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For that we’ll need an adequate cross-platform (-ish) way of doing UI. I’m not a fan of React Native, but it seems to be the technology we’re looking for, thoug

For that we’ll need an adequate cross-platform (-ish) way of doing UI. I’m not a fan of React Native, but it seems to be the technology we’re looking for, though it doesn’t seem to be as ready for the desktop yet. An all-native solution on top of a powerful modern language (rust?) would be ideal, but that doesn’t seem to be the direction things are moving. We’ll probably end up with Flutter/Native.

saagarjha 7y ago
Flutter isn't "native" as you would use that word in the context of UI design toolkits.
- vishnuharidas 7y ago
  Flutter is drawing a native style UI elements on an OpenGL (like) surface, and that is pure binary running on the device processor. Platform-specific features like Bluetooth, WiFi, etc. are bridged just like in ReactJs.
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    "Native" in context of UI toolkits is "using system-provided UI controls through system APIs". The opposite of that is drawing your own controls, which then usually don't integrate well with the OS and don't support the interoperability and accessibility features that are expected of UI controls on that OS.
    - bla3 7y ago
      That's what native used to be, but nowadays it's "not electron". Qt or wxWidget apps are considered native as well.
      - Crinus 7y ago
        So Java is native now? I think a simpler and easier approach is to simply wait until the inevitable next desktop disaster so that we can call Electron native.
      - eivarv 7y ago
        Qt is decidedly not native, but can attempt a "native look-and-feel". wxWidgets actually wraps native GUI widgets though...
      - pcr910303 7y ago
        > That's what native used to be, but nowadays it's "not electron". This makes me sad. Coherent UI is a very important point to users IMO. Users can assume that some special feature from App X will also work on App Y. (It also allows OS/GTK/Qt devs to enhance UX without application modification.) For example, in macOS Cocoa, textboxes have universal readline-esque keybindings (and is configurable globally) which, as an Emacs user, very, very useful. Most Mac apps use Cocoa as the GUI toolkit, so basically all kinds of apps can benefit these keybindings. Another example of this directly benefiting users is the addition of tabs in macOS Sierra(I’m not sure about the exact versions :-(). macOS Sierra added tabs to Cocoa apps, and applications could get the feature without additional modification. (I’m not sure if it’s absolutely none or if recompiling was needed, but I think it’s the former.) I could use tabs in any application, with the same look-and-feel, in all apps! And, don’t forget accessibility here! Stories like these are mostly only macOS; since Windows apps usually just re-invent all kinds of UI elements, while Linux’s GUI toolkits are super-fragmented. (GTK vs Qt is one thing, and there are lots of other options!) We really should be trying to use the native GUI toolkit (and that is why I’m hoping cross-platform native UI libraries like libui succeed), not using some Flutter-esque library that draws everything from scratch. (BTW, AFAIK wxWidget tries to get this right and tries to draw things using the native toolkit.)
        saagarjha 7y ago
        > macOS Sierra added tabs to Cocoa apps, and applications could get the feature without additional modification. (I’m not sure if it’s absolutely none or if recompiling was needed, but I think it’s the former.) Tab support was added without linking against the new SDK: apps would get it "for free" when running on macOS Sierra.
        pcr910303 7y ago
        > Tab support was added without linking against the new SDK: apps would get it "for free" when running on macOS Sierra. Yeah, right. I remember being very happy as some of my not-worried-about-mac applications (it's a word processor that uses a special format only used in our country) had tabbing enabled. :-)
vbsteven 7y ago
I've been thinking a lot about this lately and I'm trying to compile some information on how others think it should work. Can you elaborate on what you mean by an all-native solution on top of a powerful modern language? The way I see it is that a new toolkit like GTK or Qt is required in the target language.
- Crinus 7y ago
  > The way I see it is that a new toolkit like GTK or Qt is required in the target language. The way i See it is that a new toolkit like GTK or Qt is required in C so that it can interface with any language as to avoid unnecessary duplication between languages (it is much easier to convince people switch toolkit than switch programming languages), ensure no language-specific indirect dependencies (especially if it is to included in OSes like OpenBSD that are traditionally C oriented) and with a stable backwards compatible ABI to avoid wasting the time and effort of whoever maintains the bindings (no need to rewrite them every few years), whoever decides to learn the new API (no need to learn something new for doing the exact same thing as before, only now in a slightly different yet incompatible way) and perhaps hopefully become a "standard" API people can target on Linux without having to carry 29892482923TB of libraries for a trivial app since you cannot rely on anything outside of X11 being there (and if GNOME people have their way, you wont be able to rely on even that). And of course all that in a permissive license that leaves everyone happy. Now guess how likely all of this is going to happen.
  - jcelerier 7y ago
    > and perhaps hopefully become a "standard" API people can target on Linux without having to carry 29892482923TB of libraries for a trivial app since you cannot rely on anything outside of X11 being there so, uh, what would you depend on ? at the bare minimum you would need, for a gui toolkit : - dependencies to X11 (xcb) and wayland (and cocoa and win32) - dependencies to xkb, etc.. for keyboard handling - dependencies on ICU for unicode text handling - dependencies on freetype, fontconfig, harfbuzz, pango, etc... for font rendering - dependencies on GL to allow your users to have a GL viewport, and potentiall on a software implementation of GL on windows because yes, even in 2019 this is still a problem on some user's computers - dependencies on cairo, skia, QPainter, or something like that to provide a canvas-like API - dependencies on libinput because that's the modern way to get mouse input on linux - you are going to want a library of useful datastructures that aren't provided in C -> dependency to GLib or something else - dependencies on libpng,jpeg, etc.... because you want your users to be able to have images in their app - dependencies on dbus to be able to provide desktop notifications, etc and you aren't even starting to match all the useful functionalities of GTK & Qt
VvR-Ox 7y ago
Yes that would be awesome! Unfortunately the providers of the OS'es we use don't bother with this. What would the world be like if you could run anything anywhere and most importantly: how would you decide that you prefer a mac to a windows-machine? I think web technologies are a bridge that many like to use because of the sad state of things in the UI domain.
- s_y_n_t_a_x 7y ago
  Microsoft maintains it's own fork of react-native that allows this. https://github.com/Microsoft/react-native-windows https://github.com/Microsoft/react-native-windows There's more experimental forks for macos and qt.
plopz 7y ago
What about libui?

saagarjha 7y ago

Flutter isn't "native" as you would use that word in the context of UI design toolkits.

vishnuharidas 7y ago
Flutter is drawing a native style UI elements on an OpenGL (like) surface, and that is pure binary running on the device processor. Platform-specific features like Bluetooth, WiFi, etc. are bridged just like in ReactJs.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  "Native" in context of UI toolkits is "using system-provided UI controls through system APIs". The opposite of that is drawing your own controls, which then usually don't integrate well with the OS and don't support the interoperability and accessibility features that are expected of UI controls on that OS.
  - bla3 7y ago
    That's what native used to be, but nowadays it's "not electron". Qt or wxWidget apps are considered native as well.
    - Crinus 7y ago
      So Java is native now? I think a simpler and easier approach is to simply wait until the inevitable next desktop disaster so that we can call Electron native.
    - eivarv 7y ago
      Qt is decidedly not native, but can attempt a "native look-and-feel". wxWidgets actually wraps native GUI widgets though...
    - pcr910303 7y ago
      > That's what native used to be, but nowadays it's "not electron". This makes me sad. Coherent UI is a very important point to users IMO. Users can assume that some special feature from App X will also work on App Y. (It also allows OS/GTK/Qt devs to enhance UX without application modification.) For example, in macOS Cocoa, textboxes have universal readline-esque keybindings (and is configurable globally) which, as an Emacs user, very, very useful. Most Mac apps use Cocoa as the GUI toolkit, so basically all kinds of apps can benefit these keybindings. Another example of this directly benefiting users is the addition of tabs in macOS Sierra(I’m not sure about the exact versions :-(). macOS Sierra added tabs to Cocoa apps, and applications could get the feature without additional modification. (I’m not sure if it’s absolutely none or if recompiling was needed, but I think it’s the former.) I could use tabs in any application, with the same look-and-feel, in all apps! And, don’t forget accessibility here! Stories like these are mostly only macOS; since Windows apps usually just re-invent all kinds of UI elements, while Linux’s GUI toolkits are super-fragmented. (GTK vs Qt is one thing, and there are lots of other options!) We really should be trying to use the native GUI toolkit (and that is why I’m hoping cross-platform native UI libraries like libui succeed), not using some Flutter-esque library that draws everything from scratch. (BTW, AFAIK wxWidget tries to get this right and tries to draw things using the native toolkit.)
      - saagarjha 7y ago
        > macOS Sierra added tabs to Cocoa apps, and applications could get the feature without additional modification. (I’m not sure if it’s absolutely none or if recompiling was needed, but I think it’s the former.) Tab support was added without linking against the new SDK: apps would get it "for free" when running on macOS Sierra.
        pcr910303 7y ago
        > Tab support was added without linking against the new SDK: apps would get it "for free" when running on macOS Sierra. Yeah, right. I remember being very happy as some of my not-worried-about-mac applications (it's a word processor that uses a special format only used in our country) had tabbing enabled. :-)

vbsteven 7y ago

I've been thinking a lot about this lately and I'm trying to compile some information on how others think it should work. Can you elaborate on what you mean by an all-native solution on top of a powerful modern language? The way I see it is that a new toolkit like GTK or Qt is required in the target language.

Crinus 7y ago
> The way I see it is that a new toolkit like GTK or Qt is required in the target language. The way i See it is that a new toolkit like GTK or Qt is required in C so that it can interface with any language as to avoid unnecessary duplication between languages (it is much easier to convince people switch toolkit than switch programming languages), ensure no language-specific indirect dependencies (especially if it is to included in OSes like OpenBSD that are traditionally C oriented) and with a stable backwards compatible ABI to avoid wasting the time and effort of whoever maintains the bindings (no need to rewrite them every few years), whoever decides to learn the new API (no need to learn something new for doing the exact same thing as before, only now in a slightly different yet incompatible way) and perhaps hopefully become a "standard" API people can target on Linux without having to carry 29892482923TB of libraries for a trivial app since you cannot rely on anything outside of X11 being there (and if GNOME people have their way, you wont be able to rely on even that). And of course all that in a permissive license that leaves everyone happy. Now guess how likely all of this is going to happen.
- jcelerier 7y ago
  > and perhaps hopefully become a "standard" API people can target on Linux without having to carry 29892482923TB of libraries for a trivial app since you cannot rely on anything outside of X11 being there so, uh, what would you depend on ? at the bare minimum you would need, for a gui toolkit : - dependencies to X11 (xcb) and wayland (and cocoa and win32) - dependencies to xkb, etc.. for keyboard handling - dependencies on ICU for unicode text handling - dependencies on freetype, fontconfig, harfbuzz, pango, etc... for font rendering - dependencies on GL to allow your users to have a GL viewport, and potentiall on a software implementation of GL on windows because yes, even in 2019 this is still a problem on some user's computers - dependencies on cairo, skia, QPainter, or something like that to provide a canvas-like API - dependencies on libinput because that's the modern way to get mouse input on linux - you are going to want a library of useful datastructures that aren't provided in C -> dependency to GLib or something else - dependencies on libpng,jpeg, etc.... because you want your users to be able to have images in their app - dependencies on dbus to be able to provide desktop notifications, etc and you aren't even starting to match all the useful functionalities of GTK & Qt

VvR-Ox 7y ago

Yes that would be awesome! Unfortunately the providers of the OS'es we use don't bother with this. What would the world be like if you could run anything anywhere and most importantly: how would you decide that you prefer a mac to a windows-machine? I think web technologies are a bridge that many like to use because of the sad state of things in the UI domain.

s_y_n_t_a_x 7y ago
Microsoft maintains it's own fork of react-native that allows this. https://github.com/Microsoft/react-native-windows https://github.com/Microsoft/react-native-windows There's more experimental forks for macos and qt.

plopz 7y ago

What about libui?