Go: Fyne and Collaborative App Builder

Came across this the other day when looking at Fyne, a GUI platform for Go. Collaborative App Builder - Fyne Labs. I will be looking it the next couple of weeks but looks interesting. Even Fyne has come a long way since I looked at it 2 years ago.

The one thing that still bugs me, though, is that its dialogs are not native. Probably not a huge deal on web and mobile but it just looks wrong on desktop. That might take a while to get over.

But, assuming I get, anywhere with Fyne and their App Builder, I hope to do some posts about it.

3 Likes

Looks interesting; seems like we’re seeing a renaissance of these kinds of tools.

I haven’t been tracking Fyne since looking at it a few years ago. I agree the non-native dialogs are annoying – this is one of the few things you should just keep native (and, to Microsoft and Adobe, who have both decided to come up with custom layers on top of these things for simply saving a file, please don’t!)

The other non-starter for me with Fyne was not only does it not currently support a webview, but they’ve decided (for now, at least) that it never will.

On other hand your software looks the same on all platforms it supports, so I don’t think it’s a big problem.

How many tools are coming without native UI, starting from IntelliJ, vsCode and soooo many others. Is it really annoying? No. Is it a problem? No. I am programming since decades and this was and is no problem. As many people using Web Software we are also aware of the fact that they have also no native UI. Is it annoying? Do you get the Job done? And another question: where are the alternatives? Is an IDE with native UI (Xojo for example) better than one without a native UI (IntelliJ, Netbeans, VSCode, Eclipse?) Only a question. I can’t believe that somebody will even try to tell me that a Xojo IDE has a better Usability than INtellijIdea. Man.

1 Like

Yes. I do everything on the Mac in Column mode. Call me a freak but I like it. To the best of my knowledge Fyne doesn’t have a column view (and to be honest I haven’t tried yet). And a native dialog doesn’t seem like a huge lift (Wails is using native dialogs but then it’s not doing mobile either).

A Freak? No. It is your Taste. Nobody wants you to use not native Software. But then yoiu may have Software which is not what you need. With Swing / AWT you can use the native ones without any problem. If that is your only problem with it. So write Java swing and use via awt the native dialogs with your column mode. Like IntelliJ can do it. That is a simple Swing based UI with FlatLaf look and feel.Would that still disturb you??

And for some that IS the problem :stuck_out_tongue:

Probably better to compare Xcode and IntelliJ

Xojo’s IDE is largely NOT native controls and many are custom written controls based on canvases

Do it and decide if you don’t want to use IntelliJ cause of it’s UI. That’s the difference between native and not native. Simple, isn’t it?

So far the NOT NATIVE aspects of IntelliJ arent enough to make me switch to something else
But they are quite obvious

Only thing is that it doesnt obey standard text editing kbd shortcuts so I need to go through & define those

IntelliJ IDE, specifically PHPStorm, too a bit the grasp. I googled about settings a lot at first. But that passed as I learned.

Seriously, once you use an IntelliJ IDE you’ll likely think about how terrible Xojo is.

Indeed

But then IntelliJ has sooo many settings :stuck_out_tongue:
TBH I’ve almost never looked at any of them as they are all pretty reasonable defaults
The keyboard short cuts might be the only ones I do anything to to make them more Mac-like

A few I expect arent there

1 Like

That for sure. Use it IntelliJ with Java Swing and realize that it can be a fun to develop. Or with Scenuilder together and JavaFX. It is fun and works. That’s what makes it hard to use Xojo again. Xojo may be kind of near to native but it is annoying from so many reasons… By the way developing with C# (Rider), C++ or C (CLion), Rust (RustRover) or Java in combination with Github Copilot or Jetbrains AI is even more fun while it takesd care you will save a lot of time. But you may find people are in love with other languages, no question. I doubt that languages like Delphi, 8th and others will stay alife for the next decade. We will see. Development with professional IDE is much better than using something like Xojo. For Java, C++ and C also Eclipse and Netbeans where there even before Jetbrains even existed. So I was used to professional IDE’s since a long time. Netbeans in 99, before that starting in 97 as xelphi, Eclipse came in early 2000 and was also a charme especially for Cobol and C++. I am used to a functional IDE, that’s it. One part of the entire development is the availability of a good IDE. What you want to do with a wunderful language but no IDE?? Ah, yes: nothing

1 Like

I think the same thing about VSCode. It’s a little odd at first but then there are so many developer friendly buzzers and bells it’s a huge step back going to the Xojo IDE (that I still do almost every day).

If I was a developer already using VSCode, or IntelliJ, for another language and was evaluating Xojo it wouldn’t take long for it to be a hard no. This is something that Xojo doesn’t want to address.

3 Likes

This HAS to be marked as the biggest understatement I’ve ever seen you make :slight_smile:

Okay, let’s say I have a mild day :slight_smile:

1 Like

Java code is so annoying and tedious to write, so I understand you need a good IDE. I need just Far Manager to be productive.

Man. Are you writing with it enterprise applications? Medical applications? No? Ok. Not so complex stuff. Go for it. But please don’t try to tell me: Java is soooo bad. It is one of the m,ost powerful languages we have and definitely the one with the biggest ecosystem and available on the most platforms including web, Desktop and mobile. Even for Python and PHP a good IDE is more than helpful. So please: it is not reality you are speaking about. May be you dream that you play in the same league. You are not. Definitely not.

Don’t conflate complexity with regulatory/financial requirements. Apps can be very complex outside of those areas.

  • Karen

No question. I was too lacy to describe that. Sorry for that. But that you are never writing with a filemanager. You will be always in the need af an IDE. Or at least vscode or similar products. And exactly that I wanted to describe.