sciter-js-sdk VS zotero

- https://gitlab.com/sciter-engine/sciter-js-sdk/-/tree/main/b... - Skia backend.

You can load in usciter this document:

https://gitlab.com/sciter-engine/sciter-js-sdk/-/blob/main/s...

It shows pretty large colorized texts so you can estimate how Direct2D and Skia handle GPU accelerated text rendering. For these two binaries the difference is only in graphics used - Direct2D and Skia.

Agree about virtualization in principle. Not that nightmarish though.

My Sciter supports built-in virtualization out of the box. But I shall admit that this is second approach to the problem.

Currently Sciter's behavior:virtual-list supports as fixed-height items (that's easy) as variable-height items like messages [1] in chats.

API is relatively simple [2]: single event "contentrequired" that virtual-list sends to JS. In response JS shall either append or prepend requested number of DOM elements to the container (a.k.a. sliding window scroller). Example, grid showing 20000 records: https://gitlab.com/sciter-engine/sciter-js-sdk/-/blob/main/s...

[1] https://sciter.com/behaviorvirtual-list-for-sciter-and-scite...

Thank you for your explanation. As for Electron alternatives, Sciter is much more lightweight, supports Vue and includes a native webview. Anyway, good luck with your project!

> we have a number of other libs to integrate, some of which add their own rendering (which requires access to e.g. a Vulkan context, not merely HTML/CSS or other high-level UI elements)…

I have a customer that is doing something close: it is a 3D CAD alike app where they have Vulkan rendering 3D scene with Sciter UI on top of that - rendering chrome UI around that 3D and on the same Vulkan surface.

Sciter API supports rendering in windowless mode (https://gitlab.com/sciter-engine/sciter-js-sdk/-/tree/main/d...) where app supplies OpenGL, Vulkan or DirectX context to render on.

> Sorry, but I'll have to pass.

Understood. Sometimes people need not just to get job done but also "OS" label on it.

Attempt to combine all these definition in single language is doomed to fail. If in doubts then look at WPF.

3. Notes on language-behind-UI...

If to consider #2 then such simple thing as JavaScript language and VM are quite adequate to the task. Language-behind-UI do not need to be that performant, but it must be flexible. I may express un-popular opinion but language-behind-UI should be typeless.

Simply put: don't do ray tracing in language-behind-UI. But! Such a language shall have simple mechanism of adding high performant functions. There are good languages that are specifically designed for performance: C, C++, D, Rust, Zig, WebAssembly, etc. You just need convenient mechanism to expose those functions to runtime of language-behind-UI. Like here: https://gitlab.com/sciter-engine/sciter-js-sdk/-/blob/main/d...

You need JITs, compilation, fat VMs and runtimes, strong types only if your language is the only mean to define algorithms in whole application. But expect that your code will always be sub-optimal - neither enough performant nor super flexible.

4. Conclusion

Flutter should be something Sciter-alike :) - use [X]HTML/JSX, CSS and some already well known language-behind-UI. JavaScript is the natural choice. If needed you should be able to use native UI components - like in Sciter you can use existing HWND based and windowless native components inside your UI. It may not follow Web UI model on 100% (that's impossible) but to be conceptually close so developers can reuse their skills. Web UI model is conceptually close to Mobile one - all application UI is constrained inside single window.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned it but I've been using SciterJS (website) for my most recent project. I wouldn't ever claim it's the best UI framework out there, but it's lightweight and I've never felt so productive - I've rapidly developed my UI and integrated it with my native C++ far faster than I thought possible. I will note that it is far, far cheaper and has so many more features than Ultralight does.

Only when code tries to access props/methods of the loaded object it gets fetched from disk, its __proto__ is set to particular class, etc.

More on this architecture: https://gitlab.com/sciter-engine/sciter-js-sdk/-/blob/main/d...

Patched QuickJS with storage support is here: https://gitlab.com/c-smile/quickjspp - it uses DyBase of Konstantin Knizhnik as a storage.

More on i18n support in Sciter.

Sciter got native (built-in) Signal implementation made after PReact's Signals;

Maybe try Zotero[1]. There are many addons which can do what you need.

[1]https://www.zotero.org/

And next time, you use a real literature management program like zotero (some university libraries offer classes, there is a r/zotero, etc) or jabref to create a proper bibtex file with the references. It is not that difficult, and keeps you sane (esp. if a paper has to be formatted for a different publisher). See e.g. learnlatex.

Zotero | Remote | Full-Time or Part-Time | https://www.zotero.org

Zotero is an open-source project that develops software to help people collect, organize, annotate, cite, and share their research. Our software is recommended by most universities and used by millions of students, scholars, scientists, and researchers worldwide.

We're looking for a JavaScript developer to work on Zotero "translators" — the pieces of code that let people click a button in their browser toolbar on any webpage and save high-quality metadata and files to their Zotero libraries. If you like web scraping, APIs, data formats, and exploring sites in the browser devtools, this would be up your alley. As a core Zotero developer, you'll also have the ability to work across Zotero's vast ecosystem and help shape the future of the project.

This is an open-ended contract role that can scale up and down in hours based on availability and workload.

https://www.zotero.org/jobs

Zotero is your answer, it even auto generates your citations.

https://www.zotero.org/

Apparently there are plugins for Logseq and Obsidian as well.

Zotero - Price: Free Free and open-source reference manager that helps you collect, organize, and cite your research sources.

I use the free and open source Zotero which I think you'd find very calibre-like and manage notes and concept linking with org-roam in emacs.

If you can't hold the urge to know, you can check on the Zotero web library if all of your things are still there

Resources: ZOTERO. Zotero is a free (you can pay to get more storage), open-source citation manager with optional browser plugins. IT WILL FORMAT CITATIONS FOR YOU. (sometimes you have to edit them, but most of the time it can pull metadata and format things correctly on its own). You can sort your references into folders or with tags, read and annotate PDF copies on your computer or in a mobile app, and make notes - which I used to keep track of specific quotations I wanted to use.

You can also use online resources like The Encyclopedia of Archaeological Sciences, that I think is mostly free or the Handbook of Archaeological Sciences which I think is also mostly free. If you can't get a hold of those things you can also email the authors/editors and they might send you a free copy or look them up on Academia.edu and see if they have a free version. Also, if you don't already, use Google Scholar, it's the best resource for finding free articles and topics to read. It's also never too early to start using something like Zotaro, Mendeley, or Endnote to keep track of your readings and help you with citations/references in papers. You can literally download the citation, import it into one of those systems and it automatically formats your referencing.