r/Frontend • u/v1vendi • 2d ago

<script type='text/python'>

I used open source code of Ladybird browser, extracted only rendering engine (HTML + CSS), removed Javascript and replaced it with Python bindings with same API.
So basically, now you can write desktop applications with HTML interface. It supports most modern CSS features and frameworks like tailwind, but I deloberately removed all browser-specific features like networking, localstorage, canvas and others.
This is not Electron-like, it's not a full packed browser, only UI renderer, but a thing that I dreamt for a long time. 25Mb wheel size, around 90Mb RAM for a running GUI python app.

I don't understand whether it's still useful at this point of technology, where you either use Electron or switch to native render like GPUI, but I need some feedback on whether the community needs this at all.

0 Upvotes

33% Upvoted

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u/TheRNGuy 2d ago

There are already many such frameworks.

Can it do React?

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u/v1vendi 1d ago

I don't know any existing similar frameworks, this is the thing.
All I see is soke kind of UI generators for web browsers, or WebView wrappers like Tauri, or Electron, or Python to Javascript transpilers.
This is direct control of HTML renderer with all modern CSS features from Python for desktop apps.

It does not support React because there is no React written in Python. A user can rewrite Preact/Svelte/whatever to Python if they want.

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u/TheRNGuy 1d ago

Needs something similar to React, more declarative. Also, similar syntax, code colouring, auto complete, etc (I think AST is used to make it)

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u/create-third-places 2d ago

I think this is a great idea as long as you aren't vibecoding any part of the tool. Electron is bloated, and we should have a better alternative.

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u/TheRNGuy 1d ago

Why would vibe coding some parts be bad? 

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u/create-third-places 1d ago

Vibe coding is like a slot machine.

-1

u/TheRNGuy 1d ago

It doesn't mean you can't look at it and fix it. 

-1

u/bhison 1d ago

Vibe code but take the time and tokens to periodically refactor and optimise. Opus 5.5 is better at this than most humans.

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u/create-third-places 1d ago

Opus 5.5 is a scam.

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u/bhison 1d ago

I use it every day and it’s fucking brilliant. So unless the scam is to do with making the industry hugely dependent before cranking up prices, I strongly disagree.