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> What surprises me is that no company has stepped up to fill the gap left by GTK, Qt, wxWidgets, and the OS-specific frameworks other than Flutter and Electro

> What surprises me is that no company has stepped up to fill the gap left by GTK, Qt, wxWidgets, and the OS-specific frameworks other than Flutter and Electron. Flutter and Electron can't even manage multiple windows. It's a shame. It's not that these toolkits are gone -- it's that the desktop metaphors you are looking for are gone. Or at least, as gone as these toolkits: neither of which is dead by any measure, but your assumption that they are dead likely comes from the fact that the target users for these have almost completely vanished. Even most builtin Windows apps these days are single window square boxes with a webpage inside. There is a reason Qt the company was trying like crazy to target the "single window, no widgets, 3D graphics" market.

bmitc 4y ago
I don't think they're gone. What I meant by "gap left" is that they are not very good, in that they are extremely complex. And I don't buy the argument that the market is gone. Everything we interact with on the computer is through a desktop app. The fact that so many apps are written in Electron tells us two things: (1) many people still need to write desktop apps, (2) there is no good cross-platform framework to do so.
- pessimizer 4y ago
  Electron is extremely complex too, seeing as it embeds a webview.
  - bmitc 4y ago
    I absolutely agree with that, and that's why I don't want to use it either. Flutter is intriguing, but it uses Dart, something I'm not interested in.
- indymike 4y ago
  > (2) there is no good cross-platform framework to do so. Chrome and Firefox are pretty good cross-platform frameworks. They are so good than the OS vendors keep coming out with workalikes like Edge and Safari (and by the way, both are really good). As a software publisher I love it because if it works in Chrome and Firefox, I mostly don't have to even care if you have a Mac, PC, smartphone, or something completely different. You go to my URL, and there it is. Stuff like PWAs and Electron are great, too, because I can make it easier for users to get into my app - just launch the application. No more two step, launch browser, type in URL or click on bookmark.
  - bmitc 4y ago
    Good cross-platform frameworks for what? For web app development, you need, at a minimum, three separate programming languages but typically more, a host server, and a desktop app to render your app. That is not a "good" framework, in my opinion. And the number one thing support people ask is "have you tried it in Chrome?". Isn't that weird thing to ask? "Can you use another desktop app to verify that my app is working or not?" Web and mobile apps do not support the types of apps and functionality that I am interested in. That's fine that people are happy enough with web and mobile app development. That's also why I do not care to even address those scenarios, not to mention that they are completely different from desktop apps.

bmitc 4y ago

I don't think they're gone. What I meant by "gap left" is that they are not very good, in that they are extremely complex. And I don't buy the argument that the market is gone. Everything we interact with on the computer is through a desktop app. The fact that so many apps are written in Electron tells us two things: (1) many people still need to write desktop apps, (2) there is no good cross-platform framework to do so.

pessimizer 4y ago
Electron is extremely complex too, seeing as it embeds a webview.
- bmitc 4y ago
  I absolutely agree with that, and that's why I don't want to use it either. Flutter is intriguing, but it uses Dart, something I'm not interested in.
indymike 4y ago
> (2) there is no good cross-platform framework to do so. Chrome and Firefox are pretty good cross-platform frameworks. They are so good than the OS vendors keep coming out with workalikes like Edge and Safari (and by the way, both are really good). As a software publisher I love it because if it works in Chrome and Firefox, I mostly don't have to even care if you have a Mac, PC, smartphone, or something completely different. You go to my URL, and there it is. Stuff like PWAs and Electron are great, too, because I can make it easier for users to get into my app - just launch the application. No more two step, launch browser, type in URL or click on bookmark.
- bmitc 4y ago
  Good cross-platform frameworks for what? For web app development, you need, at a minimum, three separate programming languages but typically more, a host server, and a desktop app to render your app. That is not a "good" framework, in my opinion. And the number one thing support people ask is "have you tried it in Chrome?". Isn't that weird thing to ask? "Can you use another desktop app to verify that my app is working or not?" Web and mobile apps do not support the types of apps and functionality that I am interested in. That's fine that people are happy enough with web and mobile app development. That's also why I do not care to even address those scenarios, not to mention that they are completely different from desktop apps.