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This is another common excuse. You don't need to use microsoft's or apple's or google's shit UI frameworks. E.g. see https://filepilot.tech/ https://filepilot.
by OlympicMarmoto 8mo ago
This is another common excuse.
You don't need to use microsoft's or apple's or google's shit UI frameworks. E.g. see https://filepilot.tech/ https://filepilot.tech/
You can just write all the rendering yourself using metal/gl/dx. if you didn't want to write the rendering yourself there are plenty of libraries like skia, flutter's renderer, nanovg, etc
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- incr_me 8mo agoHow is File Pilot for accessibility and for all of the little niceties like native scrolling, clipboard interaction, drag and drop, and so on? My impression is that the creator is has expertly focused on most/all of these details, but I don't have Windows to test. I insist on good UI as well, and, as a web developer, have spent many hours hand rolling web components that use <canvas>. The most complicated one is a spreadsheet/data grid component that can handle millions of rows, basically a reproduction of Google Sheets tailored to my app's needs. I insist on not bloating the front-end package with a whole graph of dependencies. I enjoy my NIH syndrome. So I know quality when I see it (File Pilot). But I also know how tedious reinventing the wheel is, and there are certain corners that I regularly cut. For example there's no way a blind user could use my spreadsheet-based web app (https://github.com/glideapps/glide-data-grid https://github.com/glideapps/glide-data-grid is better than me in this aspect, but there's no way I'm bringing in a million dependencies just to use someone else's attempt to reinvent the wheel and get stuck with all of their compromises). The answer to your original question about why these billion dollar companies don't create artisanal software is pretty straightforward and bleak, I imagine. But there are a few actually good reasons not to take the artisanal path.
- w00ds 8mo agoFile pilot is extremely good in my experience, literally the only issue is it doesn't display the sync status on icons in a Dropbox folder.
- jarek-foksa 8mo agoCustomers simply don't care. I don't recall a single complain about RAM or disk usage of my Electron-based app to be reported in the past 10 years. You will be outcompeted if you waste your time reinventing the wheel and optimizing for stuff that doesn't matter. There is some market for highly optimized apps like e.g. Sublime Text, but you can clearly see that the companies behind them are struggling.
- cpuguy83 8mo agoNot seeing complaints doesn't mean they don't exist. Not to mention ui latency that is common in electron apps that is just a low-level constant annoyance.
- adastra22 8mo agoI have complained about literally every Electron based app I have ever used. How would you know there are no complaints?
- inquirerGeneral 8mo ago[dead]
- oblio 8mo agoThere are complaints and then users keep using these super popular and bloated apps. Techies make it seem like bloat is a capital sin but it isn't.
- adastra22 8mo agoWhen given the option, I never use such apps. I am rarely given the option, however.
- oblio 8mo agoQ.e.d. He who holds the purse strings, decides. The people who pay to have the apps made get to decide and they have decided that what geeks want doesn't matter. And every time a geek tries to change that, he only wins for a short while and then we're back to the primordial soup. Oh, and regular users obviously don't care enough.
- embedding-shape 8mo ago> You don't need to use microsoft's or apple's or google's shit UI frameworks. E.g. see https://filepilot.tech/ https://filepilot.tech/ That's only for Windows though, it seems? Maybe the whole "just write all the rendering yourself using metal/gl/dx" is slightly harder than you think.
- OlympicMarmoto 8mo agoThe proof that rendering is not _that_ hard because the flutter team did it when they switched off skia (although technically they still use skia for text rendering, I'll admit that text rendering and layout is hard)
- mstipetic 8mo agoHow is a fact that someone did something proof that it isn’t hard?
- bandrami 8mo agoI mean, every cross-platform commercial DAW manages to do it? Bitwig, Renoise, Reaper, even VCV.
- embedding-shape 8mo ago[delayed]
- browningstreet 8mo agoThey’re all iterating products really fast. This Codex is already different than the last Codex app. This is all disposable software until the landscape settles.
- namelosw 8mo agoIt's essentially asking application developers to wipe ass for OS developers like Microsoft. It's applaudible when you do it, understandable when you don't. Even though OpenAI has a lot of cash to burn, they're not in a good position now and getting butchered by Anthropic and possibly Gemini later. If any major player in this AI field has the power to do it's probably Google. But again, they've done the Flutter part, and the result is somewhat mixed. At the end of the day, it's only HN people and a fraction of Redditors who care. Electron is tolerated by the silent majority. Nice native or local-first alternatives are often separate, niche value propositions when developers can squeeze themselves in over-saturated markets. There's a long way before the AI stuff loses novelty and becomes saturated.
- josephg 8mo agoI'd love to see some opensource projects actually do a good job of this. Its a lot of work, especially if you want: - Good cross platform support (missing in filepilot) - Want applications to feel native everywhere. For example, all the obscure keyboard shortcuts for moving around a text input box on mac and windows should work. iOS and Android should use their native keyboards. IME needs to work. Etc - Accessibility support for people who are blind and low vision. (Screen readers, font scaling, etc) - Ergonomic language bindings Hitting these features is more or less a requirement if you want to unseat electron. I think this would be a wonderful project for a person or a small, dedicated team to take on. Its easier than it ever used to be thanks to improvements in font rendering, cross platform graphics libraries (like webgpu, vulcan, etc) and improvements in layout engines (Clay). And how much users have dropped their standards for UI consistency ever since electron got popular and microsoft gave up having a consistent UI toolkit in windows. There are a few examples of teams doing this in house (eg Zed). But we need a good opensource project.
- Macha 8mo ago“Render yourself with GPU APIs” has all the same problems with a11y, compatibility, inconsistent behaviour that electron has - the only one it might fix is performance and plenty of apps have messed that one up too
- anaisbetts 8mo agoThat'll work great until your first customer from a CJK or RTL language writes in, "Hey, how come I can't type in your app?", or the blind user writes in "Hey how come your app is completely blank?" then you'll be right in the middle of the "Find Out" phase These strategies are fine for toy apps but you cannot ship a production app to millions or even thousands of people without these basics.