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Wow, this is incredible. Can’t imagine how much work this took. Seeing this makes me think about how many modern applications could learn a few things from the

Wow, this is incredible. Can’t imagine how much work this took. Seeing this makes me think about how many modern applications could learn a few things from the old Mac OS 8/9 Human Interface Guidelines. [0] [0] http://mirror.informatimago.com/next/developer.apple.com/documentation/mac/pdf/HIGOS8Guidelines.pdf http://mirror.informatimago.com/next/developer.apple.com/doc...

tailspin2019 5y ago
I almost didn’t scroll down and spot the video. What an amazing amount of effort…
- pstadler 5y ago
  Overlooked it too. The mouse wiggling during app loading is subtle.
jonpurdy 5y ago
It’s amazing to me how much more usable those UIs are. Not to mention how much more performant they’d be than modern Electron garbage. But forget about Mac OS 9, we don’t even have native OS X or Windows interfaces anymore. Doesn’t help that Apple dropped the ball on following their own UI guidelines.
- nebula8804 5y ago
  >we don’t even have native OS X or Windows interfaces anymore Wait you can't just call the respective APIs anymore? I thought the reason people don't use them is not because they aren't available but that 2 different codebases would have to be maintained hence things like Electron.
  - sjmulder 5y ago
    There's isn't a "the respective API" any more for Windows, it seems. Win32/ATL/Forms don't get the new widgets and design language (just a bit of lookalike styling). WPF, UWP, WinUI 2/3 are all bundled toolkits that mimic the Windows' fashion of the day to varying degrees.
    - nebula8804 5y ago
      oh ok so yeah, I'm hoping people can continue to write the standard Win32 apps. They can be quite quick. The OP gave me the impression that Win32 was gone. Who cares about the Metro or whatever they have now look. Yuck.
  - waynecochran 5y ago
    Been working on Cocoa app all week... still using Objective-C too ...
    - nebula8804 5y ago
      Oh ok thats good. The OP gave me the opposite impression. Other than the boutique software companies that specialize in a few Mac apps, I don't see as much Cocoa anymore and thats a shame.
      - waynecochran 5y ago
        I agree. You can't find up to date tutorials anymore. I have done enough in the past that I can usually cobble my way through it since I have done a bit of Cocoa programming over the last 18 years -- I don't know how anyone would start from scratch these days.
- userbinator 5y ago
  Native Windows - Win32 - still exists, but all the trendy "modern" stuff seems to be avoiding it, probably because the web stuff is easier to find developers for.
  - native_samples 5y ago
    I'm no fan of what HTML has turned in to, but Win32 is hard to find developers for because it's an atrocious pile of crapola that nobody in their right mind touches with a barge pole if they can possibly avoid it. Even Microsoft don't use it anymore, except of course, all the places they do still use it because they never bothered upgrading their apps.
  - vbezhenar 5y ago
    It's not only about web stuff. Microsoft themselves iterated on their standard UI: WPF, then WinRT which is different from win32 UI. It's a mess. Though it's a mess in Linux as well: Gtk, Qt and some lesser known frameworks. Not sure about macOS.
    - KptMarchewa 5y ago
      Mac just ruthlessly breaks compatibility. Sometimes, that's a good thing.
  - AndyJames 5y ago
    Everything goes JS (and derivatives) now. At some point we decided to throw cores and RAM at the problem instead of optimizing for speed with limited resources in mind.
  - KptMarchewa 5y ago
    Or, because it's nearly unusable due to 30 years of supporting legacy?
- qudat 5y ago
  browsers are the new operating systems
  - pjmlp 5y ago
    Pity that it all boils down to ChromeOS.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
- waspight 5y ago
  I think Electron is quite amazing. It does not deserve this bad reputation that it for some reason has on HN.
  - barrenko 5y ago
    We can do better.
    - TheRealNGenius 5y ago
      If this were the case, there would be no case for Electron
      - pjmlp 5y ago
        Electron exists because some developers don't care about their users, that is its case. Why bother with web widgets, or running daemons with local browser when one can contribute to Google's takeover on the Web.
  - porcoda 5y ago
    Amazing and bad reputation are not mutually exclusive. Electron is an impressive engineering accomplishment, but it also has some dimensions that not everyone likes. Electron is great if you're a developer who wants to write apps in javascript+HTML+CSS and put developer preferences over preferences of users. Not everyone agrees that the decisions behind Electron and using it are good decisions.
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      > Electron is great if you're a developer who wants to write apps in javascript+HTML+CSS and put developer preferences over preferences of users I’m so tired of this. Sure, the case for Electron is that it allows leveraging web-targeting code and skills, which makes more devs able to work on desktop software give the current prevalence of web skills and makes their job easier given the prevalence of web-targeting code that can be reused. But this is in no way user hostile: it means the cost to develop software with any given function is lower in developer hours (and, for commercial entities paying for development, actual $$), which means it is more likely to get done than otherwise, and that it is more likely to be a sustainable proposition to maintain on an ongoing basis. Given that users generally have a preference to have software with the functionality they desire developed and maintained, this is conducive, rather than hostile, to user preferences. It’s hostile to the preferences of developers who have emotional attachment to particular nonweb (or just emotional hostility to web) technology, who are left in the dust, in terms of meeting users actual needs, by those adopting Electron. Or, less emotionally, it is hostile to preferences of developers who have a substantial investment of time and effort into building marketable nonweb skills in desktop app development, and are finding those skills marginalized in the marketplace by adoption of Electron.
- pulsarmx 5y ago
  This intense hatred for Electron has always baffled me. I thought the community in general was in favour of allowing people to create whatever they wanted, however they wanted. More people making software is good! And the community grows because of it, and everything is better. But every time an electron app gets promoted somewhere (HN/Reddit/Twitter/wherever) there is always _someone_ yelling at the developer because they decided to use Electron. As a javascript developer, I'm sorry that I don't have the patience/smarts/skills/time to learn C++/Qt/GTK/WxWidgets/etc. HTML/CSS/Javascript is all I know and it's probably all I will reasonably stay with for a while because of various circumstances. And Electron lets me use the knowledge I already have to make things. That's not to say that Electron doesn't have all these issues, of course. But I feel that this policing of how people write their own software (especially when it's something purely done as a hobby and/or just to share something with people) is getting somewhat out of hand. Here's a hypotetical/philosophical question for the community in general. Given no other alternatives to do X, what is preferable? An Electron app that allows people to do X, or no app at all?
  - marbletiles 5y ago
    No app at all. Because that leaves a gap in the market for a native alternative. That means a potential reward for the patient/smart/etc developer who knows native code, which means a better class of developer, which in turn means better software. And it means more native apps for the platforms, which means a better class of app. In short, everything is not better when Electron is everywhere. It actively damages the ecosystems of the platforms that host it.
UncleSlacky 5y ago
You might like helloSystem, it's explicitly based on the original Apple HIG: https://hellosystem.github.io/docs/developer/ux-guidelines.html https://hellosystem.github.io/docs/developer/ux-guidelines.h...

tailspin2019 5y ago

I almost didn’t scroll down and spot the video. What an amazing amount of effort…

pstadler 5y ago
Overlooked it too. The mouse wiggling during app loading is subtle.

jonpurdy 5y ago

It’s amazing to me how much more usable those UIs are. Not to mention how much more performant they’d be than modern Electron garbage. But forget about Mac OS 9, we don’t even have native OS X or Windows interfaces anymore. Doesn’t help that Apple dropped the ball on following their own UI guidelines.

nebula8804 5y ago
>we don’t even have native OS X or Windows interfaces anymore Wait you can't just call the respective APIs anymore? I thought the reason people don't use them is not because they aren't available but that 2 different codebases would have to be maintained hence things like Electron.
- sjmulder 5y ago
  There's isn't a "the respective API" any more for Windows, it seems. Win32/ATL/Forms don't get the new widgets and design language (just a bit of lookalike styling). WPF, UWP, WinUI 2/3 are all bundled toolkits that mimic the Windows' fashion of the day to varying degrees.
  - nebula8804 5y ago
    oh ok so yeah, I'm hoping people can continue to write the standard Win32 apps. They can be quite quick. The OP gave me the impression that Win32 was gone. Who cares about the Metro or whatever they have now look. Yuck.
- waynecochran 5y ago
  Been working on Cocoa app all week... still using Objective-C too ...
  - nebula8804 5y ago
    Oh ok thats good. The OP gave me the opposite impression. Other than the boutique software companies that specialize in a few Mac apps, I don't see as much Cocoa anymore and thats a shame.
    - waynecochran 5y ago
      I agree. You can't find up to date tutorials anymore. I have done enough in the past that I can usually cobble my way through it since I have done a bit of Cocoa programming over the last 18 years -- I don't know how anyone would start from scratch these days.
userbinator 5y ago
Native Windows - Win32 - still exists, but all the trendy "modern" stuff seems to be avoiding it, probably because the web stuff is easier to find developers for.
- native_samples 5y ago
  I'm no fan of what HTML has turned in to, but Win32 is hard to find developers for because it's an atrocious pile of crapola that nobody in their right mind touches with a barge pole if they can possibly avoid it. Even Microsoft don't use it anymore, except of course, all the places they do still use it because they never bothered upgrading their apps.
- vbezhenar 5y ago
  It's not only about web stuff. Microsoft themselves iterated on their standard UI: WPF, then WinRT which is different from win32 UI. It's a mess. Though it's a mess in Linux as well: Gtk, Qt and some lesser known frameworks. Not sure about macOS.
  - KptMarchewa 5y ago
    Mac just ruthlessly breaks compatibility. Sometimes, that's a good thing.
- AndyJames 5y ago
  Everything goes JS (and derivatives) now. At some point we decided to throw cores and RAM at the problem instead of optimizing for speed with limited resources in mind.
- KptMarchewa 5y ago
  Or, because it's nearly unusable due to 30 years of supporting legacy?
qudat 5y ago
browsers are the new operating systems
- pjmlp 5y ago
  Pity that it all boils down to ChromeOS.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
waspight 5y ago
I think Electron is quite amazing. It does not deserve this bad reputation that it for some reason has on HN.
- barrenko 5y ago
  We can do better.
  - TheRealNGenius 5y ago
    If this were the case, there would be no case for Electron
    - pjmlp 5y ago
      Electron exists because some developers don't care about their users, that is its case. Why bother with web widgets, or running daemons with local browser when one can contribute to Google's takeover on the Web.
- porcoda 5y ago
  Amazing and bad reputation are not mutually exclusive. Electron is an impressive engineering accomplishment, but it also has some dimensions that not everyone likes. Electron is great if you're a developer who wants to write apps in javascript+HTML+CSS and put developer preferences over preferences of users. Not everyone agrees that the decisions behind Electron and using it are good decisions.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > Electron is great if you're a developer who wants to write apps in javascript+HTML+CSS and put developer preferences over preferences of users I’m so tired of this. Sure, the case for Electron is that it allows leveraging web-targeting code and skills, which makes more devs able to work on desktop software give the current prevalence of web skills and makes their job easier given the prevalence of web-targeting code that can be reused. But this is in no way user hostile: it means the cost to develop software with any given function is lower in developer hours (and, for commercial entities paying for development, actual $$), which means it is more likely to get done than otherwise, and that it is more likely to be a sustainable proposition to maintain on an ongoing basis. Given that users generally have a preference to have software with the functionality they desire developed and maintained, this is conducive, rather than hostile, to user preferences. It’s hostile to the preferences of developers who have emotional attachment to particular nonweb (or just emotional hostility to web) technology, who are left in the dust, in terms of meeting users actual needs, by those adopting Electron. Or, less emotionally, it is hostile to preferences of developers who have a substantial investment of time and effort into building marketable nonweb skills in desktop app development, and are finding those skills marginalized in the marketplace by adoption of Electron.
pulsarmx 5y ago
This intense hatred for Electron has always baffled me. I thought the community in general was in favour of allowing people to create whatever they wanted, however they wanted. More people making software is good! And the community grows because of it, and everything is better. But every time an electron app gets promoted somewhere (HN/Reddit/Twitter/wherever) there is always _someone_ yelling at the developer because they decided to use Electron. As a javascript developer, I'm sorry that I don't have the patience/smarts/skills/time to learn C++/Qt/GTK/WxWidgets/etc. HTML/CSS/Javascript is all I know and it's probably all I will reasonably stay with for a while because of various circumstances. And Electron lets me use the knowledge I already have to make things. That's not to say that Electron doesn't have all these issues, of course. But I feel that this policing of how people write their own software (especially when it's something purely done as a hobby and/or just to share something with people) is getting somewhat out of hand. Here's a hypotetical/philosophical question for the community in general. Given no other alternatives to do X, what is preferable? An Electron app that allows people to do X, or no app at all?
- marbletiles 5y ago
  No app at all. Because that leaves a gap in the market for a native alternative. That means a potential reward for the patient/smart/etc developer who knows native code, which means a better class of developer, which in turn means better software. And it means more native apps for the platforms, which means a better class of app. In short, everything is not better when Electron is everywhere. It actively damages the ecosystems of the platforms that host it.

UncleSlacky 5y ago

You might like helloSystem, it's explicitly based on the original Apple HIG: https://hellosystem.github.io/docs/developer/ux-guidelines.html https://hellosystem.github.io/docs/developer/ux-guidelines.h...