I hate Electron apps with a passion.
They are always so heavy and inefficient. I sometimes run complex video encoding/upscaling tasks in the background that push my computer to its limits (for hours on end) and you can really get a feel for which applications are badly made. Electron apps always perform worse even if what they are doing is relatively simple.
And there are always weird edge cases with OS integration with Electron apps. Sometimes it’s done well, other times not so much.
I use obsidian extensively, and I love it. It certainly does seem to use WAY more system resources than it should though, and I assume that electron is to blame. It’s a shame they didn’t base it on a different framework.
Perhaps someone who knows more about web development can explain what sort of upsides electron brings with it.
Programs run everywhere from the same codebase.
There are other options for that, though, and I’d rather have Java, with all its issues, any day.
I think it’s more “people who trained only in web development can produce what they fondly think is a desktop application”.
Naah its just that web development is most advanced in terms of ease of use and UI development.
Creating native apps in java or cpp was horrible.
Easier ≠ better. Granted, most amateur-written UIs aren’t that great, but I find anything created specifically for the web is almost always worse. They’re massively bloated, they reinvent wheels all the time (and ship them out while they’re still egg-shaped with off-centre axles), and they don’t adapt well to systems with non-default settings.
As for Java UI coding, well, I did enough of it, back in the day. Tedious, sometimes nitpicky, but far from the worst thing I’ve ever done, codewise.
Well that’s certainly a big plus point.
All good stuff, been waiting for this.
It’'s neat to learn about CSD. That flat frameless window with a custom title bar look is what I dislike the most about electron applications. Hopefully those become less apparent with these new updates.
This is a GNOME problem, not a Wayland problem. The article says “On X11, the window manager typically supplies a window’s title bar and frame decorations. But […] on Wayland, all you get back from the compositor is a plain rectangle.” which makes it sound like this is a Wayland problem, but this isn’t true.
Ah I think I might be misunderstanding then.
For this:
Many popular apps, including Visual Studio Code, Obsidian, and Discord, use frameless windows with custom title bars. Prior to Electron 41, frameless windows did not support CSD at all, so they looked like featureless rectangles on Wayland.
Am I misinterpreting that Electron on Wayland now supporting CSD for frameless windows would make it possible for developers currently using them to better mimic the look of Qt or Gtk apps (with shadows and rounded corners, etc.)?
I’m using KDE Plasma and Electron apps sometimes have that sharp-cornered, shadowless window vs the way Qt or Gtk apps are rendered. The most noticeable difference for me is the lack of outline, rounded corners, or shadow.
But do correct me if I’m wrong since I don’t know much about Electron development.
Basically, on any sane window manager no matter if Wayland or X11, you’ll get the same frame for all apps for free.
From all the big desktops it’s only GNOME that somehow decided server-side decorations weren’t a good idea implement, and now all Wayland apps have to hand-roll a hacky workaround. The “flat frameless window” look was Electron’s GNOME workaround. What the article is describing is a more elaborate GNOME workaround. On e.g. KDE, none of these problems existed in the first place.
Electron’s Wayland implementation continues to be buggy: https://github.com/electron/electron/issues/48859 So if I’m thinking of a framework that won’t cause trouble with Wayland, it’s not Electron.
I think whoever wrote this likes Evangelion lol
