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Looks really good! At first glance, this seems like probably the best Electron alternative I've seen posted on HN. Apart from the consistent GUI layer, I think

Looks really good! At first glance, this seems like probably the best Electron alternative I've seen posted on HN. Apart from the consistent GUI layer, I think an underrated reason that many teams stick with Electron is the mature tooling for cross-platform builds and upgrades. It's pretty painful to DIY. It looks like NodeGUI doesn't currently support cross-compilation--is that something that's on the roadmap? How about upgrade/auto-upgrade tooling? Code signing?

davej 6y ago
Strongly agree. Hello World apps are great but it would be even better to see a Hello World tutorial that can actually be distributed to customers. You probably also need auto-update, native installers, code signing (notarization on Mac) and the ability to build native modules cross-platform. This is a super-interesting project though.
- capableweb 6y ago
  Sure, would be great if everything had everything we need at creation. But this is first a Show HN from a user here and secondly open source software, so I think you need to adjust your expectations a bit. Agree with your final part, very exciting and gonna be interesting to see where nodegui goes, especially security wise.
  - davej 6y ago
    This is awesome. Props to the authors. My comment was not meant to knock on this project. I'm just pointing out that people should consider distribution if they want to use a tool like this. Putting a desktop app in front of customers is not yet as easy as it is on the web but I'm working on making it better [1]. [1] https://www.todesktop.com/cli https://www.todesktop.com/cli
- jiofih 6y ago
  Both the App Store and Microsoft Store deal with installs and updates, no need for custom wrappers. Not sure about Linux.
  - davej 6y ago
    End-users are still more familiar with a download link on a website for a exe/dmg installer on desktop. You also need to need to redo your subscription/payments to support the stores and give a percentage of your revenue to Apple/Microsoft. On mobile you have no option but on desktop it's hard to justify giving up so much of your profit margin when there's a popular alternative. BTW, Linux has the Snap Store.
    - jiofih 6y ago
      Hmm I really don’t think so. You might be thinking of tech people, not the general public.
      - heavyset_go 6y ago
        All of the non-technical people I know are capable of installing software on desktop computers without using app stores.
  - hanniabu 6y ago
    I have a mac laptop and windows desktop and I never use the app stores.
    - IggleSniggle 6y ago
      I have used each of them exactly once. In both cases, it was to purchase an OS upgrade.
      - jiofih 6y ago
        You’re the HN audience.
m00x 6y ago
Flutter isn't a good Electron alternative? Flutter 2.0 just came out with desktop support for osx, windows and linux and will be the main GUI framework for Linux.
- rudedogg 6y ago
  There was a lot of criticism, especially of the Web version, in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26332944 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26332944
- IshKebab 6y ago
  Not yet. Or rather, I would say you can use it for simple stuff, like Etcher then it is a reasonable choice. But you wouldn't want to use it for something like Slack yet. Some basic stuff like ctrl-Z in text fields does not work yet. Doing normal desktop things like menus and file dialogs will be a pain. That said, I am writing a Git desktop client in Flutter and I like it. But I don't expect to finish it for many years so hopefully by then they'll have ironed everything out.
- heavyset_go 6y ago
  > and will be the main GUI framework for Linux. That's already GTK+ and Qt, and the big GTK+ and Qt projects aren't switching over to Flutter any time soon.
  - m00x 6y ago
    Sorry, I mean Ubuntu: https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2021/03/ubuntu-building-apps-with-flutter-in-future https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2021/03/ubuntu-building-apps-wit...

davej 6y ago

Strongly agree. Hello World apps are great but it would be even better to see a Hello World tutorial that can actually be distributed to customers. You probably also need auto-update, native installers, code signing (notarization on Mac) and the ability to build native modules cross-platform. This is a super-interesting project though.

capableweb 6y ago
Sure, would be great if everything had everything we need at creation. But this is first a Show HN from a user here and secondly open source software, so I think you need to adjust your expectations a bit. Agree with your final part, very exciting and gonna be interesting to see where nodegui goes, especially security wise.
- davej 6y ago
  This is awesome. Props to the authors. My comment was not meant to knock on this project. I'm just pointing out that people should consider distribution if they want to use a tool like this. Putting a desktop app in front of customers is not yet as easy as it is on the web but I'm working on making it better [1]. [1] https://www.todesktop.com/cli https://www.todesktop.com/cli
jiofih 6y ago
Both the App Store and Microsoft Store deal with installs and updates, no need for custom wrappers. Not sure about Linux.
- davej 6y ago
  End-users are still more familiar with a download link on a website for a exe/dmg installer on desktop. You also need to need to redo your subscription/payments to support the stores and give a percentage of your revenue to Apple/Microsoft. On mobile you have no option but on desktop it's hard to justify giving up so much of your profit margin when there's a popular alternative. BTW, Linux has the Snap Store.
  - jiofih 6y ago
    Hmm I really don’t think so. You might be thinking of tech people, not the general public.
    - heavyset_go 6y ago
      All of the non-technical people I know are capable of installing software on desktop computers without using app stores.
- hanniabu 6y ago
  I have a mac laptop and windows desktop and I never use the app stores.
  - IggleSniggle 6y ago
    I have used each of them exactly once. In both cases, it was to purchase an OS upgrade.
    - jiofih 6y ago
      You’re the HN audience.

m00x 6y ago

Flutter isn't a good Electron alternative? Flutter 2.0 just came out with desktop support for osx, windows and linux and will be the main GUI framework for Linux.

rudedogg 6y ago
There was a lot of criticism, especially of the Web version, in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26332944 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26332944
IshKebab 6y ago
Not yet. Or rather, I would say you can use it for simple stuff, like Etcher then it is a reasonable choice. But you wouldn't want to use it for something like Slack yet. Some basic stuff like ctrl-Z in text fields does not work yet. Doing normal desktop things like menus and file dialogs will be a pain. That said, I am writing a Git desktop client in Flutter and I like it. But I don't expect to finish it for many years so hopefully by then they'll have ironed everything out.
heavyset_go 6y ago
> and will be the main GUI framework for Linux. That's already GTK+ and Qt, and the big GTK+ and Qt projects aren't switching over to Flutter any time soon.
- m00x 6y ago
  Sorry, I mean Ubuntu: https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2021/03/ubuntu-building-apps-with-flutter-in-future https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2021/03/ubuntu-building-apps-wit...