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Comment by 3stripe | Hacker News Reader

A browser-based version of Sketch would be huge - this is Figma's killer USP at the moment

It would, I'd buy it immediately (at a reasonable highish) price since over in Linux land I have much fewer choices for this kind of thing.

I recommend WireframeSketcher, works fine on Linux. (https://wireframesketcher.com)

Already have a license for an older version of that.

Does anyone know how committed Sketch is to desktop? Do you think they would do something like this?

It's not just their commitment to Desktop, but their commitment specifically to not move off MacOS where they have stated that they "will not consider supporting Sketch" on Windows/Linux[0]

https://www.sketchapp.com/support/requirements/other-platfor...

That we allowed ourselves as a species, for so long, to limit the accessibility of excellent tools to the requirement of a specific operating system or technology, is understandable for so many technical and political reasons, but still so incredibly sad to me.

But when a solution like Electron comes along, it's roundly denounced by a large number of the very people who stand to benefit from cross-platform applications.

Meh. I can differentiate. I hate the UX of most Electron apps, but like that they're available on Linux.

Though I do think the server-side doesn't need to be shipped. I have most of my web apps as simple "Web clips", which are basically bookmarks that open in a window.

That's a strawman. "Spawning a Chromium instance for each application" is an easy but far from optimal solution.

Because it’s not a very good solution. We can and should do better, but that won’t happen if we throw in the towel and accept the lowest common denominator mediocrity that Electron represents.

Ok, so I can see someone doesn't agree with my comment due to the downvote. But would you be willing to share your opinion as to why?

For example, how much more valuable would Sketch be as a company and to society if it were available on more platforms than just Mac OS?

Now that they have taken venture money I suspect this will change.

I'm anticipating more corporate enterprise-y things (like Windows support) and workflows are in their pipeline.

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