[josephernest]

> deno desktop is opinionated about those tradeoffs:

> Small by default, full Node compatibility

I tried `deno desktop index.ts` with the 5-line Hello world in the article.

Result (Windows 10): 442 MB. Ouch.

I thought it would be smaller than an Electron build, but it's far worse. Did I do something wrong?

(libcef.dll: 247 MB) (deno-test.dll: 78 MB <- contains the hello world)

[dominicrose]

With Visual Studio and Photino, after some tweaking I managed to publish everything in a single .exe file. In Debug mode it produces more files to have source maps that work well. There's no hot-reload but at least it works well.

The Photino app is 18 Mb and it's a real app not a hello world. I'm not sure how much RAM it used since maybe it uses a secondary process (edge webview).

I tried deno desktop with the minimal js file to see if I can avoid relying on VS and C# but it's really bad currently, at least on Windows.

Both the webview and the cef backend produce multiple files and are we supposed to launch a .bat file? It opens a terminal Window (what the hell?) and a UI that doesn't even work. I got to see the Hello message in cef mode but the unicode emoticon doesn't work.

[fny]

libcef is the Chromium embedded framework[0], so your build isn't using a webview or maybe its using both. I just tried it on my mac, and I can't keep libcef out even with `--backend webview`.

https://github.com/chromiumembedded/cef

[josephernest]

IIRC Electron hello world is ~ 100-150 MB because it bundles a browser/Chromium runtime.

So I hoped we could have a <= 20 MB solution by reusing the OS webview or similar. Having more than 400 MB is a bit deceptive for me. (Again: maybe I just did something wrong in the config: should I do something else than `deno desktop test.ts`?)

[undefined_void]

Try the webview backend: `deno desktop --backend webview`

[josephernest]

This gives a 77 MB folder, not containing the browser (we're now using the OS' webview).

I wouldn't call this "Small by default".

I used this main.ts file: `Deno.serve(() => new Response("<h1>Hello, desktop</h1>", { headers: { "content-type": "text/html" }, }));`

and `deno desktop --backend webview main.ts`.

Unfortunately, launching `deno-test.bat` opens an empty white window, freezed (with waiting cursor...) on my Windows 10.

[IdiotSavage]

The docs say that's the default:

https://docs.deno.com/runtime/desktop/backends/#webview-(def...

[crowlKats]

apologies, this is inaccurate currently, will get things updated