4 ms·

Emacs comes to mind: it has a codebase stretching back to the 1970s and is still actively developed, with a dedicated following of users (myself included).

slightwinder 3y ago
Emacs is not really the classical desktop-app. It's a terminal-app that just happened to also have a GUI.
- nequo 3y ago
  I think most people use it with the GUI, and the GUI version has features that the terminal-only version doesn't.
  - slightwinder 3y ago
    I also use the GUI, because of additional keys supported by it. But like most(?) people, I've deactivated the GUI-elements, as they are pretty useless. But ok, I guess it could be called a desktop-app because of this.
    - nequo 3y ago
      I also routinely rely on the GUI version’s ability to display images inlined in the buffer. It is true that it doesn’t have the UX of other, newer GUIs, but it is still meaningfully different from the terminal version.
      - slightwinder 3y ago
        Well, technically, this depends on the environment and is also working in proper terminal. But all the proper terminals are AFAIK GUI-terminals, so it's a thin line I guess.
- 0atman 3y ago
  Or perhaps an operating system just missing a good text editor ;-) (to be clear, I love emacs, and use spacemacs as my distro!)
- arghwhat 3y ago
  I consider any user-facing application that presents its own interface and that a user runs on their own computer a desktop-app. Whether the UI gets rounded corners, animations and smooth scrolling is not important, and neither is whether your UI elements are submitted for display through an Wayland/X11 socket or through command sequences over stdout.
  - slightwinder 3y ago
    By that logic, any android or iOS-app would be also a desktop-application. As also any DOS-App and anything with curse-interface. What about interactive commandline-apps? Like a database-shell? They also have their own interface, it's just made of text.
    - arghwhat 3y ago
      Any DOS app with a curses interface is a desktop application, yes. Any terminal tool with a TUI is a desktop application. A command-line tool without an interface (just arguments and pipes) is not, because it does not aim to be interactive. A terminal tool that just asks questions is a bad desktop applications, but simple form apps exist in the GUI world too. All UIs are made of text and symbolic visual elements. Whether you draw your button with unicode block characters, a GtkButton, a Flutter TextButton, or a HTML <button> does not matter in the slightest from the perspective of being a desktop app or having a UI. The reason an Android an iOS app is not a desktop app is because it does not run on a desktop. A minor distinction, but the way we use our pocket computers is different from how we use our desk computers and so we distinguish between them. The line gets beautifully blurred once you run the iOS app on macOS or Android app on Windows 11, but humans are bad at categorizing things in ways that remain consistent for more than a few years - just ask any biologist.
      - slightwinder 3y ago
        > Any DOS app with a curses interface is a desktop application, yes. Any terminal tool with a TUI is a desktop application. A command-line tool without an interface (just arguments and pipes) is not, because it does not aim to be interactive. A terminal tool that just asks questions is a bad desktop applications, but simple form apps exist in the GUI world too. Ok, fair, but a very unusual definition. > All UIs are made of text and symbolic visual elements. Whether you draw your button with unicode block characters, a GtkButton, a Flutter TextButton, or a HTML <button> does not matter in the slightest from the perspective of being a desktop app or having a UI. But it does matter for a _G_UI whether you have actual graphical elements, or just text. There is a significant differences in ability coming with those. > The reason an Android an iOS app is not a desktop app is because it does not run on a desktop. A minor distinction, but the way we use our pocket computers is different from how we use our desk computers and so we distinguish between them. Android and iOS do not run only on smartphones. People working on tablets, use them similar to the normal laptop/notebook/PC table-setup. Taking a classical PC-Desktop as the base of your definition falls apart very fast today. > humans are bad at categorizing things in ways that remain consistent for more than a few years - just ask any biologist. The established definition of desktop, mobile, gui, tui and commandline is pretty consistent for some decades now I would say.
- dumpsterlid 3y ago
  [dead]
- anthk 3y ago
  Emacs by default can show images. With Exwm can be your window manager. With EMMS, your audio and video player. With doc-view and even more, with PDF-tools, your document viewer. With Org-Mode, your brain on stereoids. With ERC, your IRC client. With Telega, your Telegram client. With Malyon, your Z-Machine interpreter. With M-x Calc and Gnuplot, your CAS lite. With Maxima and Texlive, your medium CAS with inline equation output and plotting.

slightwinder 3y ago

Emacs is not really the classical desktop-app. It's a terminal-app that just happened to also have a GUI.

nequo 3y ago
I think most people use it with the GUI, and the GUI version has features that the terminal-only version doesn't.
- slightwinder 3y ago
  I also use the GUI, because of additional keys supported by it. But like most(?) people, I've deactivated the GUI-elements, as they are pretty useless. But ok, I guess it could be called a desktop-app because of this.
  - nequo 3y ago
    I also routinely rely on the GUI version’s ability to display images inlined in the buffer. It is true that it doesn’t have the UX of other, newer GUIs, but it is still meaningfully different from the terminal version.
    - slightwinder 3y ago
      Well, technically, this depends on the environment and is also working in proper terminal. But all the proper terminals are AFAIK GUI-terminals, so it's a thin line I guess.
0atman 3y ago
Or perhaps an operating system just missing a good text editor ;-) (to be clear, I love emacs, and use spacemacs as my distro!)
arghwhat 3y ago
I consider any user-facing application that presents its own interface and that a user runs on their own computer a desktop-app. Whether the UI gets rounded corners, animations and smooth scrolling is not important, and neither is whether your UI elements are submitted for display through an Wayland/X11 socket or through command sequences over stdout.
- slightwinder 3y ago
  By that logic, any android or iOS-app would be also a desktop-application. As also any DOS-App and anything with curse-interface. What about interactive commandline-apps? Like a database-shell? They also have their own interface, it's just made of text.
  - arghwhat 3y ago
    Any DOS app with a curses interface is a desktop application, yes. Any terminal tool with a TUI is a desktop application. A command-line tool without an interface (just arguments and pipes) is not, because it does not aim to be interactive. A terminal tool that just asks questions is a bad desktop applications, but simple form apps exist in the GUI world too. All UIs are made of text and symbolic visual elements. Whether you draw your button with unicode block characters, a GtkButton, a Flutter TextButton, or a HTML <button> does not matter in the slightest from the perspective of being a desktop app or having a UI. The reason an Android an iOS app is not a desktop app is because it does not run on a desktop. A minor distinction, but the way we use our pocket computers is different from how we use our desk computers and so we distinguish between them. The line gets beautifully blurred once you run the iOS app on macOS or Android app on Windows 11, but humans are bad at categorizing things in ways that remain consistent for more than a few years - just ask any biologist.
    - slightwinder 3y ago
      > Any DOS app with a curses interface is a desktop application, yes. Any terminal tool with a TUI is a desktop application. A command-line tool without an interface (just arguments and pipes) is not, because it does not aim to be interactive. A terminal tool that just asks questions is a bad desktop applications, but simple form apps exist in the GUI world too. Ok, fair, but a very unusual definition. > All UIs are made of text and symbolic visual elements. Whether you draw your button with unicode block characters, a GtkButton, a Flutter TextButton, or a HTML <button> does not matter in the slightest from the perspective of being a desktop app or having a UI. But it does matter for a _G_UI whether you have actual graphical elements, or just text. There is a significant differences in ability coming with those. > The reason an Android an iOS app is not a desktop app is because it does not run on a desktop. A minor distinction, but the way we use our pocket computers is different from how we use our desk computers and so we distinguish between them. Android and iOS do not run only on smartphones. People working on tablets, use them similar to the normal laptop/notebook/PC table-setup. Taking a classical PC-Desktop as the base of your definition falls apart very fast today. > humans are bad at categorizing things in ways that remain consistent for more than a few years - just ask any biologist. The established definition of desktop, mobile, gui, tui and commandline is pretty consistent for some decades now I would say.
dumpsterlid 3y ago
[dead]
anthk 3y ago
Emacs by default can show images. With Exwm can be your window manager. With EMMS, your audio and video player. With doc-view and even more, with PDF-tools, your document viewer. With Org-Mode, your brain on stereoids. With ERC, your IRC client. With Telega, your Telegram client. With Malyon, your Z-Machine interpreter. With M-x Calc and Gnuplot, your CAS lite. With Maxima and Texlive, your medium CAS with inline equation output and plotting.