5 ms·

Counterpoint: This does nothing that Lazarus/Freepascal [1] can't do more efficiently. Or wxwidgets/Qt to a lesser extent, ease-of-use wise. [1] https://www.la

Counterpoint: This does nothing that Lazarus/Freepascal [1] can't do more efficiently. Or wxwidgets/Qt to a lesser extent, ease-of-use wise. [1] https://www.lazarus-ide.org/ https://www.lazarus-ide.org/

ale42 5y ago
fully agree... and those (Lazarus/wxWidgets/Qt) generate native code and don't require you to ship a browser with your application...
- alexvoda 5y ago
  Qt has QtWebEngine afaik. Does Lazarus have a web browser component? Edit: this was NOT meant to imply the browser component is loaded. This was a reply to the first comment with regards to what frameworks can and can not do.
  - gmueckl 5y ago
    QtWebEngine is a completely separate module within Qt that you need to link to explicitly to use. You don't pay for it unless you actually use it.
    - alexvoda 5y ago
      You are correct. I meant something else, see the edit.
  - ale42 5y ago
    There are actually a few (though I never tried any), see e.g. https://wiki.freepascal.org/fpCEF3 https://wiki.freepascal.org/fpCEF3
  - soapdog 5y ago
    Also QtWebEngine is a trimmed version of Chromium. Not the most lightweight solution out there. It works very well though.
- pimterry 5y ago
  > don't require you to ship a browser with your application The key feature of Neutralino (as opposed to Electron) is that it does _not_ require you to ship a browser - it provides similar developer UX to Electron, but it uses your system's existing browser so binaries are dramatically smaller (2MB for hello world) and memory overhead is minimal (~3MB for hello world).
  - alexvoda 5y ago
    > but it uses your system's existing browser According to (1) that is incorrect. It uses WebKitGTK+. (1) https://github.com/Elanis/web-to-desktop-framework-comparison https://github.com/Elanis/web-to-desktop-framework-compariso...
    - sdflhasjd 5y ago
      Looks like that is a simplification, error, or outdated. Neutralinojs says: "Neutralinojs doesn't bundle Chromium and uses the existing web browser library in the operating system (Eg: gtk-webkit2 on Linux)" Skimming through the source code, it appears to use WebView2 on Windows - which is Edge.
      - brabel 5y ago
        It's the same approach as Tauri then? Except of course, Tauri has Rust in the "backend".
- soapdog 5y ago
  err.. the main point of NeutralinoJS is that you don't ship a browser with your application. Also, wxWidgets looks very strange on macOS right now. I just built some demos last week from the examples in the repo for wxLua and they looked awful. I have no idea what was going on because as far as I remember wxWidgets would just be calling the native stuff. Still, they looked unusable.
  - VZ 5y ago
    > Still, they looked unusable. This shouldn't be the case. If you use wx 3.0, it's too old to support the features that appeared in macOS after its release (dark mode etc), but 3.1.5 should look just as the native UIs do.
- rcarmo 5y ago
  …nor have a local web server ready to be exploited.
brabel 5y ago
I try to look into it but every time I get really put off by the dated documentation and Pascal code, plus the need to use an IDE I am not familiar with. Can I create a reactive, modern looking application using the IDEs I know and love with this? If not, then no, it does not do everything things like Neutralinojs does, it's not even in the same category of tools, really.
mixedCase 5y ago
Since these actually-we-are-not-bad-like-electron-we-are-using-system-webview frameworks seem to be popping up every other week, and this comment is always here, I'll be the one to say it: Lazarus requires you to write your application in a Pascal derivative. People overall don't want to learn another language, much less one that's not "hip". I for one don't care about having to learn another language or how old it is. But Pascal is not only old, it is antiquated. Standard ML is old, but it still beats the pants off what most people are using out there in expressiveness. And FWIW: I started writing a Gtk4 application this weekend using Rust and Relm4. Relm4 macros don't get Rust Analyzer support and builder pattern is going back to the stone ages of procedural UI building. I miss something like what I had with VB6 which also represents the good ideas behind Lazarus, but neither compare to the sheer productivity of something like web Elm or React+TypeScript.
- lpcvoid 5y ago
  I feel you. I don't like Pascal much these days either - I used to use Delphi for a long time back in the dark ages. That was absolutely fantastic, and I argue that we never got anything as good as that ever again. Lazarus is close. Arguably I'd rather write stone age Pascal vs [hype web language], specially on the desktop platform, even if it means sacrificing niceties such as good IDE support.
- qsort 5y ago
  I agree with you about Lazarus/Pascal, but Qt is C++, hardly an obsolete choice as far as languages go.
  - qalmakka 5y ago
    Well, I tend to disagree about this point. Qt is C++ as much as an ice cream truck is a truck - sure, it IS technically a truck, but that's where the similarities end. Qt basically reimplements every single C++ container and function with its own, has a slew of concepts that go directly against the current C++ trends (i.e. lots of pointers everywhere, CoW, ...), and on top of that it uses a preprocessor and also uses its own custom language to describe UIs (QML). I am a professional C++ developer what happens to work often with Qt developers and I assure you, the skill-set you acquire while developing on Qt does not transfer at all to plain, standard C++, and vice-versa.

ale42 5y ago

fully agree... and those (Lazarus/wxWidgets/Qt) generate native code and don't require you to ship a browser with your application...

alexvoda 5y ago
Qt has QtWebEngine afaik. Does Lazarus have a web browser component? Edit: this was NOT meant to imply the browser component is loaded. This was a reply to the first comment with regards to what frameworks can and can not do.
- gmueckl 5y ago
  QtWebEngine is a completely separate module within Qt that you need to link to explicitly to use. You don't pay for it unless you actually use it.
  - alexvoda 5y ago
    You are correct. I meant something else, see the edit.
- ale42 5y ago
  There are actually a few (though I never tried any), see e.g. https://wiki.freepascal.org/fpCEF3 https://wiki.freepascal.org/fpCEF3
- soapdog 5y ago
  Also QtWebEngine is a trimmed version of Chromium. Not the most lightweight solution out there. It works very well though.
pimterry 5y ago
> don't require you to ship a browser with your application The key feature of Neutralino (as opposed to Electron) is that it does _not_ require you to ship a browser - it provides similar developer UX to Electron, but it uses your system's existing browser so binaries are dramatically smaller (2MB for hello world) and memory overhead is minimal (~3MB for hello world).
- alexvoda 5y ago
  > but it uses your system's existing browser According to (1) that is incorrect. It uses WebKitGTK+. (1) https://github.com/Elanis/web-to-desktop-framework-comparison https://github.com/Elanis/web-to-desktop-framework-compariso...
  - sdflhasjd 5y ago
    Looks like that is a simplification, error, or outdated. Neutralinojs says: "Neutralinojs doesn't bundle Chromium and uses the existing web browser library in the operating system (Eg: gtk-webkit2 on Linux)" Skimming through the source code, it appears to use WebView2 on Windows - which is Edge.
    - brabel 5y ago
      It's the same approach as Tauri then? Except of course, Tauri has Rust in the "backend".
soapdog 5y ago
err.. the main point of NeutralinoJS is that you don't ship a browser with your application. Also, wxWidgets looks very strange on macOS right now. I just built some demos last week from the examples in the repo for wxLua and they looked awful. I have no idea what was going on because as far as I remember wxWidgets would just be calling the native stuff. Still, they looked unusable.
- VZ 5y ago
  > Still, they looked unusable. This shouldn't be the case. If you use wx 3.0, it's too old to support the features that appeared in macOS after its release (dark mode etc), but 3.1.5 should look just as the native UIs do.
rcarmo 5y ago
…nor have a local web server ready to be exploited.

brabel 5y ago

I try to look into it but every time I get really put off by the dated documentation and Pascal code, plus the need to use an IDE I am not familiar with. Can I create a reactive, modern looking application using the IDEs I know and love with this? If not, then no, it does not do everything things like Neutralinojs does, it's not even in the same category of tools, really.

mixedCase 5y ago

Since these actually-we-are-not-bad-like-electron-we-are-using-system-webview frameworks seem to be popping up every other week, and this comment is always here, I'll be the one to say it: Lazarus requires you to write your application in a Pascal derivative. People overall don't want to learn another language, much less one that's not "hip". I for one don't care about having to learn another language or how old it is. But Pascal is not only old, it is antiquated. Standard ML is old, but it still beats the pants off what most people are using out there in expressiveness. And FWIW: I started writing a Gtk4 application this weekend using Rust and Relm4. Relm4 macros don't get Rust Analyzer support and builder pattern is going back to the stone ages of procedural UI building. I miss something like what I had with VB6 which also represents the good ideas behind Lazarus, but neither compare to the sheer productivity of something like web Elm or React+TypeScript.

lpcvoid 5y ago
I feel you. I don't like Pascal much these days either - I used to use Delphi for a long time back in the dark ages. That was absolutely fantastic, and I argue that we never got anything as good as that ever again. Lazarus is close. Arguably I'd rather write stone age Pascal vs [hype web language], specially on the desktop platform, even if it means sacrificing niceties such as good IDE support.
qsort 5y ago
I agree with you about Lazarus/Pascal, but Qt is C++, hardly an obsolete choice as far as languages go.
- qalmakka 5y ago
  Well, I tend to disagree about this point. Qt is C++ as much as an ice cream truck is a truck - sure, it IS technically a truck, but that's where the similarities end. Qt basically reimplements every single C++ container and function with its own, has a slew of concepts that go directly against the current C++ trends (i.e. lots of pointers everywhere, CoW, ...), and on top of that it uses a preprocessor and also uses its own custom language to describe UIs (QML). I am a professional C++ developer what happens to work often with Qt developers and I assure you, the skill-set you acquire while developing on Qt does not transfer at all to plain, standard C++, and vice-versa.