
Volt: Fast native desktop client for Slack and Skype - ahstilde
https://volt.ws
======
sincerely
I want to like this, ever since it was called eul. But features are
consistently pushed back which suggests that the dev doesnt have a great
handle on what is going on, the availability of mac/linux versions seems
consistently misleading, it’s not open source, and it uses icons of services
not available (e.g. gmail) in a way that seems dishonest. idk.

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devindotcom
I love the idea of this — it consistently baffles me how poorly web apps
primarily serving me text perform — but I'd love to see a little breakdown
telling me what's been cut out to make it so lean. I mean, maybe it's stuff I
don't care about, but on the other hand maybe it's some file integration I use
regularly, you know? On the other hand maybe it's a bunch of RAM-sucking junk
and absurd text rendering that I'd just as soon do without.

I'd love it if it was open source or at least public in some way considering
the security questions. I realize that's a bit of a pony request but it is one
of the things I've come to rely on in the community, that someone is curious
enough to dig in and relay their findings.

~~~
jandrese
I suspect a big savings comes from not being basically a web browser running a
webapp.

~~~
devindotcom
Oh for sure. I'm not a developer myself though so I don't know whether there
are capabilities you lose such as common libraries and whatnot, and what the
trade-offs are there. For all I know it includes or eschews certain javascript
that's notoriously bad, or has to reach out to Slack for emoji calls, or
whatever. A couple hundred words of documentation on this topic would really
help me understand the product better.

~~~
OJFord
Slack is an Electron.js app, meaning in GP's words it's a 'webapp in a web
browser' \- like running a car engine just to get the radio.

Volt implements the radio alone, without the car, but accesses all the
stations you otherwise get by running each one's propietary car.

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mythz
Interesting back story on why he created the "V" language to develop Volt:

"Originally Volt app was written in Go, but after a couple of weeks of
development I decided to re-write it in C for two reasons: easier integration
with existing C graphics and UI libraries and much smaller binaries. The app
size reduced from ~5 MB to ~100 KB.

C development is not very productive, so I spent two weeks in October 2017 to
create a very light and minimalistic language that can seamlessly interop with
C. I called it V (the name is not final).

V compiler is written in V. The language will be open-sourced later in 2019."

\-- [https://volt.ws/lang](https://volt.ws/lang)

~~~
notafrog
While the UI is not exactly polished or anything, it is really refreshing to
see someone actually care about efficiency and storage.

Nowadays a simple calculator app takes like 30 or 40 megabytes of space.

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zan2434
More than a little disingenuous. While they advertise that the app supports a
number of services, when you actually download the app and try it only Slack
and Skype are available - the rest are "coming later in February"

~~~
dang
Ok, we changed the title from "Fast, free, low memory, native desktop client
for Slack, Messenger, Gmail, etc."

~~~
yellowapple
Even the edit seems misleading; might as well just say "Volt: Fast native
desktop client for Slack and Skype".

~~~
dang
Ok!

~~~
yellowapple
Perfect, thanks!

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amedvednikov
Hi,

Developer here. An unexpected surge of traffic => I'm on HN front page again:)

V and Volt got lots of attention 5 days ago. Thousands of people downloaded
the beta version and I've been working hard to fix all the crashes and bugs
people reported.

I was planning to release the Windows beta by the end of the day. So hopefully
Windows and Linux (wine) users will be able to try it out today.

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babypuncher
The prospect of a native client for Signal excites me. I've never been a big
fan of their electron app.

~~~
jandrese
Yeah, I tried the native Linux app for Signal and while it works its also a
huge resource hog. So much so that my machine started swapping when I had a
browser open alongside it. For what is effectively AIM + encryption. This is
the future that people warned us about back when Node.js was new.

~~~
basch
At some point will blink/node need to be expected parts of the operating
system to undo this mess?

~~~
entropicdrifter
More likely people will start developing with compiled languages, compiling
down to WebAssembly, then still use Electron for the UI end just for the cross
platform support.

~~~
basch
That doesnt really address what I said. I was saying, the underlying
components will need to be built into the OS, for battery life and memory
reuse purposes. So you dont end up with 50 slightly different copies of
blink/node running at the same time. Blink/node are what are powering
electron.

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ris
No source, no thanks.

~~~
ngcc_hk
These day no source no trust.

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nelsonic
Looks promising. But will only be Open Source in "2021" according to
[https://github.com/voltapp/volt](https://github.com/voltapp/volt) ... until
then it's a root-kit for all we know that people are voluntarily installing.

~~~
dzek69
i'm always surprised by such comments

beside Stallman do people not using anything that contain at least single line
of closed/proprietary code really exist?

not every closed source stuff is evil, really

~~~
danellis
> not using anything that contain at least single line of closed/proprietary
> code

It's not just that. The existence of source code doesn't mean the binaries are
uninfected. You'd have to actually build it yourself from source. And even
then, unless you've audited the source, you're still not sure. Of course,
you'd have to build that compiler from source (that you've audited) using...?
And all that on an OS with libc, libdl etc that you've built yourself.

~~~
mont
Don't forget you have to audit the microcode running you're cpu too, and the
gate networks executing the microcode, and...

~~~
binaryblitz
You joke, but wouldn't we have caught SPECTRE or Meltdown a lot faster if
someone had?

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Orlan
I still use [https://fluidapp.com/](https://fluidapp.com/) when I have to log
into Facebook from the computer, hopefully, this will replace it!

Looks cool, can't wait for support for the other websites.

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derwiki
Installed this and logged into my Slack, while it was loading messages it
crashed. Oh well.

~~~
amedvednikov
Sorry, it's a really early release. The first public version was released 5
days ago.

For me everything works fine, but this is complex stuff. I'm working hard on
fixing things. I wish people would wait a couple of weeks before posting this.

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BFatts
Reminds me of Trillian back in the days of AIM and Yahoo! Messenger.

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tuananh
the author seems to be too obsessed with the size. I'm fine with it being 5MB.
That's small enough.

download size is the least of mine concern, speed and memory usage matter
more.

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vijaybritto
Installed it and it doesnt redirect from slack auth window. Uses around 300Mb
of RAM for this. Going against electron is a massive undertaking!

~~~
amedvednikov
There are a couple of known memory leaks. They'll be fixed soon, and RAM usage
should be 10-20% of Slack's.

~~~
vijaybritto
Memory leaks? Thats not gonna go well with these HN users. Was rust not
fitting for use here?

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kmarc
Looks like a heavier version of bitlbee + a standard IRC client.

Anyone care to compare the two...?

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gabriel34
free as in 'free beer', supported by donations

they say they will open the code in 2021

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nkkollaw
They created a whole language to code this..?

Talking about reinventing the wheel!!!

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graphememes
It only works with Slack, and Skype.

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timeandtime
Also used to be known as a browser.

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dzek69
this isn't electron app

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michaelmior
Is it just me, or does anyone else get a little put off by phrases like "for
all major web services."

Who decided which web services are major? There are certainly a number of
"major" services that aren't included depending on how major is really
defined.

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mont
"for all major web services" sounds a lot better than "the web services we
like using", and the only two things I'd consider missing are IRC/steam, and
with IRC going the way of the dodo and steam not being a super popular
messaging service.

~~~
michaelmrose
Reports of IRC's death have been greatly exaggerated.

