7 ms·

In 2023 it seems like no one wants to use anything other than JS and CSS to build a native desktop application. I would be interested in seeing a desktop enviro

In 2023 it seems like no one wants to use anything other than JS and CSS to build a native desktop application. I would be interested in seeing a desktop environment that just cuts to the chase and makes the entire desktop a web view so that developers don’t need to package things into extra layers. Weren’t there a few failed mobile OSes that tried this in the early 2010s?

rektide 3y ago
Palm Pre's webOS (2009) is the most famous. After an acquisition by HP (2010-2013), it was acquired by LG's (with patents going to Qualcomm). The only other major entrant, Firefox, was short lived (2014-2015). Chrome OS (2011-) only sort of counts; I don't think the OS chrome is using Chrome, just the same underlying drawing libraries, but it does run webapps. Before that was a neat Linux project Pyrodesktop (2007) which was an x11 window manager using Firefox guts to render. There was also a trend of trying to mate Javascript technologies to gnome back then, with efforts like gjs seeing some adoption. I don't know how popular it is, but a spinoff of css was/is used for styling in GNOME for a while. These days there's tons of web desktop projects. https://github.com/syxanash/awesome-web-desktops https://github.com/syxanash/awesome-web-desktops . Only sort of in the spirit but i quite adore Greenfield, an html5 Wayland desktop/compositor. https://github.com/udevbe/greenfield https://github.com/udevbe/greenfield I absolutely think there is all-in potential for the web. I think we're missing a visible rallying point, where a stronger community of app makers can cooperatively advance beyond-the-web capabilities. Project Fugu & WICG help a lot but are also working with Safari (and sort of Firefox) handcuffed to them.
- johnny22 3y ago
  css is still used in gtk (but a very minimal version) and javascript is used to write gnome extensions.
hundchenkatze 3y ago
There were a couple posted on HN recently. Capyloon https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36262627 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36262627 Kera https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36260589 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36260589
mike_hearn 3y ago
That's ChromeOS. You may be thinking of Palm webOS which failed in the market, partly because it felt slower than Android, iirc.
happymellon 3y ago
You want Active Desktop? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_Desktop https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_Desktop

rektide 3y ago

Palm Pre's webOS (2009) is the most famous. After an acquisition by HP (2010-2013), it was acquired by LG's (with patents going to Qualcomm). The only other major entrant, Firefox, was short lived (2014-2015). Chrome OS (2011-) only sort of counts; I don't think the OS chrome is using Chrome, just the same underlying drawing libraries, but it does run webapps. Before that was a neat Linux project Pyrodesktop (2007) which was an x11 window manager using Firefox guts to render. There was also a trend of trying to mate Javascript technologies to gnome back then, with efforts like gjs seeing some adoption. I don't know how popular it is, but a spinoff of css was/is used for styling in GNOME for a while. These days there's tons of web desktop projects. https://github.com/syxanash/awesome-web-desktops https://github.com/syxanash/awesome-web-desktops . Only sort of in the spirit but i quite adore Greenfield, an html5 Wayland desktop/compositor. https://github.com/udevbe/greenfield https://github.com/udevbe/greenfield I absolutely think there is all-in potential for the web. I think we're missing a visible rallying point, where a stronger community of app makers can cooperatively advance beyond-the-web capabilities. Project Fugu & WICG help a lot but are also working with Safari (and sort of Firefox) handcuffed to them.

johnny22 3y ago
css is still used in gtk (but a very minimal version) and javascript is used to write gnome extensions.

hundchenkatze 3y ago

There were a couple posted on HN recently. Capyloon https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36262627 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36262627 Kera https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36260589 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36260589

mike_hearn 3y ago

That's ChromeOS. You may be thinking of Palm webOS which failed in the market, partly because it felt slower than Android, iirc.

happymellon 3y ago

You want Active Desktop? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_Desktop https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_Desktop