5sh0-zippykid.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/...). Besides, I'd say that there are enough quality Qt apps in the KDE ecosystem to not need $ELECTRON app :-) just yesterday Krita was making the highlights for instance. Likewise, I doubt people being used to the power and speed of KDevelop or QtCreator would feel the need to switch to VSCode. Even going outside of the "libre" ecosystem, there are many many many nice-looking recent apps written with it... take a look at substance painter (https://www.allegorithmic.com/sites/default/files/DML_1.jpg https://www.allegorithmic.com/sites/default/files/DML_1.jpg), the Blizzard launcher (https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--zbfvud8U--/c_fill,fl_progressive,g_center,h_900,q_80,w_1600/px2wqtkhkhhzsrhi7ppi.jpg https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--zbfvud8...), Native Access (https://support.native-instruments.com/hc/article_attachments/115011032025/K11U_EM.png https://support.native-instruments.com/hc/article_attachment...)...

wlesieutre 8y ago
I haven't used Allegorithmic's stuff recently, but my previous experience was that it's neigh unusable on a Mac laptop. Much worse than anything I've experienced in electron. Substance Designer is a giant graph editor that should be perfect for multitouch trackpad pan/zoom gestures, but it doesn't support them. To zoom in and out you scroll up and down as if you're using a mouse wheel, but moving your fingers about 1mm will zip you instantly past where you were trying to get. And IIRC it expects a middle mouse button that you can drag to pan; on a laptop you get to two-finger-drag while holding down Option. Electron, being based on a web browser, is probably easier to set up for various input types beyond keyboard and mouse. EDIT: Here's an old video I recorded of the trackpad zoom. If you look very very very closely you might see my fingers move. https://gfycat.com/FlippantBonyHusky https://gfycat.com/FlippantBonyHusky TLDR cross platform UIs still take work
- mroche 8y ago
  The issue there is you're running a VFX application on a Mac :P I mean that 50% sarcastically and 50% sympathetically. Apple support has not been stellar the past few years across 3D applications. Not sure when the last time you used their products, but they did go through a redesign and things have improved a fair bit. From the thread's master: > The fact is that a viable, efficient, native and cross-platform GUI solution has failed to emerge. Note the word 'viable'. Those who might suggest that Qt covers that role have to explain why, even though it has been capable of fast, attractive apps for a long time, nobody built Slack, Discord, Atom or VSCode in it. Most industry standard VFX applications utilize Qt for the UI and other application parts. It helps that there was a standards body (admittedly, very Linux biased but starting to open up) set up between vendors and studios for choosing major frameworks/libraries (VFX Reference Platform[0]): * Autodesk Maya * Autodesk 3DS Max * SideFX Houdini * Foundry Nuke * Foundry Mari * Foundry Katana * Foundry Modo * Allegorithmic Substance Painter * Allegorithmic Substance Designer With the exception of macOS in the very recent years, these applications work pretty seamlessly and efficiently. Qt is not as easy to get up and running with compared to web based frameworks like Electron, it does provide a pretty 'viable' framework for building cross-platform applications. Getting 'native' in appearance will probably never happen 100%, but Qt does a pretty bang-up job. Regarding the apps listed above, they all use custom styling so you get the same interface across all platforms, so native doesn't even matter anymore. [0] http://vfxplatform.com/ http://vfxplatform.com/
  - wlesieutre 8y ago
    I primarily ran it on my Windows desktop where it worked better (except for being tiny because they hadn’t implemented any sort of UI scaling for high DPI displays, making the 10pt-ish UI font nearly unreadable), so it wasn’t a huge deal, but still was disappointing. Faster CPU and much faster GPU on my desktop, but I’m not always at that computer. The bigger bummer is that “cross platform” for this sort of thing is only talking about Windows, Linux, and maybe Mac. Substance Designer and Painter would both be outstanding to use on an iPad Pro as long as you had someone on desktop platform feeding you the 3D models.
    - 8y ago
Zarel 8y ago
I just downloaded Telegram because I was curious how Qt's macOS support was, and it turns out the Mac version of Telegram isn't even written in Qt. I did eventually download the Qt version. It doesn't support emacs keybindings. I can't use ctrl+b ctrl+f to move my cursor in text boxes, like I can in every macOS native app and Electron app. I think this is a pretty strong argument for Electron: It actually behaves like a native app. I also think Telegram is lower complexity than Slack, Discord, Atom, or VS Code. For instance, as far as I can tell, it doesn't have features like emoji reacts, which I'd guess would be something easier to implement in HTML/JavaScript than in Qt.
- pseudalopex 8y ago
  The Emacs key bindings don't work in every Electron app. They also don't support Services.
zakius 8y ago
you mentioned "nice looking" but then linked everything that looks like homework project from some web design course instead of proper, intuitive app

wlesieutre 8y ago

I haven't used Allegorithmic's stuff recently, but my previous experience was that it's neigh unusable on a Mac laptop. Much worse than anything I've experienced in electron. Substance Designer is a giant graph editor that should be perfect for multitouch trackpad pan/zoom gestures, but it doesn't support them. To zoom in and out you scroll up and down as if you're using a mouse wheel, but moving your fingers about 1mm will zip you instantly past where you were trying to get. And IIRC it expects a middle mouse button that you can drag to pan; on a laptop you get to two-finger-drag while holding down Option. Electron, being based on a web browser, is probably easier to set up for various input types beyond keyboard and mouse. EDIT: Here's an old video I recorded of the trackpad zoom. If you look very very very closely you might see my fingers move. https://gfycat.com/FlippantBonyHusky https://gfycat.com/FlippantBonyHusky TLDR cross platform UIs still take work

mroche 8y ago
The issue there is you're running a VFX application on a Mac :P I mean that 50% sarcastically and 50% sympathetically. Apple support has not been stellar the past few years across 3D applications. Not sure when the last time you used their products, but they did go through a redesign and things have improved a fair bit. From the thread's master: > The fact is that a viable, efficient, native and cross-platform GUI solution has failed to emerge. Note the word 'viable'. Those who might suggest that Qt covers that role have to explain why, even though it has been capable of fast, attractive apps for a long time, nobody built Slack, Discord, Atom or VSCode in it. Most industry standard VFX applications utilize Qt for the UI and other application parts. It helps that there was a standards body (admittedly, very Linux biased but starting to open up) set up between vendors and studios for choosing major frameworks/libraries (VFX Reference Platform[0]): * Autodesk Maya * Autodesk 3DS Max * SideFX Houdini * Foundry Nuke * Foundry Mari * Foundry Katana * Foundry Modo * Allegorithmic Substance Painter * Allegorithmic Substance Designer With the exception of macOS in the very recent years, these applications work pretty seamlessly and efficiently. Qt is not as easy to get up and running with compared to web based frameworks like Electron, it does provide a pretty 'viable' framework for building cross-platform applications. Getting 'native' in appearance will probably never happen 100%, but Qt does a pretty bang-up job. Regarding the apps listed above, they all use custom styling so you get the same interface across all platforms, so native doesn't even matter anymore. [0] http://vfxplatform.com/ http://vfxplatform.com/
- wlesieutre 8y ago
  I primarily ran it on my Windows desktop where it worked better (except for being tiny because they hadn’t implemented any sort of UI scaling for high DPI displays, making the 10pt-ish UI font nearly unreadable), so it wasn’t a huge deal, but still was disappointing. Faster CPU and much faster GPU on my desktop, but I’m not always at that computer. The bigger bummer is that “cross platform” for this sort of thing is only talking about Windows, Linux, and maybe Mac. Substance Designer and Painter would both be outstanding to use on an iPad Pro as long as you had someone on desktop platform feeding you the 3D models.
  - 8y ago

Zarel 8y ago

I just downloaded Telegram because I was curious how Qt's macOS support was, and it turns out the Mac version of Telegram isn't even written in Qt. I did eventually download the Qt version. It doesn't support emacs keybindings. I can't use ctrl+b ctrl+f to move my cursor in text boxes, like I can in every macOS native app and Electron app. I think this is a pretty strong argument for Electron: It actually behaves like a native app. I also think Telegram is lower complexity than Slack, Discord, Atom, or VS Code. For instance, as far as I can tell, it doesn't have features like emoji reacts, which I'd guess would be something easier to implement in HTML/JavaScript than in Qt.

pseudalopex 8y ago
The Emacs key bindings don't work in every Electron app. They also don't support Services.

zakius 8y ago

you mentioned "nice looking" but then linked everything that looks like homework project from some web design course instead of proper, intuitive app