Show HN: GoldenLayout – build multi-screen webapps | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: GoldenLayout – build multi-screen webapps

golden-layout.com

201 pointstroika40 comments

This is the 6th appearance of this lib on HN. That said, it is still one of the most clever things I've seen in terms of front end libs. I stumbled upon it independently about 1.5 years ago, right before the author switched from some restrictive licenses to MIT. Still waiting to see someone implement something amazing with it though. We had mockups for something cool at my last job, but senior management decided to do everything in ServiceNow instead...

In a game development shop a lot of people would use multiple monitors (usually 2 or 3). Their level/model/etc. editor would normally do proper window docking, where it would restore the previous state of windows properly (or at best it could). To me it's one of the things where desktop still shines (apart from other things). But if this is possible with the browser, then it might change the mindset.

I haven't tried it yet, as I'm typing from my "single"-yet screen laptop, but would try it out later again.

I hope it preserve/restore the layout as it was, but other than that it looks really sleek!

Visual Studio kind of established how docks should work, and other Ui systems still need to catch up (Qt I'm talking about you :)).

For those who have checked this before: The license has changed from GPL to MIT.

Looks like this change occurred over a year ago.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11471082

I should go through each and every 1000+ star project on Github, sometime. Stuff like this is really great.

I like the concept. One thing that stands out for me though is its dependency with jQuery. Not sure if it is a deal breaker, but if one could ship quality and nicely looking apps with it, then the same won't really matter.

troika: I'm having a hard time getting GL to work with React and Redux. There's a Github repo showing it working together, but it's achieved by wrapping the component, and I haven't resolved all of the issues. Namely, that this repo seems to work when referencing React js files from a CDN, but for some reason, fails when building them in the app. Also, refs in components seem to be a problem when wrapped in this way. Wondering if there's a better way to handle these.

https://github.com/andrewcapodieci/golden-layout-react-redux

Looks very promising, but I'm wondering if you've tried this combination successfully. I also haven't figured out yet whether redux and pop-out windows will work properly.

I used it for a bit there were some bugs and such so I ended up writing a "lite" version, that is admittedly crappy but did just what I needed https://github.com/joshribakoff/dockable

Frequently pops up as a comparison to my lighter library, Split.js[0]. If you're just looking for draggable split views.

[0] http://github.com/nathancahill/Split.js/

After making 5 clicks something broke and one div renders at the bottom of the page :(

Just a low-effort initial observation: "Works in IE8+, FF, Chrome" but the demo depicts an iMac display :-)

EDIT: Seems to work fine in Safari too!

iMacs can run FF and Chrome natively, and I've encountered a number of folks running Windows or Linux on them as they like the Apple hardware. Not sure what your point is...

Even lower-effort initial observation: I have to scroll horizontally to see the whole page with my portrait-orientation display.

I wanted to run 3x portrait so bad until I realized that side scrolling would have to become a fact of life for me to do so.

I got a chance to do this when an office reorg temporarily granted me a third monitor. The occasional horizontal scroll was more than compensated for by the feeling of godlike power.

3x portrait 1x landscape has driven me mad with power. They're 4k, so I don't actually have to scroll here. Only downside is having to buy my own monitors for work because I've spoiled myself.

10/10 would sell my soul for more pixels again.

I made a panel "full", but cannot make it go back to its original size, I can only close it or break it out.

The "_" button works for me (i.e. the middle of the three breakout, minimize, close buttons). I expected it to minimize the window to a taskbar, like in Windows, but it restores it to the original size instead. I found this unintuitive but don't know a better icon.

This seems like software that would take over the computer, such as a customer service app, a monitoring app, etc. In other words, it might be the only thing your running on the computer (in the foreground). I rarely use a desktop app that makes use (effective or otherwise) of multiple monitors.

I believe the word you're looking for is "kiosk." :)

I think the last time I saw this it was a spinoff off a market trading application that was (at the time and even now) one of the most impressive web applications I'd seen.

I can't remember the damn name though.

Cheers, it's "the Merchant" (https://vimeo.com/143728632) - it also started https://deepstream.io/ - this was one helpful app :-)

That's the one!

I was looking for it the other week to show someone what you can do on the web these days.

That's quite a co-incidence. Back when I was making the front end for a Forex trading app, I considered using this very library for the task. Project didn't actually get started and I moved onto other things. I was very keen at the time to give this a go as it seemed to fit well with the requirements of the time.

Heh, check the bottom right of the website's homepage...

Great library, seen it pop up here a few times. Slightly off topic, on the website it says:

> "free as in beer, speech & love"

...In what world is beer free? ;) haha

"Free as in beer" is a phrase (loosely coined by Richard Stallman) to indicate that something does not cost money. This is as opposed to "free as in speech", meaning that it comes with no restrictions.

https://www.howtogeek.com/howto/31717/what-do-the-phrases-fr...

Probably the same world where speech and love are free. :)

Roughly:

Free as in beer means you don't have to pay money to use it.

Free as in speech means you have freedom to use or modify it in any way you want

Free as in love means it will happily plays with all other software and systems

Ah, I could figure out the beer from the other two but I couldn't tell the speech-free apart from love-free.

They should also add "Free as in dom" meaning the word used as a political ploy to have people conform to your point of view

I've been on the internet for decades, and that phrase never sat well with me; Beer Money is a real phrase, and AFAICR I've always been required to tender a fee for the right to undock a beer container from the beer-temperature-control-apparatus or purge beer fluid from a heat controlled storage vessel.

Have you never been invited over and been offered to fetch yourself some beer from the fridge? It'd be weird for a friend to require you to tender a fee before doing so, and they'd also be quite annoyed if you started stockpiling the beer being offered to you and started reselling it. In my mind the phrase conjures the right frame of mind: "Hey! Check out this piece of code I've written, friend! Feel free to use it!"

That is a perfect way to put it for me to understand it...

Thanks. I feel obtuse for not getting that for so long.

You have gotten many decent replies already. I think one thing that is missing is that the phrase talks about "free as in free beer". So it is not a statement that beer in general is free, it is a clarification that we want the meaning of "free" as in the phrase "free beer". In other words: At no cost. ("gratis")

This is in contrast to "free" as in "free speech", which is about freedom/liberty. ("libre")

Noticed a small niggle. The X on the focused tab will not highlight on mouseover, this unlike when mousing over the X of an unfocused tab.

"powerful persistence" and a picture of two floppy disks.

I'm in my early 30's and I haven't ever personally owned a computer that included a floppy drive. I did buy a USB one with my late 90's iMac, for compatibility with the school but I think you get my point.

Your point is wrong. Even kids who were born after floppy disks fell into disuse recognize the symbology as representing "save" or "persist". Apparently the letter "A" used to represent a bull. Doesn't mean it is useless to us today, far from it.

They recognise it because software uses it still, nothing more.

Columns are vertical, rows are horizontal.

It renders totally non-usable on mobile S:

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