Janek BevendorffMay 23
aei  
why does everyone write webapps and ship electron when you have such great native UI frameworks here! for example... *opens GObject docs* oh- um.. *opens Qt docs* oh... *looks up native windows development* oh no....
May 21 at 6:03pmWeb
Show threadGeePawHillMay 23

@aei It's a very difficult time for people writing desktop apps. JavaFx has been moribund for some years now. Compose is a) kinda shite, and b) on the desktop very not ready for primetime. The ones you mention are very complicated, and have weird portability holes.

Sometimes, late at night, I dream of writing a new system for my own preferred language, kotlin. It's a pipe dream, I'm too old and tired. But every time I start an app, I have to choose between many shitty options.

Show threadBrahvimMay 23
JavaFX, I....
JavaFX *especially,* I stopped developing my app in, when I saw it use 8% CPU per click in what was otherwise a very simple list-view with drag-**select** for elements...
Show threadPsySalMay 23
@aei heyyy I am here to tell you wxWidgets ain't bad
Show threadMx. Chara Aznable (they/them) of PnictogenMay 23
@aei deploy a JavaBean, or whatever they're calling it these days, that ought to do the trick
Show threadAntonio PatriarcaMay 23
@aei To be honest, I personally found working with web technologies much worse than working with Qt. But it is probably a matter of what people are used to. As a mainly C++ and Python developer, learning and using Qt (or other desktop GUI framework) was a much smoother learning curve than learning about all the web related technologies. But if you already learned all those web technologies then I guess it would be much easier.
Show threadVile LasagnaMay 23

@aei I dunno, I find Qt pretty great, actually. QML in particular is a delight to write UI in (though, admittedly, there's a bit of fiddlyness in passing data back and forth to the C++ side)

Also, Godot surprisingly solid choice

Show threadStéphane 🏴‍☠️🐘👨‍💻🇪🇺🐧️May 23
@VileLasagna @aei you write native apps using Godot ? I haven’t though about doing that… Have you any resources to share about this ?
Show threadVile LasagnaMay 23

@s_hulard @aei I've done a couple of small things with it and it looked promising. Wrote about it in my old blog forever ago.

The angles I've mostly covered were:
Using Godot's GUI elementes for a more "standard application", integrating actual C++ through GDExtensions, setting up a C++ IDE, using CMake... and I also did a simple web app at one point

This was the first post, mostly GUI

https://vilelasagna.ddns.net/coding/games-nah-godot-all-of-the-things/

And you can find the rest here under "Coding"
https://vilelasagna.ddns.net/posts-by-category/

Show threadVile LasagnaMay 23
@s_hulard @aei Don't really know of any more structured guides to point you towards, sorry
Show threadStéphane 🏴‍☠️🐘👨‍💻🇪🇺🐧️May 23
@VileLasagna @aei That’s already something thank you for the links !
Show threadaei  May 23
@VileLasagna i still think Qt is still quite complex to deal with, but, at least as far as i've seen, QML is a great abstraction over a lot of that, and Qt docs are solid from what i've heard but i don't have the expertise to comprehend it yet.

and yeah I remember seeing a couple general purpose apps in godot, one was probably a drawing application? i do think that's pretty cool for a game engine, but i'm still dubious about certain aspects of it.
Show threadVile LasagnaMay 23

@aei I feel with Godot the tricky thing is GDExtensions. It ends up being pretty fiddly to bring in external, say, C++ code.

Works like a charm, I myself did some OpenCL even, but it is pretty fiddly to set up and whatnot

Regarding Qt, it's been many years since I've had to jump in. From memory, the basic concepts with signals and slots and etc are a bit specific at first but once you're through, their docs have always been the golden standard for me. REALLY good. Tons of examples too

Show threadVile LasagnaMay 23

@aei I guess a lot of the thing is that Qt is just a HUGE framework. A lot of people refer to is as just a GUI toolkit but that's extremely reductive, there's TONS there. Input, strings, media, network, even some inter process communication stuff

This all has a "Qthing" to use if you want and integrates into the framework and this can make it very overwhelming. If you WANT to use Qt JUST as a GUI layer, it's okay, but feels heavy handed. But if you're willing to "marry your program to Qt" [+1]

Show threadVile LasagnaMay 23

@aei Then it DOES have a lot to give and make your life easier, things fit pretty smoothly together, but it then DOES mean you are "A Qt application" and it becomes hard to refactor it out if you later decide you want to.

It IS a house that will make you feel welcome and cosy should you decide to live there, tho

Show threadamy :neobot_flag_transbian::neobot_flag_polyam:May 23
@[email protected] atleast not a webapp tho

—⚠️⌛
Show threadkeystrokecascadeMay 23
@aei as a hobbyist scripter, this is what happens every time i go "i should make a simple program with a native desktop gui"
Show threadJaeMay 23

@aei i feel like itd be easier to re-learn visual basic 6 if i wanted to build a desktop app.

Wrap it in some sort of Wine/Proton for Linux users and call it a day

Show threadaei  Jun 2
@SilbinaryWolf reminded me of these installation steps i found while researching something a while back
Show threadJaeJun 2
@aei
Show threadBee O'Problem May 23

@aei ugh, I remember writing windows stuff with just the API. On one hand I found it surprisingly simple in a lot of ways, but I needed to write and specify *everything* through C APIs which got tiresome very quickly. I never tried doing anything particularly sophisticated either.

I can imagine even a modestly complex UI, like a simple text editor, would be thousands of lines to place and draw the controls let alone do anything useful with them.