Fruits of my recent search for a cross-platform ui toolkit.

[Grant Johnson]

Python things:
I like pysimplegui it uses to under the covers, I believe.
Pyinstaller makes a thing you can share without as many venv things to deal with.

On December 18, 2023 1:10:54 PM MST, Brian Sturgill <c.brian.sturgill at gmail.com> wrote:
>Primary Criterion: Must work on Linux, Windows and MacOS desktops.
>
>I want to use this to make open-source desktop apps.
>
>--
>
># What I believe about cross-platform UIs as of 2003-12-18.
>
>Cross-platform and cross-language:
>    wxWidgets: (Windows, Linux, MacOS, *BSD)
>        https://www.wxwidgets.org/
>        Uses native controls, bindings in a huge number of languages.
>        It lags on mobile, iOS in progress.
>        Apps feel dated, even though wxWidgets take steps to use latest
>            controls on Windows.
>        Linux toolkits support is great, but alas, those toolkits are also
>            looking dated.
>        Haven't done recent measurements, but is rather fat (disk/memory)
>            unless you are using it directly in C++.
>        Basically you have a language, wrapping a huge toolkit, which
>            wraps native controls. It kind of has to be fat.
>
>Dart only:
>    Flutter (Windows, Linux, MacOS, iOS, Android)
>        https://flutter.dev/
>        Does not use native controls.
>        Most modern looking of all the options.
>        Has the smallest runtime to lug around.
>            (Still not that small - 20M on Linux).
>
>Dotnet only:
>    (These obviously have to deal with the rather large .NET runtime.)
>    Avalonia (Windows, Linux [Gtk], MacOS, iOS, Android)
>        https://avaloniaui.net/
>        Does not use native controls.
>        If you liked Microsoft's WPF, you want to look at this one.
>        Alas, doesn't seem to be nearly as popular as I think it should be.
>    Microsoft MAUI (Windows, MacOS, iOS, Android)
>        https://dotnet.microsoft.com/en-us/apps/maui
>        MacOS "support" is really just for iOS app on MacOS.
>        Uses native controls.
>        Windows support is said to be buggy. (Shocking, really.)
>
>Python only:
>    (These obviously have to deal with the huge Python runtime.)
>    (Remember that Windows and maybe even MacOS will need Python to be
>installed.)
>    (One would have to seriously consider using venv for app distributions.)
>    Kivy
>        https://kivy.org/
>        Does not use native controls.
>    BeeWare
>        https://beeware.org/
>        Does not use native controls.
>
>Java VM:
>    (These obviously have to deal with the rather large Java/Kotlin/Compose
>runtime.)
>    JetBrains/compose-multiplatform (Windows, Linux, MacOS, Android)
>        https://github.com/JetBrains/compose-multiplatform
>        Is Kotlin based (from JetBrains). Uses Google's Jetpack Compose.
>        iOS support is in alpha.
>        This toolkit has not really taken off yet, but it could.
>        I am not certain, but it seems not to be using native controls.
>        However, it appears you can use some native controls with the
>        toolkit.
>
>     There are a number of older toolkits, AWT, SWT, etc. but none seem
>     to have really gained traction.
>
>Notes:
>    Native controls yea, or nay?
>    Native controls behave exactly like the user expects and blends in well.
>    Not using native controls reduces bloat, gives pixel perfect accuracy
>    across platforms and often is faster. (Native controls sets have gained
>    bloat with time.)
>
>    Most popular for mobile is 1) Flutter, 2) MAUI.
>    React Native, Phone Gap, and Cordova are being left behind.
>
>    I personally (for my open source desktop app work) am going with
>Flutter.
>    My second choice would have been wxWidgets, not sure what language
>though.
>
>    I will be using Material Design with Flutter as most people have seen it
>    and it doesn't look like any of the native platforms. Looking _like_
>    native when you're not, often leads to confusion.
>
>    I don't consider JavaScript things here. They are all quite bloated.
>    Their popularity has decreased rapidly in recent times.
>    Electron is still the leader here if you want to go that route.
>    (Before going there, take a look at the memory footprint of VSCode or
>Atom.)
>
>    Also, not included is React Native which is complicated.
>    It isn't really "native" in any meaningful sense.
>    It was heavily used for a while but has been declining.
>
>    I am only considering open source solutions here, so Qt is not
>    included (not free outside of Linux).
>
>-- 
>
>Brian
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.nclug.org/pipermail/nclug/attachments/20231218/2fca0813/attachment-0001.htm>