Comment by c-smile | Hacker News Reader

Comment by c-smile | Hacker News Reader

Sciter's author here...

I am thinking of making Sciter as UI module for NodeJs.

1. Strip down version of Sciter - only HTML/CSS/Graphics modules. It will use JavaScript of NodeJs (either V8 or Chackra).

2. That version will be Open Source in the same way as NodeJs itself.

The goals are:

1. To provide more optimal alternative to Electron - faster and far less resource consuming.

2. Modular and reusable implementation. Example: Sciter contains my own Graphics C++ library that wraps various backends: Direct2D/Write, CoreGraphics, Skia, Cairo, GDI+. Such Graphics module library alone can be useful in other projects. Same is for HTML/CSS modules.

Not sure if all that is interesting for someone. If it is - please let me know.

I'd be very interested in this. There's a lot of decentralized tech that uses nodejs modules which are hard to wrap up in a GUI without Electron. I greatly dislike the resource waste of Electron and have been actively looking for alternatives.

I need to run a vue app that can load an external file into its own frame and print that to PDF. Can sciter do that? Right now I'm using a webview in electron which lets me print just that webview to PDF.

Sciter supports print and print preview out of the box: https://terrainformatica.com/2015/05/25/sciter3-print-previe...

As of PDF generation: Skia backend is capable of PDF generation but that functionality is not exposed to script yet.

Another option: Windows supports PDF print drivers so you can just print on it to get PDF.

It definitely is interesting. There is a huge pent up demand for a cross platform easy to use GUI lib which is manifesting in the form of people using electron despite I'd bring resource intensive.

I will say open source or not is not an issue for most. Few look at source and rare modify it. I just want an easy API.

Sciter's API is already simple enough. It is about 10..20 pure C functions that you will use for creating window, loading UI resources and receiving callbacks from the UI.

Check minimal integration sample: https://github.com/c-smile/sciter-sdk/blob/master/demos/mini...

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