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I can instantly tell, not by the looks or aesthetics, but by the way an Electron app behaves that it's not a native app. It has got that "browser"-like feel to

I can instantly tell, not by the looks or aesthetics, but by the way an Electron app behaves that it's not a native app. It has got that "browser"-like feel to it. VSCode/Slack/etc have a different "feel" to the UI vs. say Mail/Messages/Photos app. Not sure how to describe it. It is just the way it reacts and responds. Does anyone else experience the same? If there was a A/B test, I am pretty sure I can nail almost 100% of the Electron-based apps. Same thing with MacOS vs Windows apps - Windows is a lot "snappy" and MacOS is very "rounded and smooth" when it comes to the UI feel (not looks). For those curious about why we describe non-visual things in terms of visual metaphors (sharp, smooth, etc) is because of adjacency of brain structures and cross-wiring between them . It is called the Bouba/Kiki effect, "Bouba" is round shape, and "Kiki" is a sharp shape, in almost every culture and it's universal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouba/kiki_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouba/kiki_effect Edit: It feels like it is impossible to talk about opinions without getting shafted by the "Electron lovers/haters" crowd. Wtf. I am not saying one is better than the other. Even if I did, why can't we talk about it if it is substantiated? A lot of this stuff is subjective and experiential. Edit2: Stop upvoting you people! There is nothing to see here and I don't know anything about the original topic, i.e. 9.0 release. Dump this thread please.

cageface 6y ago
Matching native UI with non-native toolkits is extremely difficult. But the success of so many electron apps suggests that in many cases this doesn't matter that much.
- fermienrico 6y ago
  I don't know - success of x and some property of x can be orthogonal. It probably is orthogonal in the case of electron apps. The main reason for their popularity is because they are easy to develop in cross-platform way. Doesn't mean that "x property doesn't matter".
  - cageface 6y ago
    Users choose to use them anyway. So obviously being platform native matters less than other considerations.
stepanhruda 6y ago
I think it’s because the DOM just isn’t as responsive as native components - interacting with anything in a browser or in an electron app has that subtle latency that doesn’t make it feel as good. Seems that this could go away with react native desktop.
- saagarjha 6y ago
  Not only is not as responsive, but it doesn't respond "correctly" either.
MadafakinBATMAN 6y ago
Its quite simple. Most electron app suse HTML stuff that is really really hard to make in native windows app and most not put time and effort in it.
rubber_duck 6y ago
Meh - I used IntelliJ IDEA, Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code on a daily basis and VSCode is the most responsive environment by far - both in terms of UI responsiveness and operation speed. Now you can argue it's not as fully featured as the mentioned IDEs but it's obviously not just about native vs electron, and electron can provide a good enough experience.
- fermienrico 6y ago
  Is JetBrain stack native? I don't think it is.
  - Iwan-Zotow 6y ago
    Java/Kotlin mix, I believe
    - fermienrico 6y ago
      That's another thing, Java apps just feel heavy. Like its got a couple of kilos of lead attached to it. Ever used Eclipse IDE? Holycrap. Also, Eclipse and Jet Brains software feel more similar to each other and now that you mentioned Java, that makes sense.
      - meddlepal 6y ago
        Have you actually ever used IntelliJ? It doesn't feel "heavy" compared to say Visual Studio (the real one, not Code).
        fermienrico 6y ago
        I haven't used IntelliJ per se but I've used CLion which is similar sofware from Jet Brains. To me, both feel super heavy.
        new_realist 6y ago
thefounder 6y ago
VS Code looks/behaves quite "native" to me...You can have success if you choose Electron. Many projects proved. The tech doesn't seem that important. Now go build something great and people won't unpack it to see if it's electron or native. As always the execution is more important(and the project/idea itself).
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
taliesinb 6y ago
Yup. I'm just shocked that https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/76594#issuecomment-625790563 https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/76594#issuecommen... has been open for more than year now. Two finger scroll that lags for up to 1 second! Imagine the uproar if Apple introduced this bug into XCode and then ignored the ticket for an entire year.
- tln 6y ago
  Are you under the impression that Apple diligently replies to bug reports or that XCode is not buggy?
orlandoco 6y ago
I think that the problem it's not the "Electron lovers/haters", the problem it's that the post it's above the 9th release, you expect to see discussion regarding the release, not above that non-native apps feels round or sharp, that's matter of preference, and everyone here knows about the resource hungry of Electron
orange8 6y ago
> but by the way an Electron app behaves that it's not a native app. It has got that "browser"-like feel to it. Aren't browsers native apps? Edit: Chrome on windows is just as native an app as MS Word on windows, so that "feel" may have nothing to do with the tech it was built on, but a native vs browser mindset that even blinds you to the fact that all mainstream browsers are actually very native apps, regardless of the "feeling" they give you.
spankalee 6y ago
> why can't we talk about it if it is substantiated? Because we don't need every bit of news about Electron to turn into a thread of people saying, yet again, "I don't like them compared to native apps". We know already, and it's not relevant to the article. If the article was opinion or research on the differences between Electron and native apps, or suitability of Electron for certain use cases, etc., then your complaint would be relevant. But your comment is not relevant - it has almost nothing to do with the contents of the article.
- tomc1985 6y ago
  Yes we do. Maybe if we annoy Electron devs (and their fans) enough the framework will get its act together
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- thomasfedb 6y ago
  This. I almost didn't click to read the comments simply because I knew that it would be the same old religious argument. I hoped I was wrong, but wasn't. Any half-decent dev is aware that VSCode would be slightly better if it was a native app. Any half-decent dev is also aware that doing so with cross-platform support would be a humongous PITA.
- fermienrico 6y ago
  You're right about the relevancy. Nothing to do with the 9.0 release. I had an itch that I asked and now its blowing up. I can't delete my comment now.
  - myopenid 6y ago
    Do you have nothing better to do but to cause a stir every thread you go?
    - fermienrico 6y ago
yokohummer7 6y ago
> Does anyone else experience the same? The first time I experienced such a feeling was when Visual Studio .NET came out. Compared to the previous version, Visual Studio 6, the dialogs and wizards in VS.NET gave me a "web-like" feeling. I guess it was one of the first attemps to use the web technologies to make a desktop app. Along with the Active Desktop feature, they were truly ahead of time. However, that doesn't mean I loved them. VS.NET was slow as hell and I believe it was one of the reasons why VS6 lasted for so long.
XCSme 6y ago
I don't know, for example for me VSCode feels 1000x faster than Photoshop, which is a native app. Photoshop takes a long time to open, breaks the "Windows" keyboard shorcut, is basically slow in general. VSCode has a fast start-up time and everything in it feels responsive. I see a lot of comments from Apple users, maybe Electron works better on Windows than on Mac for some reason?
- sk0g 6y ago
  Photoshop has miles more functionality, and typically deals with much bigger data. VS Code is also not an outlier for Electron apps, as most of them are a lot jankier, IMO.
  - sk0g 6y ago
    Meant to say VS Code _is_ an outlier, sorry
- saagarjha 6y ago
  The reason you see a lot of comments from Apple users is because the system has had a consistent paradigm for desktop applications, designed by the party making the operating system, for years, which means that they have come to rely on and become used to such software. The fact that Electron breaks all of those expectations and is a horrendous resource hog to boot is an unwelcome development if you've been used to high-quality native applications for all this time.
  - testbot123 6y ago
    Except Apple's design system has taken a backseat in the post-Jobs iPhone cash grab era, and becomes less and less consistent with every release. And we're saying that people who use Catalina are expecting a gold-standard, performant experience? Do we use the same Catalina? Because it represents a major regression in the macOS line. Maybe we're long overdue for a paradigm shift.
ArgyleSound 6y ago
For whatever it’s worth, the macOS messages app uses an embedded webview to render the message threads.
- saagarjha 6y ago
  Also FWIW, Messages.app is poorly maintained almost certainly next in line to be converted to Catalyst. (Web views are used in other parts of the OS as well; all the "services" panes for example, as well as Safari's web inspector.)
MuffinFlavored 6y ago
Didn't Slack rewrite their app to be native and move off of Electron?
- guessmyname 6y ago
  > Didn't Slack rewrite their app to be native and move off of Electron? What are you talking about? That has never happened. They posted this blog post [1] on July 22, 2019 and you probably misunderstood their point. They did not rewrite the application to build on native libraries, they simply redesigned the architecture of their UI logic to draw web components only when strictly necessary, sharing states between workspaces and stuff like that, but it is —as of today May 19, 2020— still 100% a web application running on top of Electron. They recently announced another visual rewrite [2] on March 18, 2020 which also resulted in the same web application running on top of Electron, no changes in that part whatsoever. [1] https://slack.engineering/rebuilding-slack-on-the-desktop-308d6fe94ae4 https://slack.engineering/rebuilding-slack-on-the-desktop-30... [2] https://slackhq.com/simpler-more-organized-slack https://slackhq.com/simpler-more-organized-slack

cageface 6y ago

Matching native UI with non-native toolkits is extremely difficult. But the success of so many electron apps suggests that in many cases this doesn't matter that much.

fermienrico 6y ago
I don't know - success of x and some property of x can be orthogonal. It probably is orthogonal in the case of electron apps. The main reason for their popularity is because they are easy to develop in cross-platform way. Doesn't mean that "x property doesn't matter".
- cageface 6y ago
  Users choose to use them anyway. So obviously being platform native matters less than other considerations.

stepanhruda 6y ago

I think it’s because the DOM just isn’t as responsive as native components - interacting with anything in a browser or in an electron app has that subtle latency that doesn’t make it feel as good. Seems that this could go away with react native desktop.

saagarjha 6y ago
Not only is not as responsive, but it doesn't respond "correctly" either.

MadafakinBATMAN 6y ago

Its quite simple. Most electron app suse HTML stuff that is really really hard to make in native windows app and most not put time and effort in it.

rubber_duck 6y ago

Meh - I used IntelliJ IDEA, Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code on a daily basis and VSCode is the most responsive environment by far - both in terms of UI responsiveness and operation speed. Now you can argue it's not as fully featured as the mentioned IDEs but it's obviously not just about native vs electron, and electron can provide a good enough experience.

fermienrico 6y ago
Is JetBrain stack native? I don't think it is.
- Iwan-Zotow 6y ago
  Java/Kotlin mix, I believe
  - fermienrico 6y ago
    That's another thing, Java apps just feel heavy. Like its got a couple of kilos of lead attached to it. Ever used Eclipse IDE? Holycrap. Also, Eclipse and Jet Brains software feel more similar to each other and now that you mentioned Java, that makes sense.
    - meddlepal 6y ago
      Have you actually ever used IntelliJ? It doesn't feel "heavy" compared to say Visual Studio (the real one, not Code).
      - fermienrico 6y ago
        I haven't used IntelliJ per se but I've used CLion which is similar sofware from Jet Brains. To me, both feel super heavy.
        new_realist 6y ago

thefounder 6y ago

VS Code looks/behaves quite "native" to me...You can have success if you choose Electron. Many projects proved. The tech doesn't seem that important. Now go build something great and people won't unpack it to see if it's electron or native. As always the execution is more important(and the project/idea itself).

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

taliesinb 6y ago

Yup. I'm just shocked that https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/76594#issuecomment-625790563 https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/76594#issuecommen... has been open for more than year now. Two finger scroll that lags for up to 1 second! Imagine the uproar if Apple introduced this bug into XCode and then ignored the ticket for an entire year.

tln 6y ago
Are you under the impression that Apple diligently replies to bug reports or that XCode is not buggy?

orlandoco 6y ago

I think that the problem it's not the "Electron lovers/haters", the problem it's that the post it's above the 9th release, you expect to see discussion regarding the release, not above that non-native apps feels round or sharp, that's matter of preference, and everyone here knows about the resource hungry of Electron

orange8 6y ago

> but by the way an Electron app behaves that it's not a native app. It has got that "browser"-like feel to it. Aren't browsers native apps? Edit: Chrome on windows is just as native an app as MS Word on windows, so that "feel" may have nothing to do with the tech it was built on, but a native vs browser mindset that even blinds you to the fact that all mainstream browsers are actually very native apps, regardless of the "feeling" they give you.

spankalee 6y ago

> why can't we talk about it if it is substantiated? Because we don't need every bit of news about Electron to turn into a thread of people saying, yet again, "I don't like them compared to native apps". We know already, and it's not relevant to the article. If the article was opinion or research on the differences between Electron and native apps, or suitability of Electron for certain use cases, etc., then your complaint would be relevant. But your comment is not relevant - it has almost nothing to do with the contents of the article.

tomc1985 6y ago
Yes we do. Maybe if we annoy Electron devs (and their fans) enough the framework will get its act together
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
thomasfedb 6y ago
This. I almost didn't click to read the comments simply because I knew that it would be the same old religious argument. I hoped I was wrong, but wasn't. Any half-decent dev is aware that VSCode would be slightly better if it was a native app. Any half-decent dev is also aware that doing so with cross-platform support would be a humongous PITA.
fermienrico 6y ago
You're right about the relevancy. Nothing to do with the 9.0 release. I had an itch that I asked and now its blowing up. I can't delete my comment now.
- myopenid 6y ago
  Do you have nothing better to do but to cause a stir every thread you go?
  - fermienrico 6y ago

yokohummer7 6y ago

> Does anyone else experience the same? The first time I experienced such a feeling was when Visual Studio .NET came out. Compared to the previous version, Visual Studio 6, the dialogs and wizards in VS.NET gave me a "web-like" feeling. I guess it was one of the first attemps to use the web technologies to make a desktop app. Along with the Active Desktop feature, they were truly ahead of time. However, that doesn't mean I loved them. VS.NET was slow as hell and I believe it was one of the reasons why VS6 lasted for so long.

XCSme 6y ago

I don't know, for example for me VSCode feels 1000x faster than Photoshop, which is a native app. Photoshop takes a long time to open, breaks the "Windows" keyboard shorcut, is basically slow in general. VSCode has a fast start-up time and everything in it feels responsive. I see a lot of comments from Apple users, maybe Electron works better on Windows than on Mac for some reason?

sk0g 6y ago
Photoshop has miles more functionality, and typically deals with much bigger data. VS Code is also not an outlier for Electron apps, as most of them are a lot jankier, IMO.
- sk0g 6y ago
  Meant to say VS Code _is_ an outlier, sorry
saagarjha 6y ago
The reason you see a lot of comments from Apple users is because the system has had a consistent paradigm for desktop applications, designed by the party making the operating system, for years, which means that they have come to rely on and become used to such software. The fact that Electron breaks all of those expectations and is a horrendous resource hog to boot is an unwelcome development if you've been used to high-quality native applications for all this time.
- testbot123 6y ago
  Except Apple's design system has taken a backseat in the post-Jobs iPhone cash grab era, and becomes less and less consistent with every release. And we're saying that people who use Catalina are expecting a gold-standard, performant experience? Do we use the same Catalina? Because it represents a major regression in the macOS line. Maybe we're long overdue for a paradigm shift.

ArgyleSound 6y ago

For whatever it’s worth, the macOS messages app uses an embedded webview to render the message threads.

saagarjha 6y ago
Also FWIW, Messages.app is poorly maintained almost certainly next in line to be converted to Catalyst. (Web views are used in other parts of the OS as well; all the "services" panes for example, as well as Safari's web inspector.)

MuffinFlavored 6y ago

Didn't Slack rewrite their app to be native and move off of Electron?

guessmyname 6y ago
> Didn't Slack rewrite their app to be native and move off of Electron? What are you talking about? That has never happened. They posted this blog post [1] on July 22, 2019 and you probably misunderstood their point. They did not rewrite the application to build on native libraries, they simply redesigned the architecture of their UI logic to draw web components only when strictly necessary, sharing states between workspaces and stuff like that, but it is —as of today May 19, 2020— still 100% a web application running on top of Electron. They recently announced another visual rewrite [2] on March 18, 2020 which also resulted in the same web application running on top of Electron, no changes in that part whatsoever. [1] https://slack.engineering/rebuilding-slack-on-the-desktop-308d6fe94ae4 https://slack.engineering/rebuilding-slack-on-the-desktop-30... [2] https://slackhq.com/simpler-more-organized-slack https://slackhq.com/simpler-more-organized-slack