5 ms·

> that has nothing to do with React and Electron Not only that, but I think that Electron leads to the opposite problem: all apps look and behave differently,

by reddalo 6mo ago

> that has nothing to do with React and Electron Not only that, but I think that Electron leads to the opposite problem: all apps look and behave differently, they don't follow platform guidelines, they look out of place.

shooly 6mo ago
> they don't follow platform guidelines Do platforms even follow their own guidelines? And if they do, are those guidelines good? Microsoft doesn't seem to care about UI/UX at all, Apple's UI/UX quality gets worse each year, and Linux is all over the place with each distro doing its own thing. What guidelines are those apps supposed to follow? Looking at the current state of things, I think it's good that apps tend to do whatever they think is best for their use case. Also, most people don't switch between 100 different apps all the time.
1313ed01 6mo ago
I never had a problem with that. I want a specific application to behave the same no matter where I run it. I do not want my muscle memory for how to use an application to be confused by an application not looking or behaving the way I am used to when moving to a different platform. Of course all the applications bundled with a specific OS should be designed to work the same and work well together. It still makes sense to have guidelines and standard widgets in a system. But I prefer very much any third-party multi-platform app to be identical everywhere I run it. Not to defend Electron. There are many native frameworks that work the way I prefer, looking the same across platforms.
- PaulHoule 6mo ago
  I use probably 70% Windows, 20% iPad, 5% Meta Quest 3 [1], and 5% MacOS -- for the latter though it is mostly "test that something works on MacOS" and "tech support for the computer the family uses". I like web-based applications that behave the same everywhere. Personally I feel the MacOS widget set is a touch old fashioned, a little ugly and gauche. I can see though why somebody might like the MacOS terminal better than CMD.EXE. The dominant theme on Windows is that Windows has several widget sets that aren't consistent but the average user doesn't notice or care -- probably the worst area is the settings dialogs which seem to be mostly migrated to a Metro-based design lately. I was afraid before they wouldn't finish that migration before they churned to another framework but I think they've stopped the churn. The best windows applications, in my mind, steal from web technology -- like they are either using some kind of HTML-based UI or they are made by people who grew up making web applications and reproduce those patterns w/ the desktop widget sets. [1] I've got some web applications I wrote that run perfectly on the MQ3, especially after I got target sizes up to WCAG AAA level and it is fun to put the headset on and crash out on the couch and get things done
  - cindyllm 6mo ago
    [dead]
  - spookie 6mo ago
    > I've got some web applications I wrote that run perfectly on the MQ3, especially after I got target sizes up to WCAG AAA level and it is fun to put the headset on and crash out on the couch and get things done One way to have better text in VR for 2D content is to make use of OpenXR composition layers: https://developers.meta.com/horizon/documentation/unreal/os-compositor-layers/ https://developers.meta.com/horizon/documentation/unreal/os-... Don't worry, not Unreal specific. Hope it helps you out!
  - NetMageSCW 6mo ago
    Web applications are the reason personal computers are a failure today.
- dpark 6mo ago
  > But I prefer very much any third-party multi-platform app to be identical everywhere I run it. Apps that disregard platform standard behaviors are poorly-written apps. Whether they happen to be cross-platform or not is irrelevant.
- NetMageSCW 6mo ago
  I hate applications that don’t feel native to their OS, and the common solutions for looking the same across platforms (Java and Electron) fail at being good on every platform. Their attempts to replicate native functionality results in Java applications that can’t reliably resize columns or sort tables or accept focus when a dialog is open or a dozen other annoying failures I’ve seen, while looking they were imported from a failed OS that never succeeded for good reason. Electron results (and Microsoft’s work alike) results in slow bloated applications that can’t handle focus either, or flip from screen to screen properly, or even be discoverable because there controls aren’t anything real native applications use.
dspillett 6mo ago
> they don't follow platform guidelines I don't think platform guidelines that anyone listens to have been a real thing for a long time. Even between apps released by MS there is little or no consistency at times, things that should be part of standard OS provided chrome like title-bars are a random mess - good luck guessing what has input focus sometimes, particularly with multiple monitors, as you unlock or switch vdesktop, without clicking to make sure. I keep thinking of writing something that detects the top-most app window and draws an obvious box around it.
- csande17 6mo ago
  Native macOS developers respected Apple's Human Interface Guidelines for a long time, but even that's declining now that everyone needs to work around all the problems with Liquid Glass.
  - reddalo 6mo ago
    Yes, Liquid Glass is atrocious and it's the reason why I'm not going to buy a new Mac.
- m_gloeckl 6mo ago
  >> I keep thinking of writing something that detects the top-most app window and draws an obvious box around it. I would use this in a heartbeat. With Windows 10/11 I usually have the option to apply a garish accent color to the active window active. Nowadays, more and more apps don't use native window frames anymore, so that option works less and less. The W11 task bar with its barely legible indicators doesn't help either. On a big ultra-wide display with a few windows open, I sometimes struggle to see which one is active.
  - dspillett 6mo ago
    > > I keep thinking of writing something that detects the top-most app window and draws an obvious box around it. > I would use this in a heartbeat. I may one day get around to it. Of the many projects on my “will probably never actually happen” list¹ it is one of the smallest. I did something similar to add other decorations to windows back in my just-post-Uni days². Walking the process list, getting the hWnd(s) you were interested in, and for there the window dimensions, was fairly trivial and it no doubt still is. ---- [1] I mention them here where relevant, in the hopes that someone else will see the ideas and be inspired to implement the them in an open form so I don't have to :-) [2] ~win2000 era, I was playing in Delphi at the time

by reddalo 6mo ago

shooly 6mo ago

> they don't follow platform guidelines Do platforms even follow their own guidelines? And if they do, are those guidelines good? Microsoft doesn't seem to care about UI/UX at all, Apple's UI/UX quality gets worse each year, and Linux is all over the place with each distro doing its own thing. What guidelines are those apps supposed to follow? Looking at the current state of things, I think it's good that apps tend to do whatever they think is best for their use case. Also, most people don't switch between 100 different apps all the time.

1313ed01 6mo ago

I never had a problem with that. I want a specific application to behave the same no matter where I run it. I do not want my muscle memory for how to use an application to be confused by an application not looking or behaving the way I am used to when moving to a different platform. Of course all the applications bundled with a specific OS should be designed to work the same and work well together. It still makes sense to have guidelines and standard widgets in a system. But I prefer very much any third-party multi-platform app to be identical everywhere I run it. Not to defend Electron. There are many native frameworks that work the way I prefer, looking the same across platforms.

PaulHoule 6mo ago
I use probably 70% Windows, 20% iPad, 5% Meta Quest 3 [1], and 5% MacOS -- for the latter though it is mostly "test that something works on MacOS" and "tech support for the computer the family uses". I like web-based applications that behave the same everywhere. Personally I feel the MacOS widget set is a touch old fashioned, a little ugly and gauche. I can see though why somebody might like the MacOS terminal better than CMD.EXE. The dominant theme on Windows is that Windows has several widget sets that aren't consistent but the average user doesn't notice or care -- probably the worst area is the settings dialogs which seem to be mostly migrated to a Metro-based design lately. I was afraid before they wouldn't finish that migration before they churned to another framework but I think they've stopped the churn. The best windows applications, in my mind, steal from web technology -- like they are either using some kind of HTML-based UI or they are made by people who grew up making web applications and reproduce those patterns w/ the desktop widget sets. [1] I've got some web applications I wrote that run perfectly on the MQ3, especially after I got target sizes up to WCAG AAA level and it is fun to put the headset on and crash out on the couch and get things done
- cindyllm 6mo ago
  [dead]
- spookie 6mo ago
  > I've got some web applications I wrote that run perfectly on the MQ3, especially after I got target sizes up to WCAG AAA level and it is fun to put the headset on and crash out on the couch and get things done One way to have better text in VR for 2D content is to make use of OpenXR composition layers: https://developers.meta.com/horizon/documentation/unreal/os-compositor-layers/ https://developers.meta.com/horizon/documentation/unreal/os-... Don't worry, not Unreal specific. Hope it helps you out!
- NetMageSCW 6mo ago
  Web applications are the reason personal computers are a failure today.
dpark 6mo ago
> But I prefer very much any third-party multi-platform app to be identical everywhere I run it. Apps that disregard platform standard behaviors are poorly-written apps. Whether they happen to be cross-platform or not is irrelevant.
NetMageSCW 6mo ago
I hate applications that don’t feel native to their OS, and the common solutions for looking the same across platforms (Java and Electron) fail at being good on every platform. Their attempts to replicate native functionality results in Java applications that can’t reliably resize columns or sort tables or accept focus when a dialog is open or a dozen other annoying failures I’ve seen, while looking they were imported from a failed OS that never succeeded for good reason. Electron results (and Microsoft’s work alike) results in slow bloated applications that can’t handle focus either, or flip from screen to screen properly, or even be discoverable because there controls aren’t anything real native applications use.

dspillett 6mo ago

> they don't follow platform guidelines I don't think platform guidelines that anyone listens to have been a real thing for a long time. Even between apps released by MS there is little or no consistency at times, things that should be part of standard OS provided chrome like title-bars are a random mess - good luck guessing what has input focus sometimes, particularly with multiple monitors, as you unlock or switch vdesktop, without clicking to make sure. I keep thinking of writing something that detects the top-most app window and draws an obvious box around it.

csande17 6mo ago
Native macOS developers respected Apple's Human Interface Guidelines for a long time, but even that's declining now that everyone needs to work around all the problems with Liquid Glass.
- reddalo 6mo ago
  Yes, Liquid Glass is atrocious and it's the reason why I'm not going to buy a new Mac.
m_gloeckl 6mo ago
>> I keep thinking of writing something that detects the top-most app window and draws an obvious box around it. I would use this in a heartbeat. With Windows 10/11 I usually have the option to apply a garish accent color to the active window active. Nowadays, more and more apps don't use native window frames anymore, so that option works less and less. The W11 task bar with its barely legible indicators doesn't help either. On a big ultra-wide display with a few windows open, I sometimes struggle to see which one is active.
- dspillett 6mo ago
  > > I keep thinking of writing something that detects the top-most app window and draws an obvious box around it. > I would use this in a heartbeat. I may one day get around to it. Of the many projects on my “will probably never actually happen” list¹ it is one of the smallest. I did something similar to add other decorations to windows back in my just-post-Uni days². Walking the process list, getting the hWnd(s) you were interested in, and for there the window dimensions, was fairly trivial and it no doubt still is. ---- [1] I mention them here where relevant, in the hopes that someone else will see the ideas and be inspired to implement the them in an open form so I don't have to :-) [2] ~win2000 era, I was playing in Delphi at the time