4 ms·

There are tons of easy ways to build cross-platform apps, and have been for a long time. Extreme, very free-form customization of GUI elements so it looks & beh

There are tons of easy ways to build cross-platform apps, and have been for a long time. Extreme, very free-form customization of GUI elements so it looks & behaves exactly the way your marketing, branding, & web-design folks want down to the pixel on every platform, is what was hard before Electron. If you just wanted to deliver a GUI applications cross-platform, full stop, that's not something you couldn't do before, fairly easily, especially if Electron's performance and integration with its host platform is considered acceptable for what you're doing.

postalrat 5y ago
What alternatives? How many of them include the web as a platform?
- handrous 5y ago
  Java and its various GUI toolkits (again, especially if Electron's performance isn't bad enough that it's off the table). QT. TK. Wx. Delphi and some others if you didn't mind paying. Obviously none of them include the Web as a platform (unless you count Java applets, which you shouldn't since they're basically dead, even if they'd seem high-performance and quite nice compared to what we've replaced them with).
  - tshaddox 5y ago
    Why is that obvious? The only thing that’s obvious to me is that if these cross-platform GUI frameworks don’t support the web then almost no one who needs to build a cross-platform GUI will have any use for them.
    - handrous 5y ago
      Because I was responding to "The reason electron took off if because it was the first to offer an easy way to build cross platform apps". If you're defining "cross platform" as, strictly, "the Web", then I'm not really sure what kind of exchange you're trying to have or what you're trying to add, here. Obviously only the web satisfies the criterion of being the web. Which makes me wonder even more why you didn't find that obvious.
      - tshaddox 5y ago
        I'm certainly not trying to define "cross-platform" to mean "the web." I'm just pointing out that the web is a huge platform and for many use cases is arguably the most platform for a cross-platform GUI framework to support.
        handrous 5y ago
        "Webtech's (Electron, specifically) the only reason cross-platform desktop GUI programs are now cheap & easy enough to be viable" "Well, no, we've had that for a long time, especially if you consider the performance compromises of Electron or in-browser 'apps' to exist within the acceptable range. Electron does make mimicking this year's UI trends as easy on the desktop as on the Web, and doing so on every platform at once, and that was hard before." "Right, but do those earlier solutions support the web as a platform?" "... huh?" See why I'm confused about where you're taking this? It's like someone claimed that airplanes were the only way to travel by machine, and I pointed out that, for one thing, trains existed before that, and now you're asking me if trains can fly. No—and, again, obviously so unless we've got some seriously different life experience, here—but that's... a complete non-sequitur to the conversation already in progress.
        tshaddox 5y ago
        I think you’re conflating two very different things. The first thing is using web technology to build apps that are distributed as native apps on many platforms (which works because there are open source web browser engines that already support most computer platforms). This is what Electron is. The second thing is for any cross-platform framework to support targeting the web, because the web is itself a very huge platform. This is important, because not all platforms and situations support installing native apps. If you want your cross-platform app to work on web browsers, you need your cross-platform app to support targeting the web. This might be important if you want your app to work in computer labs, for example.
- CyberDildonics 5y ago
  Now you are moving the goal posts to "web as a platform". Web as a platform is not what you originally said and "web as a platform" is done well with web pages. People talk about electron being 'the only way to create cross platform apps' and ignore fltk, juce, qt, gtk, wxWidgets, tk and a whole host of other solutions, not to mention making a local webserver, opengl guis etc. When someone only knows javascript they might want to work with electron, but no one who is going to use that software wishes it was made in electron. That's the bottom line, people don't want it, it is a selfish decision that creates terrible interactivity and grossly bloated software.
  - handrous 5y ago
    I'm 100% convinced the appeal of Electron is that it makes chasing the latest UI trends month-to-month as easy on the desktop as it is on the web. Designers and businesses (and lots of developers) consider this essential, these days, for whatever reason. The above (yes, including the business side) will all complain about how a real desktop program using built-in or otherwise sane-and-stable GUI elements that haven't changed for 5 years looks too "old".
    - postalrat 5y ago
      How many popular desktop apps use anything resembling native GUI elements? Not browsers, not photo editors, not games, not many chat applications. Certainly there must be some big ones that do right?
      - CyberDildonics 5y ago
        Now you are moving the goal posts again from 'no other way to do cross platform apps' to 'what uses native GUI elements'. The dozen cross platform libraries that have been around for multiple decades are all 100 times faster than the electron, that's the point.
        postalrat 5y ago
        I didn't move any goal posts. Here I'm responding to a different comment. This time regarding gui elements and user experience.
- thereddaikon 5y ago
  Why does "the web" have to be a targeted platform? It isn't one in reality, Chromium, Safari and Firefox are different enough that you have to target them specifically. Seems to me the desire for having "web" as a platform isn't so you can also support a browser application. Its so you can make it a web app and call the job done.

postalrat 5y ago

What alternatives? How many of them include the web as a platform?

handrous 5y ago
Java and its various GUI toolkits (again, especially if Electron's performance isn't bad enough that it's off the table). QT. TK. Wx. Delphi and some others if you didn't mind paying. Obviously none of them include the Web as a platform (unless you count Java applets, which you shouldn't since they're basically dead, even if they'd seem high-performance and quite nice compared to what we've replaced them with).
- tshaddox 5y ago
  Why is that obvious? The only thing that’s obvious to me is that if these cross-platform GUI frameworks don’t support the web then almost no one who needs to build a cross-platform GUI will have any use for them.
  - handrous 5y ago
    Because I was responding to "The reason electron took off if because it was the first to offer an easy way to build cross platform apps". If you're defining "cross platform" as, strictly, "the Web", then I'm not really sure what kind of exchange you're trying to have or what you're trying to add, here. Obviously only the web satisfies the criterion of being the web. Which makes me wonder even more why you didn't find that obvious.
    - tshaddox 5y ago
      I'm certainly not trying to define "cross-platform" to mean "the web." I'm just pointing out that the web is a huge platform and for many use cases is arguably the most platform for a cross-platform GUI framework to support.
      - handrous 5y ago
        "Webtech's (Electron, specifically) the only reason cross-platform desktop GUI programs are now cheap & easy enough to be viable" "Well, no, we've had that for a long time, especially if you consider the performance compromises of Electron or in-browser 'apps' to exist within the acceptable range. Electron does make mimicking this year's UI trends as easy on the desktop as on the Web, and doing so on every platform at once, and that was hard before." "Right, but do those earlier solutions support the web as a platform?" "... huh?" See why I'm confused about where you're taking this? It's like someone claimed that airplanes were the only way to travel by machine, and I pointed out that, for one thing, trains existed before that, and now you're asking me if trains can fly. No—and, again, obviously so unless we've got some seriously different life experience, here—but that's... a complete non-sequitur to the conversation already in progress.
        tshaddox 5y ago
        I think you’re conflating two very different things. The first thing is using web technology to build apps that are distributed as native apps on many platforms (which works because there are open source web browser engines that already support most computer platforms). This is what Electron is. The second thing is for any cross-platform framework to support targeting the web, because the web is itself a very huge platform. This is important, because not all platforms and situations support installing native apps. If you want your cross-platform app to work on web browsers, you need your cross-platform app to support targeting the web. This might be important if you want your app to work in computer labs, for example.
CyberDildonics 5y ago
Now you are moving the goal posts to "web as a platform". Web as a platform is not what you originally said and "web as a platform" is done well with web pages. People talk about electron being 'the only way to create cross platform apps' and ignore fltk, juce, qt, gtk, wxWidgets, tk and a whole host of other solutions, not to mention making a local webserver, opengl guis etc. When someone only knows javascript they might want to work with electron, but no one who is going to use that software wishes it was made in electron. That's the bottom line, people don't want it, it is a selfish decision that creates terrible interactivity and grossly bloated software.
- handrous 5y ago
  I'm 100% convinced the appeal of Electron is that it makes chasing the latest UI trends month-to-month as easy on the desktop as it is on the web. Designers and businesses (and lots of developers) consider this essential, these days, for whatever reason. The above (yes, including the business side) will all complain about how a real desktop program using built-in or otherwise sane-and-stable GUI elements that haven't changed for 5 years looks too "old".
  - postalrat 5y ago
    How many popular desktop apps use anything resembling native GUI elements? Not browsers, not photo editors, not games, not many chat applications. Certainly there must be some big ones that do right?
    - CyberDildonics 5y ago
      Now you are moving the goal posts again from 'no other way to do cross platform apps' to 'what uses native GUI elements'. The dozen cross platform libraries that have been around for multiple decades are all 100 times faster than the electron, that's the point.
      - postalrat 5y ago
        I didn't move any goal posts. Here I'm responding to a different comment. This time regarding gui elements and user experience.
thereddaikon 5y ago
Why does "the web" have to be a targeted platform? It isn't one in reality, Chromium, Safari and Firefox are different enough that you have to target them specifically. Seems to me the desire for having "web" as a platform isn't so you can also support a browser application. Its so you can make it a web app and call the job done.