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Comment by blt | Hacker News Reader

It's not an attractive scene for GUI developers on Linux. Gnome, Qt, and Electron all have some unappealing aspects. Many people who get the itch to make a Linux GUI app will immediately be discouraged by having to choose between them.

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What's wrong with Qt? It works well enough if you want to write C++ or Python. Electron works on Linux the same way it does on Windows. GTK has some more issues on other platforms, but mostly works on Linux too.

I should have said "Many people" instead of "Anyone" in my original comment -- edited.

I would use it myself, but a lot of developers don't want to use C++ (too complicated) or Python (too slow, dynamicness becomes unwieldy for large projects). Languages in between - like Swift and C# - are the sweet spot for desktop GUI apps.

> What's wrong with Qt? It works well enough if you want to write C++ or Python.

answered your own question

Imo, I think that Flutter is one of the best ways to make native Linux applications at the moment. It can look just like a GTK, macOS and Windows app and you have a more enjoyable experience.

Don't know it, but from the website it looks mobile-first and intended for simple apps like Spotify. Don't get the impression that I could build something like Blender or Kdenlive with it. Maybe my impression is wrong, but I would hesitate to use a framework for a purpose that the developers consider fringe.

To be fair you can't use any gui toolkit to make something like blender. It's all custom.

Have you tried WebUI? It's like a ultra minimalist version of electron. It uses available browsers instead of shipping its own. You simply write your App in html/js and everything that goes beyond (e.g. file access) is delegated to C with a simple callback mechanism.

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