[HN Gopher] Show HN: Create a custom macOS app from a group of w...
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Show HN: Create a custom macOS app from a group of websites
Author : hkgumbs
Score : 75 points
Date : 2020-05-22 18:05 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| toomim wrote:
| I'm into this. I've wanted to build something like this before,
| too, but never finished it.
|
| This feels closer to how app building _should_ work. If I have a
| web app, it _should_ be simple to give it an icon, with
| notifications.
|
| And if I want to build that, I _shouldn 't_ have to figure out
| all of XCode. I should be able to just quickly make a webview
| with native controls.
|
| And I _shouldn 't_ need to download all of electron. An OSX
| webview should only need a few kb as a standalone app.
| aantix wrote:
| The JS performance in mobile safari is pretty incredible.
|
| What can native do currently that js/html would have difficulty
| with?
| toomim wrote:
| Did you read the article? This has nothing to do with mobile.
| archildress wrote:
| The iOS image recognition, done on-device as I understand it, is
| one of the coolest things that it seems no one talks about.
| rasen58 wrote:
| Where does that fit into this macOS app?
| hundchenkatze wrote:
| This is pretty neat :) I read the blog post[0] about it too, and
| I definitely feel your multiple chat app pains. I'm curious to
| hear more about why you avoided Xcode and ViewControllers. In
| general I know many people dislike Xcode, but I've been doing iOS
| dev for a while now so I guess I'm used to it (it's a love have
| situation for me at times)
|
| [0] https://kofi.sexy/blog/multi
| hkgumbs wrote:
| Thanks! Honestly my reasoning for avoiding XCode is fairly thin
| --I just hadn't used it before and didn't have it installed
| when I started. I imagine if I took the time to learn it, it
| would be fine. But I do also feel a bit weird about how
| developing for certain platforms requires you to use a specific
| IDE. I thought that was part of the goal of Swift (vs ObjC),
| but I may be just reflecting my own biases :)
| jaflo wrote:
| Did you have experience developing for MacOS before?
| hkgumbs wrote:
| I built a few Swift CLIs before, but this was my first time
| working with AppKit (the macOS GUI framework)
| hundchenkatze wrote:
| Yep the macOS + Xcode dependency is quite annoying. If you
| want a, kind of, in between solution, the true dependency is
| on the command-line tools[0]. These can be installed
| independent of Xcode. You could piece together your own build
| scripts or use something like Buck[1] to build it. If you
| still want a full-blown IDE, checkout AppCode[2] from
| JetBrains. It still depends on the aforementioned
| commandline-tools though.
|
| [0] https://developer.apple.com/download/more/ (you'll need
| an AppleID)
|
| [1] https://buck.build/setup/getting_started.html
|
| [2] https://www.jetbrains.com/appcode/
|
| * edit: formatting & it looks like Buck doesn't have macOS
| targets.
| cerberusss wrote:
| Recently I wrote a script in Swift, on macOS. It can be
| developed and run without Xcode, in plain vi if you so wish.
| It's pretty great, and I liked it a lot.
| hkgumbs wrote:
| Yup, that was exactly my workflow as well! And for building
| CLIs it's quite nice. Once I started using AppKit though,
| it felt like I kept running into things that weren't quite
| finished.
| jitl wrote:
| See also the blog post: https://kofi.sexy/blog/multi
|
| The swift-only, programmatic approach without Xcode or the
| typical app framework is very cool! Assembling those parts seems
| like a great learning experience.
|
| (More interesting to me than the actual functionality)
| saagarjha wrote:
| A couple of nitpicks about the process:
|
| > NSMakeRect/NSMakePoint
|
| Generally I prefer the actual constructors.
|
| > NSWindow.BackingStoreType.buffered/NSApplication.ActivationPo
| licy.regular
|
| You can just use .buffered/.regular.
|
| > let _ = NSApplication.shared
|
| Just _ = NSApplication.shared works:
| https://github.com/saagarjha/DarkNight/blob/0e3aef8559b634ce...
|
| > Rizwan Sattar wrote a neat workaround that monkey-patches
| NSBundle, which I've translated to Swift 4 below
|
| Don't do this, it will stop working (crash!) once you update
| your Swift version and the compiler is smart enough to start
| making direct calls. As far as I am aware, this is the correct
| way to do it:
| https://github.com/saagarjha/DetailsViewer/blob/master/Detai...
| spilk wrote:
| Sounds similar to the old Fluid website wrapper for MacOS X (
| https://fluidapp.com/ )
| tribeca18 wrote:
| This is really cool! The inspiration behind creating this reminds
| me of another app too: https://getstack.app
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(page generated 2020-05-22 23:00 UTC)