Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by wubrr 690 days ago
Took a look at the homepage (https://v2.tauri.app/)... and basically have no idea what this is or why I would use it.

Consider adding something more informative than 'Hardened foundation for your web apps', and maybe an 'About' page.

4 comments

I clicked “Get started…” and saw this:

> What is Tauri?

> Tauri is a framework for building tiny, fast binaries for all major desktop and mobile platforms. Developers can integrate any frontend framework that compiles to HTML, JavaScript, and CSS for building their user experience while leveraging languages such as Rust, Swift, and Kotlin for backend logic when needed.

This ought to be on the front page.

I agree. The v1 front page says this, which is ok but much less clear: “Build an optimized, secure, and frontend-independent application for multi-platform deployment.”
Yeah for sure. Personally I wouldn't click 'Get started...' on anything unless I already know what I'm getting started with and why.
That'll show 'em!
Don't treat the v2 site too harshly - it's in development and hasn't been released yet.

> Hardened foundation for your web apps

The honest description is : smaller faster electron for macos/win/linux/android/ios - written in rust using the OS provided web browser component for tiny binaries. The Tauri developer's focus on security in their marketing is genuine (they have paid for audits) but a little incongruous given what most of it's users want from it which is just a cross-platform UI and/or with a great rust experience.

I have really been enjoying v2 with Leptos with no problems. Ironically the only tricky bit has been setting up permissions for various types of system access (docs are not quite there) but it was simple and made sense once I saw how to do it. I expected a bad experience from the Linux OS web component but it's been excellent in terms of both performance and support on Ubuntu 22.04. The way Tauri can package your app as a .deb or .apk was crazy simple which I also did not expect.

Electron replacement
Hardly, Electron is used to not care about the system it runs in. Tauri Is the opposite, you have to consider the works of system's engine. At least untill they'll offer packing with servo. Then it would be a real rejection replacement.
Both V1 and V2 tag lines fail to describe what Tauri is, but it seems like it's a competitor to Electron, so I'd go with something like:

> (Toolkit/Framework) for building cross-platform desktop application using web technologies. Focused on efficiency, security, and size.