7 ms·
Is Making Advanced GUI Applications with Godot the Future? (2020)
- hdjjhhvvhga 4y agoI agree one would have a similar experience as the author when learning Flutter, but it is because on mobile you need to have all these shiny things so it's no wonder that documentation covers it in detail. However, you can perfectly write Flutter apps without animations, transitions and the like.
- NonNefarious 4y agoYeah… in Dart, which nobody knows.
- noarchy 4y agoOr GDScript, Godot’s language, which nobody knows. This is my major barrier to even considering Godot right now. Perhaps once their Kotlin bindings are ready for production…
- ArtixFox 4y agocan we not use any other language for it, like C, Cpp, etc
- krapp 4y agoThere are plenty of bindings for Godot, of various quality[0]. Godot is changing their plugin system in a future version, which hopefully will make language support much easier. [0].https://github.com/Vivraan/godot-lang-support https://github.com/Vivraan/godot-lang-support
- NonNefarious 4y agoIsn't it an extended Python? I thought I read that somewhere.
- hdjjhhvvhga 4y agoIn my experience Darti s not a problem at all. It's a simple boring javaesque language you can learn relatively quickly if are already proficient in other languages, plus you don't really need to use all features of Dart to create multiplatform apps. What if more difficult is Flutter itself: you basically need to learn everything from scratch: the architecture, they way to write apps, plus all the library functions you may need. My experience is that this particular aspect took me much longer than learning Dart itself.
- iLoveOncall 4y agoWell I'd argue that making GUI applications is not the future, so that doesn't bode well for making GUI applications with Godot.
- Veuxdo 4y agoI'll bite. Why are graphical user interfaces not the future? They're certainly the past and the present.
- dtx1 4y agoThe sad future is, the browser is the new desktop gui.
- dymk 4y agoI think that’s the present (electron apps have been all the rage for the last few years), but maybe not the future. There’s much effort being put into native-ish GUI programming in recent years such as Godot and Druid.
- Wowfunhappy 4y agoWhy do you think Chrome OS isn’t more successful then? (Outside of specific markets like education.)
- usrn 4y agoThe Walmart near me stopped selling Windows PCs and only sells Chromebooks. ChromeOS is extremely successful.
- iLoveOncall 4y ago2% marketshare despite the incredible pricing, but ok.
- glowingly 4y agoI very much wish so. I tried using Godot at work and got turned down. They wouldn't even allow a demo or the "IDE" to be installed. Must use our licensed contract junk from leaches on government dole, because those are what's approved by cybersecurity. I now have a few more interview questions to ask of future employers and things to look out for during interview tours.
- alexdeloy 4y agoThe whole Godot Editor is also available in the browser under https://editor.godotengine.org/ https://editor.godotengine.org/ You might want to give that a look :)
- krapp 4y agoI've seen a lot of applications posted to Godot subreddits, so it's clearly a thing. Godot has some clear shortcomings when it comes to application development, particularly with layout and text rendering, but it's not at all infeasible. I wouldn't do anything important with Godot at this point, though, at least not without C#. GDScript ... is better than GML and Dark Basic but worse than any language you would actually want to use. I think the important takeaway from reading the article is how crucial editor design is.
- psyc 4y ago
- MaybeItsMia 4y agoAm I weird that I enjoy HTML/CSS for GUI and Layout? With CSS grid of course. Hell I love Godot, but the fact that you can't do something as simple as give a component a max width is so annoying.
- youessayyyaway 4y agoBrowsers are fantastic cross-platform UI frameworks. Writing a local page is a great way to start prototyping. The problem is that they are very slow and resource-hungry. All those dynamic styling and DOM niceties come with a significant cost. WASM can help, but the webdev ecosystem encourages developers to use fat JS libraries for most tasks. Your browser prototype will probably start to chug once it grows to the point that it needs to juggle >1000s of objects. Native apps have the potential to be much more efficient and responsive. They also tend to work better and more consistently on older/cheaper hardware. I think that every website developer should use a $200 Chromebook for development at least a few weeks out of the year. Most of the world is not using a new M2 macbook, and it's easy to lose sight of that when you spend your time working on new features.
- krapp 4y agoYeah, Godot has no concept of a flow layout because for games it doesn't matter, all layouts are fixed anyway. That's definitely something the box model of HTML and CSS do better.
- speps 4y agoA lot games nowadays use some form of HTML/CSS, have a look at Coherent Labs and their products [1] [1] https://coherent-labs.com/products/coherent-gameface/ https://coherent-labs.com/products/coherent-gameface/
- krapp 4y agoObviously games written with HTML and CSS do, but I was specifically referring to non-browser platforms.
- 4y ago
- HidyBush 4y agoMaking GUIs with game engines is the future not because they are easy to develop with, but because the moment AR and VR become common we already have tools to make 3D interfaces
- krapp 4y agoI don't think 3D interfaces really offer anything of value beyond 2D interfaces. I've never once in my life been using software and thought the GUI would be much better rendered onto the inside of a cube or something.
- HidyBush 4y agoYou might want to read my post again, I specifically talked about AR and VR applications
- butwhywhyoh 4y agoBut you guys, this software isn't practicing good Design. None of those UI elements provide me with any _satisfaction_. I don't care how efficient it is if it doesn't follow solid Design principles (like massive checkboxes that take seconds to activate). /s
- DeathArrow 4y ago>It is not made for reusable components, like real GUI toolkits. The latter needs some explanation. The web way of creating reusable components is through some kind of templating. You are basically just copy pasting a chunk of HTML several times representing your new custom component. That's not true since HTML allows custom elements.
- DeathArrow 4y agoGodot is fine for GUI in Games and 3D apps. And that's it.
- preommr 4y agoVery unlikely. Godot has those features because game devs often need to make UIs for the game e.g. menus, etc. A decent game engine has to have that kind of functionality. Godot dogfooding is not a good indicator of it's potential as a ui toolkit. It's probably easier for them since they might need specialized components and because they're already familiar with the tools. There's a very strong advantage unique to them. There are alot of edge cases and broader applications that the right tool for the job like Qt and even electron cover because that's what they're specialized for. The expectation that godot will cover two major disciplines is possible... but unlikely.
- krapp 4y agoYou can't make the argument that people only use Godot for application development because it's what they're familiar with, and then bring up Electron as a countercase. Electron literally only exists because of existing familiarity with web tech.
- Zababa 4y agoWeb applications are still applications, and web applications and desktop applications are closer than applications and games.
- blooalien 4y ago> … "and web applications and desktop applications are closer than applications and games." I'm not really sure how that logic follows, as games are also just applications, and although the web was not designed as an application platform, but rather as a hypertext document browsing / delivery platform, yet people managed to wrangle it into performing fairly decently as an application platform, so why not game engines for application development? (I've actually seen more than a few really interesting and useful applications built in Godot and other game engines already, and I'm quite sure more are coming.)
- jayd16 4y agoWeb tech has massive momentum and developer base fed from outside Electron where as Godot is nowhere close.
- toolchange 4y ago
- bitwize 4y agoNo. Inasmuch as desktop applications continue to exist, the future is Electron. The only applications for which there is still demand for traditional GUI apps are military and medical device applications. Electron is literally write once, run anywhere. It's leaps and bounds beyond anything else in this regard. RAM is cheap, and a few hundred megabytes per installation are a small price to pay for increased productivity and accelerated time to market.
- mellosouls 4y agoInasmuch as desktop applications continue to exist, the future is Electron. The only applications for which there is still demand for traditional GUI apps are military and medical device applications. Oddly specific, and definitely authoritative-sounding. You might be correct but it's the sort of wording that demands evidence in support to differentiate it from pure partisanism.
- bitwize 4y agoWhen I see a job req out there for traditional desktop GUI skills (C++, Qt, Win32, etc.) it's for a military application or a medical device.
- mellosouls 4y agoI did a quick search on Qt and the first result was entertainment/broadcast. Second result was defence.
- jayd16 4y agoGame engines have a lot of nice tech and maybe one will get popular for apps one day. The major issue I see is that they're simply tuned for a different UX. They're usually very power hungry (both amps and CPU cycles) and designed to push as many pixels as possible. It's the exact opposite of the modern view layouts that try to cache view images to reduce the draw work.
- wly_cdgr 4y agoI really appreciate how Godot is the only one of the 3D engines that not only offers good 2D support as well (like say Unity) but really treats 2D as a first class citizen. I also REALLY appreciate how it's the only one that has decent built-in support for vector drawing. That said, so does Canvas, and HTML & CSS are a tried and true portable powerhouse UI combo, and JS/TS are infinitely more relevant than GDScript, so I am camp Electron. Especially now that web 3D is also better than it's ever been. I would rather see more work to make Electron gamedev-friendly than work to make Godot appdev-friendly
- lakomen 4y agoI personally prefer not designing my gui but coding it. I met a guy who said he wanted to write whatever documentation, essentially a gui in Godot and I was like, why not use the proper tool for the job. Well he said he's familiar with Godot so he'd write it in Godot. And now this. I was learning about Android development, jetpack compose, the new thing where you essentially write components in code, I prefer it over the old way, gui design with Android Studio in xml files. I guess I can get used to both but would prefer jetpack compose because it's so similar to "the web wayTM". I'm guessing if you're used to graphical layout and design you'd disagree so TL;DR it isn't for me, but I've had Godot on the list of things to get into or at least try to scratch the surface and create a test project with it.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- rm7 4y agoI'm looking at moving my desktop application(s) from Microsoft WinForms to Godot, but its worrying that no one else is doing it yet. It certainly seems appealing, especially compared to the other options, but its not at all clear what the limitations and risks are without investing a lot of time/money into it.
- NonNefarious 4y agoI’d consider Godot but it’s unusable for deploying on mobile platforms. We need desktop and mobile, making Qt/QML our only apparent practical choice. BTW, we built a desktop app in QML and the GUI performs great. The resizing is smooth and elegant.
- jmnicolas 4y ago> We need desktop and mobile Why not Flutter?
- NonNefarious 4y agoBecause none of us knows Dart, nor are any contractors likely to know it. Also, based on research I did before starting a cross-platform project, you still end up writing a lot of native code on each platform when using Dart. At that point, you might as well just write native apps.
- jmnicolas 4y agoYou already know Dart, it's very familiar if you have done some C# / Java etc previously.