
Ask HN: Those who develop desktop apps, what is your toolset? - vijayr
Are there still devs making desktop apps? What is your toolset, and could you share a link to your app?
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mike_hearn
JavaFX

[https://www.vinumeris.com/lighthouse](https://www.vinumeris.com/lighthouse)

(there's a promotional video).

Note that to use it requires you have some bitcoins.

WRT the development process, it worked pretty well. The 3rd-gen Java UI stack
is much better than Swing and was a pleasure to work with. Much better than
the web stack.

The app is open source if you want to read the code:

[https://github.com/vinumeris/lighthouse](https://github.com/vinumeris/lighthouse)

I built the installers for each platform with the 'javapackager' tool that
comes with JDK8+.

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fian
Java 8 (SE) with Swing.

Of the few other UI toolkits I have tried, Swing has proven the most flexible
in terms of resizable layouts.

I have dabbled with some web dev (html,css, javascript). It all seems hacky
compared to working with Swing.

~~~
emilburzo
Look into Google Web Toolkit when you get a chance, web dev toolkit with more
of the Swing and less of the hacky.

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thomas-b
Most of our desktop applications are made using C#/WPF/VS but I've been
strongly considering Electron
([http://electron.atom.io/](http://electron.atom.io/)) since Visual Studio
Code was released which is made with it, and really doesn't have the feel of
"yet another web app trying to look desktop-y". I'll most definitely try it
out for our next desktop app project.

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eivarv
I've used Java with Swing before, and I've done some prototypes with Python
and PyQt/Pyside, which I think works pretty great.

Been meaning to make something with Electron or NW for a while, but I'm
apprehensive because of the downsides (executable size, app performance,
appearance).

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hemling
After a long absent from the desktop I returned developing in JavaFX. Oh boy
has desktop app development improved on Java! I liked it a lot, using FXML to
define the GUI, MVC built in etc.

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girishso
I recently did a desktop app www.autoannote.com using node-webkit. I know it's
still all html/css but that's the only way I figured to create cross platform
desktop apps.

~~~
vijayr
Is it autoannotate?

~~~
girishso
Yep. [http://www.autoannotate.com](http://www.autoannotate.com)

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stuxnet79
Maintaining a rather old Java desktop application, and I've been using
Abeille. It is old, poorly documented but still pretty neat. Code is closed
source unfortunately.

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V-2
C# .NET, WPF, Visual Studio. I can't share a link

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miguelrochefort
Windows 10 Universal apps

Visual Studio 2015, C#, XAML, TFS

