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Comment by ibdknox | Hacker News Reader

it'll use a browser for the UI layer, but that's it. So browser-based is a better term I think. No internets needed. In the end, though, even that will probably be abstracted away into a webview or something. The overall distribution story is something I'm kind of curious about myself at this point. Lots of exploring to do there.

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Perhaps a tool similar to [Titanium](http://www.appcelerator.com/products/titanium-desktop-applic...) would suit the needs of this project.

Essentially you write your application in standard html/css/js and are then able to distribute OS-specific applications for all major platforms.

Similar to PhoneGap, but I think the results are a bit better with desktop apps :) (especially something as "simple" as a text editor.

You can also just do this with Qt and QtWebKit. Qt5 is supposed to focus on this usage specifically though I haven't tried it.

I'm pretty sure Rstudio uses this approach. The core app is all HTML/Javascript, but then they make a desktop version by putting a thin Qt wrapper around it and adding a few minor things like a relevant menu bar.

That sounds a neat way to still provides a comfortable user experience whilst working on languages not easily embeddable in the browser.

Indeed, especially with PyQt. The problem is that your binaries can easily be huge on Mac/Win.

Well we can imagine choosing a version statically linked or a dynamically linked one when dowloading ? I agree it isn't a really slick solution, but it's a tool for developers it won't hit too hard the entry barrier.

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