4 ms·

Could someone comment on the main complications on developing something like this for both Mac and Linux? From my point of view, they is so much common ground,

Could someone comment on the main complications on developing something like this for both Mac and Linux? From my point of view, they is so much common ground, comparing to a Mac/Windows support, that I'd strive for an application to cover both! And that's not something that you could always decide after launching the first time, you need to have it in consideration during design...

gecko 11y ago
The GUI systems are utterly different, so, for a GUI tool like this, you'd have to write the front-end twice. I don't think OS X and Linux are especially closer to each other than either with Windows when you're in that department.
- tracker1 11y ago
  Absolutely true... not to mention, that cross-platform gui toolkits look alien somewhere/everywhere ... IT's never/rarely a great experience. That said.
swisspol 11y ago
The non-UI layer can be made 100% portable for sure (although in the GitUp case it's not really since I chose to write it in Obj-C for productivity reasons). The UI layer is absolutely not portable: it's all low-level CoreGraphics code for the rendering, some CoreAnimation, and a ton of AppKit of course. You could have a version written in a cross-platform UI toolkit or Java or what have you, but you could not possibly get close to the level or polish and native performance required for an app like this IMO.
- zanny 11y ago
  I was under the impression Qt has been maintaining their Cocoa styling well. Has that changed? I haven't actually tested Qt software on OSX in about three years.
  - X-Istence 11y ago
    Even with the Cocoa styling, Qt based applications always seem to feel weird or out of place. Things like button placement, toolbars, things of that nature just don't "feel" right.
    - reitanqild 11y ago
      Thats the "weird" thing about Mac users: noticing that things "doesn't feel right" while completely missing that somebody has mangled their keyboard (where is home/end? pg up/pg dn? Waht are these extra arrow up left and arrow down right thingies on my keyboard that even long time Mac users cannot explain? (Feel free to explain it and I'll give you an upvote tomorrow morning if I remember : ) why is fn/ctrl switched on laptop but not on full keyboard? That said the most annoying thing about Macs is how much I'd love to be able to use one, even at their current price point they seem a good offer to me, - but after three years of trying to either adapt me or the Mac I have given up :-/
      - thesmok 11y ago
        pg up/pg dn is Fn+Up/Dn. Home/End is Fn+Left/Right.
        reitanqild 11y ago
        Late but does that now work in all applications? 3years ago this worked in some applications, in others you had to use the old ctrl-a/ctrl-e (which couldn't be combined with shift) or cmd or control-left/right/up/down. Can't remember the details anymore, but I think I figured I needed at least three different combos for home/end back then.
      - X-Istence 11y ago
        I've got a full sized keyboard, I've got an home/end, a page up/page down, and I am wondering what you mean with extra arrow up left, and arrow down right? Are you referring to the arrows that signify home/end/page up/page down on the older full size keyboards? On the laptop keyboard the Fn key is the outer key, followed by ctrl, then alt/option and then command on my full size keyboard it is placed above the delete button and to the left of the "home" button. It's not switched. Either way, you could replace your Mac keyboard with one of your standard Windows ones and everything will continue to work without issues. So if the keyboard layout is a bother, that is easily fixed. You'll just need to remember to hit the windows key to copy/paste rather than ctrl.
- manghoti 11y ago
  is GTK not compatible with the OS X UI? also a repository viewer is not latency sensitive.
  - swisspol 11y ago
    It actually is performance sensitive: just see the folks on this thread complaining about how show SourceTree has become. Another example: if I do something in terminal, I don't wanna have to wait 5s for the Git client UI to refresh. All these little half a second here, a few hundred ms here, add up, especially when you're trying to deal with thousands of commits.
- nadams 11y ago
  > The UI layer is absolutely not portable - GTK+ - Qt - wxWidgets I'm not saying I have used them or they are easy to use - but crossplatform UI toolkits do exist.
  - swisspol 11y ago
    I think we're saying the exact same thing ;)
  - thesmok 11y ago
    - GTK+ apps look alien in KDE env. - QT apps look alien on Mac. - wxWidgets look alien everywhere. There is no real X-platform UI toolkit.
- ossreality 11y ago
  "required" what a delusion.
- blub 11y ago
  I have only looked at the movie, because I avoid tools that work with only one provider, however this app doesn't seem to use that many OS X controls, and quite a lot of custom drawing (branches, editor, etc). I think this could be done in Qt with QML, the most difficult problems would probably be the list that popped up on the right at one point and getting the scrollbars right. When it comes to graphics, animation and custom drawing Qt is very powerful, the issues that do pop up are with native controls.

gecko 11y ago

The GUI systems are utterly different, so, for a GUI tool like this, you'd have to write the front-end twice. I don't think OS X and Linux are especially closer to each other than either with Windows when you're in that department.

tracker1 11y ago
Absolutely true... not to mention, that cross-platform gui toolkits look alien somewhere/everywhere ... IT's never/rarely a great experience. That said.

swisspol 11y ago

The non-UI layer can be made 100% portable for sure (although in the GitUp case it's not really since I chose to write it in Obj-C for productivity reasons). The UI layer is absolutely not portable: it's all low-level CoreGraphics code for the rendering, some CoreAnimation, and a ton of AppKit of course. You could have a version written in a cross-platform UI toolkit or Java or what have you, but you could not possibly get close to the level or polish and native performance required for an app like this IMO.

zanny 11y ago
I was under the impression Qt has been maintaining their Cocoa styling well. Has that changed? I haven't actually tested Qt software on OSX in about three years.
- X-Istence 11y ago
  Even with the Cocoa styling, Qt based applications always seem to feel weird or out of place. Things like button placement, toolbars, things of that nature just don't "feel" right.
  - reitanqild 11y ago
    Thats the "weird" thing about Mac users: noticing that things "doesn't feel right" while completely missing that somebody has mangled their keyboard (where is home/end? pg up/pg dn? Waht are these extra arrow up left and arrow down right thingies on my keyboard that even long time Mac users cannot explain? (Feel free to explain it and I'll give you an upvote tomorrow morning if I remember : ) why is fn/ctrl switched on laptop but not on full keyboard? That said the most annoying thing about Macs is how much I'd love to be able to use one, even at their current price point they seem a good offer to me, - but after three years of trying to either adapt me or the Mac I have given up :-/
    - thesmok 11y ago
      pg up/pg dn is Fn+Up/Dn. Home/End is Fn+Left/Right.
      - reitanqild 11y ago
        Late but does that now work in all applications? 3years ago this worked in some applications, in others you had to use the old ctrl-a/ctrl-e (which couldn't be combined with shift) or cmd or control-left/right/up/down. Can't remember the details anymore, but I think I figured I needed at least three different combos for home/end back then.
    - X-Istence 11y ago
      I've got a full sized keyboard, I've got an home/end, a page up/page down, and I am wondering what you mean with extra arrow up left, and arrow down right? Are you referring to the arrows that signify home/end/page up/page down on the older full size keyboards? On the laptop keyboard the Fn key is the outer key, followed by ctrl, then alt/option and then command on my full size keyboard it is placed above the delete button and to the left of the "home" button. It's not switched. Either way, you could replace your Mac keyboard with one of your standard Windows ones and everything will continue to work without issues. So if the keyboard layout is a bother, that is easily fixed. You'll just need to remember to hit the windows key to copy/paste rather than ctrl.
manghoti 11y ago
is GTK not compatible with the OS X UI? also a repository viewer is not latency sensitive.
- swisspol 11y ago
  It actually is performance sensitive: just see the folks on this thread complaining about how show SourceTree has become. Another example: if I do something in terminal, I don't wanna have to wait 5s for the Git client UI to refresh. All these little half a second here, a few hundred ms here, add up, especially when you're trying to deal with thousands of commits.
nadams 11y ago
> The UI layer is absolutely not portable - GTK+ - Qt - wxWidgets I'm not saying I have used them or they are easy to use - but crossplatform UI toolkits do exist.
- swisspol 11y ago
  I think we're saying the exact same thing ;)
- thesmok 11y ago
  - GTK+ apps look alien in KDE env. - QT apps look alien on Mac. - wxWidgets look alien everywhere. There is no real X-platform UI toolkit.
ossreality 11y ago
"required" what a delusion.
blub 11y ago
I have only looked at the movie, because I avoid tools that work with only one provider, however this app doesn't seem to use that many OS X controls, and quite a lot of custom drawing (branches, editor, etc). I think this could be done in Qt with QML, the most difficult problems would probably be the list that popped up on the right at one point and getting the scrollbars right. When it comes to graphics, animation and custom drawing Qt is very powerful, the issues that do pop up are with native controls.