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by WorldMaker 3163 days ago
Cordova in Visual Studio right now.

(On very lean teams that don't have the resources to build bespoke UI for every platform, even with Xamarin or React Native, and the web platform is a good compromise for the simple data collection apps we are building.)
1 comments
pier25 3163 days ago
Same here. Using Cordova with Atom or Sublime, and building/signing/deploying on the device via the CLI.

We need to deploy to desktop/mobile/chromebook and we don't have the budget to develop native UI for each one.

The be honest the only problematic platform has been iOS and its crappy UIWebView / WkWebView, and Windows but only because we are using Squirrel for the installs.

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ezekg 3163 days ago
What's wrong with Squirrel and Windows? I thought they had a Windows update framework?
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pier25 3163 days ago
It has given me a few headaches. On Mac, Squirrel has worked flawlessly.

The biggest headache for my users is that the app is not added to the start menu, and the .exe is buried in some deep bizarre folder. Maybe there is a way to solve this, but I haven't been able to find it. There is an option to add a shortcut to the desktop, but if the user deletes it then the exe is lost forever.

I've had other bizarre problems for a few users and the only solution was to reinstall the app from scratch. Tech support is not very happy about that.

Maybe it all stems from my Windows ignorance but Electron-builder, one of the most important projects for packaging Electron apps, is moving away from Electron to NSIS. The problem is that AFAIK NSIS doesn't work with Electron updater.

I'm seriously considering moving away from Electron and replacing it with a UWP JS app and distribute it via the Windows Store.

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WorldMaker 3162 days ago
VSCode dropped Squirrel on Windows ages ago for most of those same reason.

My only reason to support an Electron app on Windows is a need to import ancient Access MDB files. I've been meaning to explore deeper the possibility of using the desktop bridge for my Access reader component and call it from the Cordova UWP JS app. It's on my TODO list to explore, but I think just having a single UWP app (with a desktop component that lights up as available) would be the best distribution plan on Windows.

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pier25 3162 days ago
Do you know what VSCode uses now?
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WorldMaker 3162 days ago
Looks like InnoSetup:

https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/blob/master/build/gulpfi...

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ezekg 3162 days ago
Man, that sucks. I just read through the discussion on that and can see where the pain points are in using Squirrel.Windows [0]. Hopefully they eventually deal with that. I don't use Windows much, so outside of making sure Squirrel.Windows is working correctly, I don't have much of an opinion on whether or not it provides a good UX to end-users (and it sounds like it doesn't, unfortunately).

[0]: https://github.com/electron-userland/electron-builder/issues...

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