Ask HN: JavaScript-Less DOM as a GUI System?

1 points by teucris 3y ago ↗ HN

Over the past several years, whenever I re-assess the best options for GUI frameworks, I find myself looking for something that doesn’t exist: an HTML and CSS renderer that can be directly manipulated using local app code. I’ve worked with Electron and I’ve seen Tauri; I mean something different. I mean something with an API for direct DOM manipulation, allowing for cross-platform GUI development without including a JS runtime or a web server. Ideally, a solution would leverage an existing renderer, e.g. Blink’s or WebKit’s, but I can’t seem to find a way to isolate just the rendering parts of these systems. Is this possible, or is web rendering just too entwined with JS and HTTP for this to be realistic?

2 comments

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4silvertooth 3y ago ↗

Take a look at Sciter, it won't turn your website into an application like electron or tauri, but you could use it's api (c++) for direct DOM manipulation to make GUI. You could consider it as engine that renders HTML CSS.

https://gitlab.com/sciter-engine/sciter-js-sdk

teucris 3y ago ↗

Thanks, I looked into Sciter a bit. It’s so close! I didn’t list them as hard requirements, but its closed source nature and required JS engine make it not quite what I’m looking for.