Why we maintain desktop apps for OS X, Windows, and a web application

Re:Why we maintain desktop apps for OS X, Windows, and a web... by tracker1 on Friday July 10, 2015 @04:32AM (#9862858)

In chrome I can create application shortcuts... and with browser notifications it pretty much just works. I usually have pandora and slack as application shortcuts that run in their own windows... it really doesn't bug me that they run in a browser... they work as I expect them to (though not in osx iirc). I agree that the thin wrappers are a little annoying...

On the flip side, though I really appreciate that I can create more feature rich applications with the likes of nwjs or electron. There's a lot of things you can do that go a fair bit beyond just web applications in a thin shell... though most of the better ones are app centric first, and web instance second.

I do wish someone would build a nice mail client for Chrome/ChromeOS though... That part really sucks imho. I mean there's a browser based SSH client for chrome, so it's entirely possible to do.

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Re:Why we maintain desktop apps for OS X, Windows, and a web... by tdkl on Friday July 10, 2015 @06:28AM (#9863144)

If user X uses Chrome. If not, there's extra 1GB+ bloat for one "browser app". No thanks.

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Re:Why we maintain desktop apps for OS X, Windows, and a web... by tracker1 on Friday July 10, 2015 @07:54AM (#9863374)

So, you don't use any browser apps?

That must be pretty hard to do. I think going without a browser+javascript would be pretty primative... I mean, I pay my bills, send emails, hell view the site I'm on as browser applications. I remember being online in 1993 (vga, bbsing, dialup ftw), it wasn't nearly as diverse or capable as today.

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Re:Why we maintain desktop apps for OS X, Windows, and a web... by Tiksi on Friday July 10, 2015 @08:06AM (#9863409)

> So, you don't use any browser apps?

That's not at all what they said. Some of us use browsers that are not chrome. That would mean having to run 2 browser runtimes to get a thin wrapper with chrome.

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Re:Why we maintain desktop apps for OS X, Windows, and a web... by tracker1 on Friday July 10, 2015 @09:25AM (#9863776)

I believe Firefox has, or used to have the ability to launch a standalone browser without extra chrome for a specific site (maybe not via the UI)... IIRC IE on Windows 7+ offers the same functionality.

If you're using Opera or Safari, I have no idea.

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