aejae

> Isn't the Dropbox desktop app Electron crap these days? It's certainly not the pleasant experience it used to be.

Sadly I agree. However the blog post I linked describes their mobile strategy. Sorry about the confusion.

FWIW The desktop app now uses the strategy you suggest: native with many hosted webviews.

> what you're talking about there is the opposite of what I’m talking about

Sorry, skim read and missed that! See above comment re Dropbox desktop using your approach though.

:)

Planning to release this next week!

False dichotomy—in our case we’d rather _start_ on macOS and then build other platforms separately… than use Qt.

Fair enough. Many of our users used to do what you do.

Reasons they sometimes switch from long-lived Meet calls:

- Free up 200-300 MB of RAM when in call.

- Features specific to coworking (e.g. shared music DJing) or eng pairing (e.g. multi-way screen share).

- Presence when out of video calls. For example, you'd see if anyone on your team is in the Meet without having to ping each other. Leads to more unplanned hang outs.

This. We (at Remotion) are currently evaluating what platform to build for, given our start with macOS native / Cocoa. But for Windows, what is Windows Native?

Seeming like more of a collection of half-baked ideas than robust frameworks that we'd want to bet a bunch of dev time on.

As you both mention, we might end up with a cocoa macOS app and an Electron app for Windows & Linux.

Not yet, but soon!

TBH only time will tell whether our decision to go native-first, then cross-platform (vs Chromium-based cross-platform) was the right call.

This is a major reason many companies that start native, then try to scale to 100+ person eng teams often end up incorporating web views, and then switching over entirely. Saw this happen personally for our desktop client at Dropbox.

This is a really cool idea. This could start with a small but growing group of apps that opt into that transparency.

Agreed—and we're currently deliberating how we'll build for other OSes.

Re the article not explaining what Remotion does, we're trying to avoid plugging our app itself in our technical posts—we figure anyone who's interested can click onto the main site.

(At Remotion) We decided against Qt partially based on my experience working on the Dropbox desktop client—Qt sounds great in principle but in practice we think you're better choosing between native or web tech. I'm less familiar with GTK.

As one of the codevelopers of Remotion, I sadly don't think there's a meaningful return to native macOS. Team communication tools like us are a non-starter if they don't support the entire team, and the vast majority of even mac-first teams have a Windows user somewhere. (E.g. Even iOS dev shop has finance person.) I hate to say it, but I think the tradeoffs often lean in favor of Electron. Taking RAM usage as an example, even if your app will consume 100s of MBs when running, if the user only has it open when they need it, it's workable. In our case, only the goals of building something often visible, that feels like a part of the os, usually running in background, sometimes running lightweight video & audio... gave us the rationale to build natively.

100%. We initially chose to write natively because we thought it was best for our users. But now that we're putting that work in, recruiting for a less comment skillset, don't have Windows or Linux clients yet, etc... we want to make the most of that selling point.

Yep! https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/teams-memory....

Age old question: What's a feature and what's a company? Many software questions start as "features" that an incumbent could have built. The question is whether they break out before the incumbent realizes the value.

https://9to5mac.com/2018/01/11/dropbox-ipo/

This was a really fun experience. If you're organizing a 16+ person happy hour it's a great way to organically let the group split into smaller conversations.

Hey folks,

I’m Alexander, cofounder of Remotion. We help teams get into quick video chats instead of scheduling meetings or texting. This makes remote collaboration faster and less isolating.

We’re in beta (macOS only for now) and looking for as much feedback as possible. If you’re up for a 15 min video demo/call to share your thoughts and maybe onboard, please email me at alexander [at] remotion [dot] com. Alternatively, if you’d rather just try the product, feel free to sign up directly and shoot me a note with feedback.

Interesting data point from beta thus far: 47% of conversations are <10 minutes—people are getting unblocked and saving time instead of spending hours in Zoom or Slack.

Thanks!

Thanks mikesholiu, would love to hear how that goes for you!

Thanks! Absolutely planning on having multi-platform support in the near future.

Hey HN, cofounder Alexander here. Seeing Remotion in action is the best way to grok it so you have 3 mins, check out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ0GITPcMAY.

Backstory & problem: Charley and I started working remotely when he moved to Chicago. Immediately our work felt slower. The async-first remote work best practices espoused by larger companies—GitLab & co—didn’t work for us. Frankly we think they’re better for getting many people to execute known work well together, but if you want energy & creativity on a smaller team, you need more face to face chats.

Remotion helps teams quickly chat over video. Unlike most of the space, we aren’t innovating on the in-meeting experience—keeping that lightweight. Instead, we’re innovating on _how_ you start video chats.

Remotion puts selfies of your team on your desktop so you can see who’s free and jump into quick video chats. Hope it’s useful for you all. Looking forward to feedback.

Thanks, founder here. Remotion is designed for teams of people that collaborate closely. Usually that's the "2-pizza" team of 4-10 people, even if you're at a 1000-person company.

The way this works in Remotion is you choose who you want to add to your Desktop Shortlist, and those are the people you see on your desktop.