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I like Tauri and the fact that it's written in Rust, but I do wonder just how tiny these apps are when it's still using webviews, even if they're system webview

I like Tauri and the fact that it's written in Rust, but I do wonder just how tiny these apps are when it's still using webviews, even if they're system webviews and not Chrome instances like Electron. I would have liked to see something more akin to a native rendering framework like Flutter (native as in bare metal, non webviews, not native as in native OS elements). However, it does seem quite hard to do if there's not a dedicated team just for developing such a GUI framework. raphlinus [0] has some great knowledge about this that I've read from his blog posts, such as his most recent one, Advice for the next dozen Rust GUIs [2]. In my opinion, the Flutter-like approach is the way to go if you want to get good performance without webviews, have a consistent user experience across platforms, and be able to write once and deploy everywhere. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=raphlinus https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=raphlinus [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31297653 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31297653 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32112846 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32112846

iainmerrick 4y ago
The “bare metal” approach (which in practice would be something like GL, right?) is good for games, but is it good for apps? Ideally you want something that uses the host’s UI conventions, works correctly with keyboard shortcuts, uses accessibility APIs, can drag-and-drop with other apps, etc. Using a DOM UI will get you a lot of that without too much effort. Using a WebGL UI won’t.
- cercatrova 4y ago
  I'd say it is good for apps, as long as the framework developer also adds those things you mentioned into the framework. Flutter currently has decent shortcuts and accessibility. Of course, if they don't add these in, then yes it will be worse than a DOM UI, if only because the DOM has been engineered over the past few decades to add these features in natively.
  - iainmerrick 4y ago
    I didn’t know that about Flutter! What’s a good example of a desktop app built using their framework?
PhantomBKB 4y ago
I also like flutter compared to one of these webview solutions. There are good alternatives in other languages like Go (https://gioui.org/ https://gioui.org/)
pvinis 4y ago
there must be a react renderer for flutter, right? or someone should make it!

iainmerrick 4y ago

The “bare metal” approach (which in practice would be something like GL, right?) is good for games, but is it good for apps? Ideally you want something that uses the host’s UI conventions, works correctly with keyboard shortcuts, uses accessibility APIs, can drag-and-drop with other apps, etc. Using a DOM UI will get you a lot of that without too much effort. Using a WebGL UI won’t.

cercatrova 4y ago
I'd say it is good for apps, as long as the framework developer also adds those things you mentioned into the framework. Flutter currently has decent shortcuts and accessibility. Of course, if they don't add these in, then yes it will be worse than a DOM UI, if only because the DOM has been engineered over the past few decades to add these features in natively.
- iainmerrick 4y ago
  I didn’t know that about Flutter! What’s a good example of a desktop app built using their framework?

PhantomBKB 4y ago

I also like flutter compared to one of these webview solutions. There are good alternatives in other languages like Go (https://gioui.org/ https://gioui.org/)

pvinis 4y ago

there must be a react renderer for flutter, right? or someone should make it!