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> that's my editorializing; all apps SHOULD be web apps Jesus god, no. I like having excellent accessibility features that actually work and not seeing my batt

> that's my editorializing; all apps SHOULD be web apps Jesus god, no. I like having excellent accessibility features that actually work and not seeing my battery get mugged and left for dead.

johnzim 3y ago
Also people massively underestimate how great the graphics libraries provided by Apple are. The thought of doing a lot of this stuff in WebTech gives me heartburn. Like our main compositing tool on the web - Canvas is basically Quartz, which I love for that reason but there's a _huge_ amount of power that you get from native Toolkits that have been developed in the intervening years.
- hotnfresh 3y ago
  I legit think a lot of Web UI fans have just never, ever done serious work in any of several half-decent-or-better native UI toolkit w/ supporting libraries. If they had, they’d riot. Such an incredible amount of wasted person-hours, both for the people doing the work and the poor folks stuck using the resulting jank-fest.
  - catapart 3y ago
    I'm actually a big fan of ImGui (via DearImGui, at least) for immediate mode stuff. I can also appreciate Qt for what it's good at. As far as experimental stuff, I'm a very big fan of Makepad's 3D rendering context even for forms. Coming from a games background, I prefer the shader model to most other UI implementations. Especially vector based drawing; that stuff is so much harder to deal with. I'm very happy with what I can achieve in CSS, these days, but it's just a million times easier to do any of it with a some planes and a shader. Give me beziers and pixels over box models and anchors any day.
- gochi 3y ago
  A lot of this stuff is super easy in webtech, no idea why it gives you heartburn, maybe you're just more used to the native toolkits (or Swift in general)?
catapart 3y ago
Yeah, I understand this reaction, but I feel like maybe you're limiting your scope of web app to "browser ui, native-library-consuming application". What I'm actually talking about is the WASI and wasm projects and the even more general idea of a compilation and/or execution of machine code for a specific CPU/OS/environment based on contracts within the system interface and the wasm binaries. I know there aren't a lot of public examples of any of that, right now, so it's hard to be inclusive of that kind of thing when considering 'web apps'. Maybe I'm premature in being so loose with the term. But I do think this stuff is closer than a lot of people realize.
- brundolf 3y ago
  I'm a big supporter of web apps, but even I'm skeptical you could make a cross-platform app that's as tight and physical as Procreate. Much less would I call it "problematic" that the devs decided not to (which implies they violated some kind of moral obligation)
  - catapart 3y ago
    Right on. Different strokes for different folks! I was only speaking to what I find problematic or less than optimal. My personal experience with browser pointer APIs, native pointer interfacing through libusb (a subset) via wasm, the WebGPU api's vulkan-like structure, and custom drawing solutions in wasm all lead me to believe that a drawing app could be entirely performant and responsive to input. I don't hold anyone to any moral obligation; I just speak freely about what I find unsavory. I want applications delivered to me through a url, negotiating with my environment for permissions based on what I allow, and performing for me with native capabilities, including performance, integration, and offline functionality. Return on investment notwithstanding, it's often possible to achieve these goals with modern technology. It's not always, and there are cases where we absolutely should not prioritize these things. Outliers highlighting the example and whatnot. But, all of that aside, I made a specific point to say that even if my apparently sky-high standards are not satisfied, the product is still great. I don't feel like I was being negative. I'm not sure why that implies a moral issue, to you, but I'm sorry for being unclear!

> that's my editorializing; all apps SHOULD be web apps Jesus god, no. I like having excellent accessibility features that actually work and not seeing my battery get mugged and left for dead.

johnzim 3y ago

Also people massively underestimate how great the graphics libraries provided by Apple are. The thought of doing a lot of this stuff in WebTech gives me heartburn. Like our main compositing tool on the web - Canvas is basically Quartz, which I love for that reason but there's a _huge_ amount of power that you get from native Toolkits that have been developed in the intervening years.

hotnfresh 3y ago
I legit think a lot of Web UI fans have just never, ever done serious work in any of several half-decent-or-better native UI toolkit w/ supporting libraries. If they had, they’d riot. Such an incredible amount of wasted person-hours, both for the people doing the work and the poor folks stuck using the resulting jank-fest.
- catapart 3y ago
  I'm actually a big fan of ImGui (via DearImGui, at least) for immediate mode stuff. I can also appreciate Qt for what it's good at. As far as experimental stuff, I'm a very big fan of Makepad's 3D rendering context even for forms. Coming from a games background, I prefer the shader model to most other UI implementations. Especially vector based drawing; that stuff is so much harder to deal with. I'm very happy with what I can achieve in CSS, these days, but it's just a million times easier to do any of it with a some planes and a shader. Give me beziers and pixels over box models and anchors any day.
gochi 3y ago
A lot of this stuff is super easy in webtech, no idea why it gives you heartburn, maybe you're just more used to the native toolkits (or Swift in general)?

catapart 3y ago

Yeah, I understand this reaction, but I feel like maybe you're limiting your scope of web app to "browser ui, native-library-consuming application". What I'm actually talking about is the WASI and wasm projects and the even more general idea of a compilation and/or execution of machine code for a specific CPU/OS/environment based on contracts within the system interface and the wasm binaries. I know there aren't a lot of public examples of any of that, right now, so it's hard to be inclusive of that kind of thing when considering 'web apps'. Maybe I'm premature in being so loose with the term. But I do think this stuff is closer than a lot of people realize.

brundolf 3y ago
I'm a big supporter of web apps, but even I'm skeptical you could make a cross-platform app that's as tight and physical as Procreate. Much less would I call it "problematic" that the devs decided not to (which implies they violated some kind of moral obligation)
- catapart 3y ago
  Right on. Different strokes for different folks! I was only speaking to what I find problematic or less than optimal. My personal experience with browser pointer APIs, native pointer interfacing through libusb (a subset) via wasm, the WebGPU api's vulkan-like structure, and custom drawing solutions in wasm all lead me to believe that a drawing app could be entirely performant and responsive to input. I don't hold anyone to any moral obligation; I just speak freely about what I find unsavory. I want applications delivered to me through a url, negotiating with my environment for permissions based on what I allow, and performing for me with native capabilities, including performance, integration, and offline functionality. Return on investment notwithstanding, it's often possible to achieve these goals with modern technology. It's not always, and there are cases where we absolutely should not prioritize these things. Outliers highlighting the example and whatnot. But, all of that aside, I made a specific point to say that even if my apparently sky-high standards are not satisfied, the product is still great. I don't feel like I was being negative. I'm not sure why that implies a moral issue, to you, but I'm sorry for being unclear!