6 ms·

Hopefully they raise enough money to build a native desktop app.

by cpursley 8y ago

Waterluvian 8y ago
You mean three native desktop apps.
- snuxoll 8y ago
  Qt /thread
  - gfwhukku 8y ago
    Qt is not native. Native doesn't mean "it's not written in JS" or "it's fast". Native means "it uses the GUI toolkit of the target platform". And Qt doesn't do that, it merely mimics its appearance.
    - darkengine 8y ago
      GTK isn't any more "native" than Qt -- they're both abstractions atop X (or Wayland, or Broadway).
    - IshKebab 8y ago
      You are incorrect. Toolkits like Qt are exactly what people are talking about when they say "native". How many apps do you think still use X11 graphic primitives? Did you even know they exist? How many programs use native Win32 controls? Not even Microsoft does that anymore.
      - gfwhukku 8y ago
        >How many programs use native Win32 controls? Not even Microsoft does that anymore. So because Microsoft has lowered the bar, now everything can be called "native"? There's a reason many people hate UWP.
        johncolanduoni 8y ago
        Not using native Win32 HWND based controls does not imply UWP. Virtually every program that was made for Windows XP and later does not use native Win32 controls; this includes “outdated” frameworks like WinForms. X11 and Win32 UI are actually fairly similar in this respect.
        magicalhippo 8y ago
        Actually the VCL[1], shipped with Delphi, does to a large extent use the native Win32 controls. They've added some quality of life stuff on top of them, but the TEdit component[2] is a wrapper around the Win32 edit control etc. Delphi is not so popular these days, but there still is a fair share of Delphi programs running. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_Component_Library https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_Component_Library [2]: http://docwiki.embarcadero.com/Libraries/Seattle/en/Vcl.StdCtrls.TEdit http://docwiki.embarcadero.com/Libraries/Seattle/en/Vcl.StdC...
      - donio 8y ago
        > How many apps do you think still use X11 graphic primitives? Good question. Let's see, what are the GUI programs that I use every day... Emacs, exwm (separate X client so I guess it counts even if elisp), st, chromium, mpv, mupdf, conky. That's 6 out of 7, so I guess the answer is most of them? (Emacs is built with --without-x-toolkit)
      - therockhead 8y ago
        Hmm, I do not consider an Qt app on macOS to be native.
    - nineteen999 8y ago
      Which is the native GUI toolkit of Linux/UNIX? Athena? Motif? GTK+?
      - gfwhukku 8y ago
        None, unfortunately. You have X11, but nobody uses that anymore.
        nineteen999 8y ago
        Yeah, the question was tongue in cheek. Which one do we use then?
        gfwhukku 8y ago
        I guess the best option is GTK+ because of the number of users? There are themes that mimic GTK apps on Qt and vice versa and they look like crap. But in my opinion Qt apps also look like crap on Windows and Mac. They look somewhat like a native app, but everything is off. For example, if you have a Qt app on Windows and you click a menu separator, the menu closes, <s>like it would do on Mac</s>. On Windows, clicking a menu separator should do nothing, the menu should remain open. There are dozens of little annoyances like that. Not to mention padding/spacing of elements, etc. Of course, Qt is very useful. I've worked with it (using QWidgets) and I've liked it a lot, despite of its drawbacks. But it's certainly not native. It merely emulates the target interface.
        rsfinn 8y ago
        I'm reading this on a Mac; I clicked on the File menu in Safari, then clicked a menu separator, and the menu remained open. This does not, of course, invalidate your main point in any way. (I also currently have p4v open on another display, and, well.)
drewr 8y ago
They wouldn't raise any cash from this kind of IPO. Your point, however, is valid.
Operyl 8y ago
They can keep the resources they waste on my machine if they'd only give me a damned dark mode.
itslennysfault 8y ago
Why? Do you have issues with their current app? I've never noticed any problems that I think it being native would solve really.
- mr_custard 8y ago
  > Do you have issues with their current app? I've got Slack open right now, I'm a member of 2 teams and it's using 1.5 GB of memory across all of its processes. I'm wondering if you think that's an acceptable memory usage? I don't personally feel that's acceptable for an app that isn't Photoshop, a video production suite or a 3D modelling program. I'm a member of a third "occasional team", but I don't dare open that because I really don't wish to give more RAM to Slack! Curious: What OS are you using and what's your total memory usage for Slack and all of its helper processes? Another problem with the Electron app: there were drive-by trolls in the public Clojure Slack team a couple of weeks ago, because it's possible to open the JS in the Electron app and interfere with user role permissions and notify thousands of users with extremely obscene photo messages all at once. I'd switch to a proper native app that respects the norms of its host platform in a heartbeat.
- mruts 8y ago
  The memory usage is just obscene. Maybe it doesn't matter with all the RAM we have, but I hate inefficiencies and looking at slack's resource usage just makes me sad.
amedvednikov 8y ago
https://volt.ws https://volt.ws 200 KB native Slack client. A polished public beta will be finally released on Feb 7. Also supports Skype, Twitter, Telegram... almost everything. It was delayed by 9 months. Sorry to thousands of people who have been subscribed and waiting for news. I'll release a detailed post explaining what I've been working on and what caused the delay. Also super excited about the language I created to develop Volt. Compiles 15 million lines of code per second and can be translated to from C/C++. I've successfully ported DOOM and (almost) DOOM 3 while making build time 120 times faster.
- mr_custard 8y ago
  This is really interesting and I'd be excited to use it if the memory usage is even half that of the official Slack client. Bookmarked.
  - amedvednikov 8y ago
    Right now it has ~10% of Slack's usage for the same chats.
    - krferriter 8y ago
      Not surprising. Hopefully this helps rebut people who say things like that Slack has to be that big because its complicated and caches messages for performance.
- hu3 8y ago
  Where can I read about this language?
  - bluehatbrit 8y ago
    I found this page on the site https://volt.ws/lang https://volt.ws/lang but it's quite thin on detail.
- userbinator 8y ago

Hopefully they raise enough money to build a native desktop app.

Waterluvian 8y ago

You mean three native desktop apps.

snuxoll 8y ago
Qt /thread
- gfwhukku 8y ago
  Qt is not native. Native doesn't mean "it's not written in JS" or "it's fast". Native means "it uses the GUI toolkit of the target platform". And Qt doesn't do that, it merely mimics its appearance.
  - darkengine 8y ago
    GTK isn't any more "native" than Qt -- they're both abstractions atop X (or Wayland, or Broadway).
  - IshKebab 8y ago
    You are incorrect. Toolkits like Qt are exactly what people are talking about when they say "native". How many apps do you think still use X11 graphic primitives? Did you even know they exist? How many programs use native Win32 controls? Not even Microsoft does that anymore.
    - gfwhukku 8y ago
      >How many programs use native Win32 controls? Not even Microsoft does that anymore. So because Microsoft has lowered the bar, now everything can be called "native"? There's a reason many people hate UWP.
      - johncolanduoni 8y ago
        Not using native Win32 HWND based controls does not imply UWP. Virtually every program that was made for Windows XP and later does not use native Win32 controls; this includes “outdated” frameworks like WinForms. X11 and Win32 UI are actually fairly similar in this respect.
        magicalhippo 8y ago
        Actually the VCL[1], shipped with Delphi, does to a large extent use the native Win32 controls. They've added some quality of life stuff on top of them, but the TEdit component[2] is a wrapper around the Win32 edit control etc. Delphi is not so popular these days, but there still is a fair share of Delphi programs running. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_Component_Library https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_Component_Library [2]: http://docwiki.embarcadero.com/Libraries/Seattle/en/Vcl.StdCtrls.TEdit http://docwiki.embarcadero.com/Libraries/Seattle/en/Vcl.StdC...
    - donio 8y ago
      > How many apps do you think still use X11 graphic primitives? Good question. Let's see, what are the GUI programs that I use every day... Emacs, exwm (separate X client so I guess it counts even if elisp), st, chromium, mpv, mupdf, conky. That's 6 out of 7, so I guess the answer is most of them? (Emacs is built with --without-x-toolkit)
    - therockhead 8y ago
      Hmm, I do not consider an Qt app on macOS to be native.
  - nineteen999 8y ago
    Which is the native GUI toolkit of Linux/UNIX? Athena? Motif? GTK+?
    - gfwhukku 8y ago
      None, unfortunately. You have X11, but nobody uses that anymore.
      - nineteen999 8y ago
        Yeah, the question was tongue in cheek. Which one do we use then?
        gfwhukku 8y ago
        I guess the best option is GTK+ because of the number of users? There are themes that mimic GTK apps on Qt and vice versa and they look like crap. But in my opinion Qt apps also look like crap on Windows and Mac. They look somewhat like a native app, but everything is off. For example, if you have a Qt app on Windows and you click a menu separator, the menu closes, <s>like it would do on Mac</s>. On Windows, clicking a menu separator should do nothing, the menu should remain open. There are dozens of little annoyances like that. Not to mention padding/spacing of elements, etc. Of course, Qt is very useful. I've worked with it (using QWidgets) and I've liked it a lot, despite of its drawbacks. But it's certainly not native. It merely emulates the target interface.
        rsfinn 8y ago
        I'm reading this on a Mac; I clicked on the File menu in Safari, then clicked a menu separator, and the menu remained open. This does not, of course, invalidate your main point in any way. (I also currently have p4v open on another display, and, well.)

drewr 8y ago

They wouldn't raise any cash from this kind of IPO. Your point, however, is valid.

Operyl 8y ago

They can keep the resources they waste on my machine if they'd only give me a damned dark mode.

itslennysfault 8y ago

Why? Do you have issues with their current app? I've never noticed any problems that I think it being native would solve really.

mr_custard 8y ago
> Do you have issues with their current app? I've got Slack open right now, I'm a member of 2 teams and it's using 1.5 GB of memory across all of its processes. I'm wondering if you think that's an acceptable memory usage? I don't personally feel that's acceptable for an app that isn't Photoshop, a video production suite or a 3D modelling program. I'm a member of a third "occasional team", but I don't dare open that because I really don't wish to give more RAM to Slack! Curious: What OS are you using and what's your total memory usage for Slack and all of its helper processes? Another problem with the Electron app: there were drive-by trolls in the public Clojure Slack team a couple of weeks ago, because it's possible to open the JS in the Electron app and interfere with user role permissions and notify thousands of users with extremely obscene photo messages all at once. I'd switch to a proper native app that respects the norms of its host platform in a heartbeat.
mruts 8y ago
The memory usage is just obscene. Maybe it doesn't matter with all the RAM we have, but I hate inefficiencies and looking at slack's resource usage just makes me sad.

amedvednikov 8y ago

https://volt.ws https://volt.ws 200 KB native Slack client. A polished public beta will be finally released on Feb 7. Also supports Skype, Twitter, Telegram... almost everything. It was delayed by 9 months. Sorry to thousands of people who have been subscribed and waiting for news. I'll release a detailed post explaining what I've been working on and what caused the delay. Also super excited about the language I created to develop Volt. Compiles 15 million lines of code per second and can be translated to from C/C++. I've successfully ported DOOM and (almost) DOOM 3 while making build time 120 times faster.

mr_custard 8y ago
This is really interesting and I'd be excited to use it if the memory usage is even half that of the official Slack client. Bookmarked.
- amedvednikov 8y ago
  Right now it has ~10% of Slack's usage for the same chats.
  - krferriter 8y ago
    Not surprising. Hopefully this helps rebut people who say things like that Slack has to be that big because its complicated and caches messages for performance.
hu3 8y ago
Where can I read about this language?
- bluehatbrit 8y ago
  I found this page on the site https://volt.ws/lang https://volt.ws/lang but it's quite thin on detail.
userbinator 8y ago