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I apologize in advance if this opinion offends anyone, but every HTML UI kit that I've seen simply can't hold a candle to native kits such as WinForms, WPF or
by WayneDB 15y ago
I apologize in advance if this opinion offends anyone, but every HTML UI kit that I've seen simply can't hold a candle to native kits such as WinForms, WPF or even Cocoa. I would really love a write-once browser based solution, but I just can't see that type of solution ever catching up to native tech.
How long do we have to wait before the browser can catch up? Do you think it will ever happen?
The closest thing that I've ever seen is Silverlight. With it I've been able to make some very excellent front-ends, with EASE, that look and behave identically between Mac and Windows. EDIT: The only challenge with Silverlight has been wheel-scrolling, which works fine on Windows but only works in Out-Of-Browser on the Mac.
- wslh 15y agoI completely agree and I am very sad that a lot of people can't be rational about this. The vision of HTML5 may be towards that direction, but when I do a simple test with SVG and found ugly issues on Google Chrome (I move a specific object but it left a trail behind) then I understand that we are far from there, may be 2 years in development and business terms? Also the development side, something like the criticized old Visual Basic, an IDE where you can quickly design a rich UI with a lot of controls. It will be an irony if the best IDE for HTML5 came from Microsoft on Visual Studio >= 2012? http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:zNKE5vprMqUJ:ogrelabs.com/2011/06/14/visual-studio-meet-html5/+Visual+studio+2012+%2Bjavascript+%2Bhtml5&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ar http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:zNKE5vp... Macromedia, Google et al have opportunities but they move slowly in this direction. It's also strange to be developing and debugging CPython using Visual Studio http://pytools.codeplex.com/ http://pytools.codeplex.com/
- firemanx 15y agoI'm in the same boat. The problem I keep finding with a lot of these UI libs is that they don't have layout managers. We settled on dojo because we wanted an open source option with a layout manager, but it's got other headaches we need to deal with.
- jakejake 15y agoI think Sencha is possibly the closest to that for the web right now. I find it fairly similar to writing form-based desktop applications.
- dfreire 15y ago... and SmartClient.
- dreamdu5t 15y agoSencha isn't even remotely cross-platform, with support restricted to the latest webkit-based browsers with decent CSS3 support. Sencha's UI is pretty bad on any other device but an iPhone.
- wladimir 15y agoYes, it is very convenient to work with if you're used to programming desktop UIs. I found that ExtJS is great for (admin) backends especially now that it integrates charting.
- pbreit 15y agoConsidering that Silverlight is a download, I would not place it in this category. Someone mentioned Sencha already. The other strong offering is Cappuccino.
- nadam 15y agoI am working on a UI lib which is written in Javascript and completely painted on HTML5 canvas. I know, crazy idea... I got rid of the incompatibilities of the browsers, I got rid of DOM: I defined my own event system, component graph, etc... This will be someting like a traditional desktop component based UI, just in javascript, in the browser. Styling will be far more advanced than CSS: you can even inject a custom paint method into a component from a stylesheet. (stylesheets will be javascript classes). Also it will have advanced dynamic layout. (min/max/preferred sizes, weights, gridpanel with colspan, rowspan, etc...) I am doing it in my free time (at nights), because I have no funding: it is a quite huge undertaking: I am ready with 5300 lines of code, but I still need a couple of weeks just to release a very early demo. My secret aim is to make it a flash/flex killer in the long term. In the very long term:)
- mortenjorck 15y agoYou have my attention. Does this project have any kind of Twitter or mailing list yet?
- nadam 15y agoThanks. Not yet, but I will release a website and a 0.1 version in two weeks. I will also write a 'please review' post on HN.
- WayneDB 15y agoLooking forward to seeing this!
- protomyth 15y agoIt will be interesting to see how you will deal with ADA guidelines.
- de90 15y agoBut won't using the canvas for this eliminate the compatability in older browsers? Which not caring for older browsers would help resolve a lot of the pains of working with the front end in browsers...
- 15y ago
- Me1000 15y agoCappuccino is the best implementation out there, because the most important thing we strive for is conformance with Cocoa behavior. Cappuccino is certainly at par with Cocoa with most things.
- sunchild 15y agoI'm the last one to hold his breath for fear of vaporware, but I have high hopes for a new Sproutcore UI kit. I want robust client-side UI elements that bind easily to a REST API. I feel like we're right on the cusp of that revolution.
- statictype 15y agoMaybe stop trying to make browser-based apps look native? Web apps have their own distinct style of UI that works cross-platform and has its own strengths (and weaknesses). Trying to build web apps with UIs that try to match that of native apps is a losing proposition.