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With regards to various applications, the question seems it is not if Electron is fit for them, but if they really need to be a "native application". Why does a

With regards to various applications, the question seems it is not if Electron is fit for them, but if they really need to be a "native application". Why does a chat application need to have it's own native package and can't run in a browser tab? With all the recent development on WebRTC and even File System Access API, can't really find a sole reason* (but feel free to point them out) for 99% of Electron applications: seems some kind of developer ego "we are not just a[nother] web app, we are native". * Looking at an arbitrary article, "Why does Slack desktop app use Electron?" [1], the answer seems mostly aesthetics, "faster performance [citation needed] and the frameless look". [1] https://brainhub.eu/library/electron-app-examples#:~:text=Why%20does%20Slack%20desktop%20app%20use%20Electron%3F https://brainhub.eu/library/electron-app-examples#:~:text=Wh...

klabb3 4y ago
When you start building an app that does anything more than what a typical website does – basic stuff like keeping some persistent files, drag and drop, notifications, minimize to tray, using threads, the html5 apis are widely insufficient, performs poorly or – in the case of webrtc – massively over-complicated). They’re (rightfully) designed for the browser with its ephemeral untrusted model. It’s a shame, because cross platform app building, distribution and updates is a shitshow, even with electron, putting extra labor on the developers, so neither party is happy. That said, some apps should really be web apps, but are still bundled as desktop apps purely for the frameless “premium” experience, and I assume to not be lost among 100s of tabs. It would be great if there was better browser support for allowing users to “install” web apps, but right now the support for that is pretty poor in terms of UX.

klabb3 4y ago

When you start building an app that does anything more than what a typical website does – basic stuff like keeping some persistent files, drag and drop, notifications, minimize to tray, using threads, the html5 apis are widely insufficient, performs poorly or – in the case of webrtc – massively over-complicated). They’re (rightfully) designed for the browser with its ephemeral untrusted model. It’s a shame, because cross platform app building, distribution and updates is a shitshow, even with electron, putting extra labor on the developers, so neither party is happy. That said, some apps should really be web apps, but are still bundled as desktop apps purely for the frameless “premium” experience, and I assume to not be lost among 100s of tabs. It would be great if there was better browser support for allowing users to “install” web apps, but right now the support for that is pretty poor in terms of UX.