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Comment by jcelerier | Hacker News Reader

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jcelerier·

> Does this mean GTK2 and GTK3 are... to be avoided for new projects / dead?

not dead but... here's for instance how Wireshark looked on macOS when it was using GTK :

https://blog.wireshark.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/osx-x1...

and here's how it looks now that it is using Qt :

https://news-cdn.softpedia.com/images/news2/wireshark-3-0-re...

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Yeah, nobody set a theme for GTK in that screenshot, and GTK themes tend to look different from the native theme on non-Linux OSes regardless.

But, the trend is towards Electron, which also integrates poorly with the OS -- so, I'm not sure how much looking native matters any more.

Eeh. It might be perception, but I feel like it was the other way around — around the time iPhone came out, a lot of apps eschewed compliance in favour of achieving clearer identity. I think that cleared the way for electron — I actually vaguely remember some people talking about using html-based apps because they made achieving a specific visual design easier, not because of the portability benefits.

And for example AFAIK the new Apple Music app is using a web view for some parts of itself, and as much as I like having "light" apps, I generally prefer interacting with Electron UIs over most QT apps.

Here is how a gtk app looked in 2014 on macOS: https://i.imgur.com/1e669Tp.png

I like the first one more, am I weird?

The first one isn't Mac like --- the menu bar doesn't go on the top of the window. I don't necessarily think that's great, but that's the way it should be on a Mac.

not bad-looking for gtk?

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