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We have good cross-platform desktop UI solutions: Java Swing/JavaFX, C++ GTK/Qt/wxWidgets, Rust egui/iced/Slint, and of course HTML/CSS/JS Electron/Sciter. The

We have good cross-platform desktop UI solutions: Java Swing/JavaFX, C++ GTK/Qt/wxWidgets, Rust egui/iced/Slint, and of course HTML/CSS/JS Electron/Sciter. The problem is that cross-platform UI will never look as well as native UI because it’s not native UI: control sizes are different, colors and elements don’t blend the same way, and some things (like menu bars) are completely different in mac, Windows, and Linux. It’s not a slowness issue (if your UI isn’t responsive on today’s computers, you’re doing something very wrong), it’s not a usability issue, it’s not even an appearance issue (even Java UI can be made to look OK fairly easily in embedded systems). It’s an “I’m accustomed to native UIs and everything else is native UI, so any non-native UI looks out of place” issue.

tsimionescu 3y ago
If that were the problem, then Electron wouldn't help in any way either. In fact, Electron is even less interested in platform conventions than something like Swing. There isn't even default styling that tries to copy MacOS/Windows that you can apply. The bigger problem is actually desktop-mobile compatibility today. No one writes apps only for Windows and MacOS. You want an app that works on iOS, Android, Windows and MacOS, and typically on the web as well so people can occasionally access it from an unfamiliar computer. So, the only viable option unless you want to have 4 dedicated UI teams or so is to write it in the lowest common denominator of HTML/CSS/JS, and use Electron and WebView to distribute it. To a very good approximation, no one whatsoever cares about platform look and feel. In fact, most people actively prefer if they're using an app for it to have the same look and feel across all systems where they use it, including the web.
mbirth 3y ago
This! I hate when an app's GUI is following Windows-principles (if at all) and the macOS version is basically the same with a macOS theme slapped on top of it. About 10 years ago I've experimented with an early version of appcelerator Titanium for mobile app development. It was JavaScript but GUI rendering was transcoded to either Android-Java or Apple-ObjectiveC and the respective code was compiled natively (while running your main code via a JavaScript engine). With a bit of if-then-else you could make one app that compiled for both platforms and looked and felt native on both.

tsimionescu 3y ago

If that were the problem, then Electron wouldn't help in any way either. In fact, Electron is even less interested in platform conventions than something like Swing. There isn't even default styling that tries to copy MacOS/Windows that you can apply. The bigger problem is actually desktop-mobile compatibility today. No one writes apps only for Windows and MacOS. You want an app that works on iOS, Android, Windows and MacOS, and typically on the web as well so people can occasionally access it from an unfamiliar computer. So, the only viable option unless you want to have 4 dedicated UI teams or so is to write it in the lowest common denominator of HTML/CSS/JS, and use Electron and WebView to distribute it. To a very good approximation, no one whatsoever cares about platform look and feel. In fact, most people actively prefer if they're using an app for it to have the same look and feel across all systems where they use it, including the web.

mbirth 3y ago

This! I hate when an app's GUI is following Windows-principles (if at all) and the macOS version is basically the same with a macOS theme slapped on top of it. About 10 years ago I've experimented with an early version of appcelerator Titanium for mobile app development. It was JavaScript but GUI rendering was transcoded to either Android-Java or Apple-ObjectiveC and the respective code was compiled natively (while running your main code via a JavaScript engine). With a bit of if-then-else you could make one app that compiled for both platforms and looked and felt native on both.