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I made a similar observation when reading the Zas Editor thread. Lately some MacOS specific applications have been popping up here on HN and they all look reall

by zorr 5y ago

I made a similar observation when reading the Zas Editor thread. Lately some MacOS specific applications have been popping up here on HN and they all look really good which I think is mostly because of the polished controls that SwiftUI provides. While I haven't used SwiftUI directly (only reviewed some code recently) it looks like it makes it simple to build good-looking native desktop apps. Unfortunately SwiftUI is not very cross platform and the other toolkits (Gtk, Qt, Swing, etc) are lagging behind in terms of polish and controls. My general conclusion is: Native desktop applications are not dead yet as shown by the popularity of Electron and SwiftUI shows that if the toolkit is good, developers will build native desktop apps. Now it's up to the other (cross-platform) toolkits to step up their game and we can get rid of the electron-based memory hogs.

SkeuomorphicBee 5y ago
I've been noticing a somewhat similar boom of new good-looking apps in the GTK/Gnome world. Although those are mostly smaller projects (single developer free-time pet-projects) with very small scope (doing one very small thing well), but the sheer number of those good new projects is amazing compared to the status quo of a decade or so ago. And although you credited the MacOS specific applications boom entirely to the good toolkit, I think the GTK/Gnome app resurgence comes from a synergy of three factors: 1. The rise of more ergonomic programing languages (Rust, Go, ...) that make desktop app development more fun (GTK programing in C works, but it is like pulling teeth, soo much boilerplate). 2. The rise of new app distribution channels on Linux (e.g. Flathub) 3. And the improvements to the toolkit.
- zorr 5y ago
  Do you have any examples of GTK/Gnome apps like this?
  - SkeuomorphicBee 5y ago
    I think the best examples are the ones Gnome recognize as sort of semi-official Gnome Circle [0]. But browsing Flathub there are plenty more. [0] https://circle.gnome.org/ https://circle.gnome.org/

by zorr 5y ago

SkeuomorphicBee 5y ago

I've been noticing a somewhat similar boom of new good-looking apps in the GTK/Gnome world. Although those are mostly smaller projects (single developer free-time pet-projects) with very small scope (doing one very small thing well), but the sheer number of those good new projects is amazing compared to the status quo of a decade or so ago. And although you credited the MacOS specific applications boom entirely to the good toolkit, I think the GTK/Gnome app resurgence comes from a synergy of three factors: 1. The rise of more ergonomic programing languages (Rust, Go, ...) that make desktop app development more fun (GTK programing in C works, but it is like pulling teeth, soo much boilerplate). 2. The rise of new app distribution channels on Linux (e.g. Flathub) 3. And the improvements to the toolkit.

zorr 5y ago
Do you have any examples of GTK/Gnome apps like this?
- SkeuomorphicBee 5y ago
  I think the best examples are the ones Gnome recognize as sort of semi-official Gnome Circle [0]. But browsing Flathub there are plenty more. [0] https://circle.gnome.org/ https://circle.gnome.org/