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Can someone explain the appeal of desktop PWA to me? From the developers and the users point of view?

by zawerf 7y ago

qwerty456127 7y ago
It's the only way to make a really cross-platform GUI app. Code once, run everywhere. Many devs/designers also like web tech for letting them make it look and feel almost any way they can imagine.
- thrower123 7y ago
  Run terribly everywhere, with lowest-common-denominator functionality. I loathe this trend. With everything calling back to a backend in the sky anyway, it should be easier to make light, efficient native shells with good UIs.
  - qwerty456127 7y ago
    Perhaps this is a matter of personal taste but I don't want cloud-backed apps, I won't use anything but 100%-local as long as I have choice. I also don't want to invest time in developing anything that won't run on all the three major OSes (Mac, Linux and Windows) when built, nor to invest any serious additional effort to achieve this. Being able to run the app in a browser after minimal modification is a nice-to-have bonus (probably very important for many people who develop web-first). As for now I use WinForms and Qt frameworks to achieve this but I probably am going to switch to Electron if Flutter Desktop doesn't get released soon.
    - qwerty456127 7y ago
      Nevertheless, as a user I would indeed prefer native GUI desktop app talking to their web server for data over a web site. Perhaps people would develop apps this way if there was a native GUI framework as powerful and easy as web frontend frameworks are and if there was a way to publish you apps a way people could discover and run them in a couple of clicks. Perhaps MS UWP with WPF and Windows Store could do the job much better than web apps but sadly it's not cross-platform.
butz 7y ago
You deploy application once on the web and it can be installed on desktop or mobile device as native app, if user chooses to do so. Or used as webapp in browser. When installed your app has homescreen/desktop icon, opens in separate window. And the best thing - you don't need to pack a whole internet browser with your app (Electron) and worry about pushing updates to user - you just update your app on web. Imagine, that instead of downloading desktop client for Slack, you go to slack.com and click "Install" button. Current negatives are that PWAs still missing support for advanced features like file system access, but browser developers are already working on it. I hope in few years installing VSCode will be as simple as going to their website and clicking "Install".
SimeVidas 7y ago
Desktop PWAs are just like regular desktop applications, except that they work in a web browser as well. This is good because you don’t have to blindly install an app hoping that it will work well and solve your problem, but instead you can just use the app in your browser, and if you like it, you can install it.

Can someone explain the appeal of desktop PWA to me? From the developers and the users point of view?

by zawerf 7y ago

Can someone explain the appeal of desktop PWA to me? From the developers and the users point of view?

It's the only way to make a really cross-platform GUI app. Code once, run everywhere. Many devs/designers also like web tech for letting them make it look and feel almost any way they can imagine.

thrower123 7y ago
Run terribly everywhere, with lowest-common-denominator functionality. I loathe this trend. With everything calling back to a backend in the sky anyway, it should be easier to make light, efficient native shells with good UIs.
- qwerty456127 7y ago
  Perhaps this is a matter of personal taste but I don't want cloud-backed apps, I won't use anything but 100%-local as long as I have choice. I also don't want to invest time in developing anything that won't run on all the three major OSes (Mac, Linux and Windows) when built, nor to invest any serious additional effort to achieve this. Being able to run the app in a browser after minimal modification is a nice-to-have bonus (probably very important for many people who develop web-first). As for now I use WinForms and Qt frameworks to achieve this but I probably am going to switch to Electron if Flutter Desktop doesn't get released soon.
  - qwerty456127 7y ago
    Nevertheless, as a user I would indeed prefer native GUI desktop app talking to their web server for data over a web site. Perhaps people would develop apps this way if there was a native GUI framework as powerful and easy as web frontend frameworks are and if there was a way to publish you apps a way people could discover and run them in a couple of clicks. Perhaps MS UWP with WPF and Windows Store could do the job much better than web apps but sadly it's not cross-platform.

butz 7y ago

You deploy application once on the web and it can be installed on desktop or mobile device as native app, if user chooses to do so. Or used as webapp in browser. When installed your app has homescreen/desktop icon, opens in separate window. And the best thing - you don't need to pack a whole internet browser with your app (Electron) and worry about pushing updates to user - you just update your app on web. Imagine, that instead of downloading desktop client for Slack, you go to slack.com and click "Install" button. Current negatives are that PWAs still missing support for advanced features like file system access, but browser developers are already working on it. I hope in few years installing VSCode will be as simple as going to their website and clicking "Install".

SimeVidas 7y ago

Desktop PWAs are just like regular desktop applications, except that they work in a web browser as well. This is good because you don’t have to blindly install an app hoping that it will work well and solve your problem, but instead you can just use the app in your browser, and if you like it, you can install it.