Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

Native feel is not wanted (anymore). Branded appearance is.

(and I think this is unfortunate. I wish developers didn't attempt to replace my browser's perfectly fine-looking, accessible checkboxes by their own often ugly custom implementations for instance. And I'm not hating on web devs, I'm one of them)

XUL [1] seemed like a good idea as a basis for building native-looking web applications. It's too bad it has been abandoned.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XUL



I think both are wanted. People like it when they have the usability and familiarity of native widgets, but it’s nice when they also have theming and personality. A good example is TweetBot, which is a normal iOS app except it’s not, or OmniFocus which does things in a native way except everything is purple.


> XUL seemed like a good idea as a basis for building native-looking web applications. It's too bad it has been abandoned.

Didn't XUL do roughly what React Native, and other similar frameworks, do today?

edit I see that XUL did its own rendering rather than using native widgets, but the overall goal seems about the same.




Consider applying for YC's Fall 2026 batch! Applications are open till July 27.

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: