Comment by skydhash
6 hours ago
> You clearly see the issue
I don’t. VLC is available everywhere, so your requirement is clearly not a problem. Jetbrains is available on all major desktop OS.
6 hours ago
> You clearly see the issue
I don’t. VLC is available everywhere, so your requirement is clearly not a problem. Jetbrains is available on all major desktop OS.
Well, getting a hardware-accelerated blank buffer onto a screen to render video content is hardly the epitome of graphical user interfaces. VLC has very few and basic UI elements.
Jetbrains is a better example, using Java with Swing which is not a common choice. As seen from my other comment, I do think this is a good direction, but it ain't any more native than Flutter or for what it's worth an Electron app, none of these are "what the OS provide". FYI Jetbrains has to do quite a few platform-specific tweaks to make them better citizens on each platform.
Portable applications is not a recent need. The only requirement is to have a standardize interface and an implementation for each of the platform. Where you put that interface is an engineering skill.
VLC went with QT (which has done all the hard work) for the UI, and their own libraries for the media playing part. Other software like Emacs and sublime has implemented their own UI libraries. Some just ship libraries and others build UI for them.
The issue with Electron is that it brings a whole jungle and a gorilla holding the single banana that the devs actually need. And the dev flung the whole thing at the users. It's like establishing an iron mine, a steel factory and then pollutes the whole region when building a quick stone bridge would do. Because the only thing you know are suspension bridges.
VLC is not the example you're looking for. Written in Qt for desktop and their own libVLC wrapper for mobile. Yes, in the case of VLC, parent comment is right: you clearly see the issue. And a media player is a relatively uncomplicated piece of software, UI wise.