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,…?
No matter how much I like an alternative to Electron. It cannot save me from bad Electron apps.
Are there any good electron apps? Like genuinely
VSCode and Obsidian work great.
Until you want to integrate with the system and use gtk window controls.
I hear great things about obsidian but I haven’t used it since it’s not open source
Im willing to give them a pass on that since they don’t vender lock the notes I’m taking.
Sure, but all it does it give you a nice UI for local markdown files. There’s no lock-in.
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.
Desktop audio streaming has never worked. Bug report has been outstanding since the beginning and Discord has just… never addressed it.
It doesn’t look like a native app at all though. It’s not really following any operating system’s design guidelines.
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.
The best native apps do look native to the platform though.
Really? Even on windows I feel like it’s slow and you can tell it’s an electron app.
I would say it’s seemless on Windows, not Linux.
I wouldn’t know, I don’t use Windows. But I have no complaints on Mint.
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.
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.
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=autoWell, Wayland support is something new for most distros. Can’t really fault the app for not being ahead of the curve.
Yeah, but also I really didn’t expect Zoom to have working screen sharing on wayland before discord.
I don’t like Discord much, but don’t understand the dislike for the app. Perhaps because I use it rarely.
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.