Electrino
Dev tools
desktop app framework
SHOW HN2017
99points
29comments
#464of 2,242 in 2017
Top 21%of 2017 by points
How HN took it
DebatedReal support and real criticism
6 positive, 1 neutral or asking, 0 mixed, 6 critical, out of 13 comments about the project. Thread score -0.15.
Idea: 3 for, 2 againstPerformance: 3 for, 2 againstExecution: 0 for, 2 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Addresses the file size and bloat complaints about Electron
From 3 comments
This could be big. One of the most common complaints about Electron I've heard is the file size and cpu load. In short, nice work! I know it would add extra time to the build on…
52-6F-62 on HNA lot of people have griped about the bloat of Electron, or wondered why package each app with Chromium over and over, but you went and did something about it! This is rad and…
wishinghand on HNThis is super duper cool. Slack and discord could immediately become 1/20th the size. A lot of electron apps don't need the full capabilities of electron - what would be dope is…
JusticeJuice on HN
Lower memory and CPU use than Electron for small apps
From 2 comments
I did do trivial tests. The Electrino "Hello World" launches faster and consumes about 70% less memory than the Electron one. For complex apps, I imagine the picture can be very…
pavlov on HNUsing the system web runtime does reduce the app's memory usage too, not just the on-disk size. The system runtime is loaded just once (and is probably already in active memory),…
pavlov on HN
Objections
Only a tiny subset of Electron APIs is implemented
From 2 comments
"It implements a minuscule portion of the APIs available in Electron" - I wouldn't really call that API-compatible. For most apps I'm sure this is fine though.
derimagia on HNYesterday there was a thread on HN about using Electron to build desktop apps: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14245183 I posted a comment lamenting that Electron apps are…
pavlov on HN
Node side is missing, so npm packages and fs access are lacking
From 2 comments
It seems like the trouble with this approach is that you have to not only build up adequate Electron compatibility but you also need to build up Node compatibility, which seems…
dangoor on HNthe file size is too small to be an equivalent to (nodewebkit/electron) - webkit/chromium. What you'd need is node (without webkit) which translates to ~9MB, + launching with the…
anilgulecha on HN
System webview may be slower and use more resources than Electron on macOS
From 1 comment
Have you tested that? In my experience using a system webview actually consumes more resources than Electron, and is noticeably slower, at least in OSX/WebKit.
ricardobeat on HN
Only works on macOS so far
From 1 comment
Ah so far it works only for macOS. I wanted to give it a test run but I'm on Windows at the moment
arenaninja on HN
Requests
Remove Chromium and keep Node as a lighter base
From 2 comments
As a starting point, would it not make more sense to remove the chromium dependency and still include Node? I saw your comment yesterday and it really gave me something to think…
arenaninja on HNthe file size is too small to be an equivalent to (nodewebkit/electron) - webkit/chromium. What you'd need is node (without webkit) which translates to ~9MB, + launching with the…
anilgulecha on HN
Windows support
From 1 comment
Ah so far it works only for macOS. I wanted to give it a test run but I'm on Windows at the moment
arenaninja on HN
Selectively add only needed APIs or packages
From 2 comments
This is super duper cool. Slack and discord could immediately become 1/20th the size. A lot of electron apps don't need the full capabilities of electron - what would be dope is…
JusticeJuice on HNThis could be big. One of the most common complaints about Electron I've heard is the file size and cpu load. In short, nice work! I know it would add extra time to the build on…
52-6F-62 on HN
Questions
Is the full browser DOM still available?
From 1 comment
I don't have an Electron project going, but I can tell you something like this could add some value to some companies invested in Electron as-is. You just have to get their…
giancarlostoro on HN
How would npm modules work without Node?
From 1 comment
It seems like the trouble with this approach is that you have to not only build up adequate Electron compatibility but you also need to build up Node compatibility, which seems…
dangoor on HN
Alternatives named
Electron
From 2 comments
Yesterday there was a thread on HN about using Electron to build desktop apps: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14245183 I posted a comment lamenting that Electron apps are…
pavlov on HNMost of the time though, the real issue that people have with Electron-based apps is memory and CPU usage. Electron is notorious for hogging RAM like there's no tomorrow. While…
Etheryte on HN
NW.js (node-webkit)
From 1 comment
the file size is too small to be an equivalent to (nodewebkit/electron) - webkit/chromium. What you'd need is node (without webkit) which translates to ~9MB, + launching with the…
anilgulecha on HN
MacGap
From 1 comment
MacGap offered this before Electron/NW came to exist: https://github.com/MacGapProject/MacGap1 (and there was a way to bundle node too) Unfortunately neither v1 nor 2 have been…
ricardobeat on HN
Java-based desktop frameworks
From 1 comment
Why not use Java folks? Write once run anywhere and reasonable file sizes and memory usage.
bbcbasic on HN