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points by floydnoel 3 days ago | 0 comments

I couldn’t disagree more, when it comes to UIs. They should match the platform they are being used on. Cross-platform always produces a very sub-par experience. But us developers tend to care primarily about what makes development easiest for us.

[–] the__alchemist 3 days ago

What does this mean in practice for software you write? What OSes to you build it for, and what OS or GUI-specific conventions to you follow which don't apply to others?

edit: Link software you wrote's installation instructions.

[–] floydnoel 3 days ago

You can just look at my profile and see some of it, or check out my website. I’ll have a new app to show soon, so stay tuned!

[–] the__alchemist 2 days ago

Those are web and mobile apps... Not PC software.

[–] floydnoel 2 days ago

web and mobile are both platforms with their own special quirks, APIs, and behaviors. however, you missed that Logbook Ed also runs on macOS.

[–] the__alchemist 2 days ago

I will just throw this out there:

- You have made the choice to make software only run on MacOS, excluding the (majority) of users who are not using that. This is balanced against the upside of native look and feel.

- I agree that web and mobile have many differences when comparing them to each other, or to PC software. The differences and conventions which relate to application development between Windows, MacOs, and Linux are much smaller than those. (The only concrete example mentioned in this broader discussion was Home and End keys can have different behavior). I see this as a matter of degree, not kind.

I keep coming back to "So, we are deliberately limiting our software to a single OS because... (Vaguely articulated reasons about native look and feel? About cross-platform applications having "bad UIs" and "subpar results"? I can't do anything with that because it's too vague, and doesn't match my experience. Home and End keys or other keyboard shortcuts which are easy to feature-gate if the GUI kit doesn't handle it which it probably does?) When weighing pros and cons, I need to see the cons.

[–] Rohansi 3 days ago

Not everyone has the resources to build five or six different UIs.

[–] floydnoel 3 days ago

I think it’s better to do a good job once rather than five or six bad jobs, but we all have different priorities.

[–] the__alchemist 2 days ago

What specifically to you about cross-platform UI means bad job? I.e. what functionality does Windows specifically support that must work when running the application on Windows that Gnome, for example doesn't? (Or any other GUI/OS comparison)

[–] Rohansi 2 days ago

A lot of it boils down to native widget look and feel. It's pretty silly in reality because there are multiple possible options for what is native on Windows (Win32/WinForms, WPF, UWP, WinUI, ...) and Linux (Qt, GTK, ...), so native apps will still be inconsistent. It's probably just an Apple thing really, because every other platform is already a big mix of different UI styles.

[–] Rohansi 3 days ago

The way you worded this message could mean either a) people should focus on a single platform using native frameworks, or b) people should use a cross-platform framework instead of spreading themselves too thin. Maybe even both?

[–] floydnoel 2 days ago

I suppose it’s hard to follow a thread across multiple comments, but like I said, cross platform UI toolkits give sub-par results.