Electron is a widely hated framework on Linux, but what about the alternatives like Neutralinojs?

In their own words: In Electron and NWjs, you have to install Node.js and hundreds of dependency libraries. Embedded Chromium and Node.js make simple apps bloaty — in most scenarios, framework weights more than your app source. Neutralinojs offers a lightweight and portable SDK which is an alternative for Electron and NW.js. Neutralinojs doesn’t bundle Chromium and uses the existing web browser library in the operating system (Eg: gtk-webkit2 on Linux). Neutralinojs implements a secure WebSocket connection for native operations and embeds a static web server to serve the web content. Also, it offers a built-in JavaScript client library for developers.

Do you experience alternatives like Njs to blend more in the desktop layout, install less junk, use less memory, are more compatible with Wayland,…?

  • Björn Tantau
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    473 months ago

    No matter how much I like an alternative to Electron. It cannot save me from bad Electron apps.

        • unalivejoy
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          53 months ago

          Until you want to integrate with the system and use gtk window controls.

          • @why
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            113 months ago

            Im willing to give them a pass on that since they don’t vender lock the notes I’m taking.

          • @cygnus@lemmy.ca
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            63 months ago

            Sure, but all it does it give you a nice UI for local markdown files. There’s no lock-in.

      • @acockworkorange@mander.xyz
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        -93 months ago

        I will catch flak for this, but discord works fine. You could be fooled into thinking it’s native. Audio, video, attachments… pretty seamless. Zoom sucks ass though.

        • @morrowind@lemmy.ml
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          103 months ago

          Count yourself lucky because discord desktop is one of the worst pieces of crap I’ve ever used

        • missingno
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          73 months ago

          Desktop audio streaming has never worked. Bug report has been outstanding since the beginning and Discord has just… never addressed it.

        • @dan@upvote.au
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          3 months ago

          You could be fooled into thinking it’s native.

          It doesn’t look like a native app at all though. It’s not really following any operating system’s design guidelines.

          • @acockworkorange@mander.xyz
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            23 months ago

            It’s not like all native apps do either. It’s obviously a foreign toolkit. My point was there were no obvious issues accessing hardware, files, drag and drop, etc.

        • @4am@lemm.ee
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          43 months ago

          Hey hey; discord is rumored to be doing ads now. No talking good about them!

        • @SteveTech@programming.dev
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          3 months ago

          It starts to break down on Wayland though, screen sharing doesn’t work, drag and drop looks to work but errors when sending, and probably other things.

          Edit: Yes I’m already running it with --ozone-platform-hint=auto

        • @winnie@lemmy.ml
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          23 months ago

          Is zoom Electon?

          It looks like shit and feels like shit. I thought it was native tbh… given how chunky UI is. Looks like GDI programming to me. Or they took design from Android 2 and ported it to Desktop.

          • @acockworkorange@mander.xyz
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            33 months ago

            I’m at least 60% sure the Linux client is. Either way, it’s sandboxed as hell. I have to copy backgrounds to its own special snowflake folder or it can’t use them.

          • @acockworkorange@mander.xyz
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            13 months ago

            The company sucks, but the app works fine to me. I don’t get the hate either. I use the flatpak version in Linux and don’t feel any friction for it being an Electron app. There are native flatpak apps that cause me grief.