Flickr hearts XUL

Flickr Uploadr 3.0 beta is out, and it appears to be developed using XULRunner. Its UI is presumably entirely XUL-based.

On one hand, I find this very interesting, and I’m glad to see XULRunner/Gecko being used for a rather high-profile app. I think the idea of developing portions of Desktop apps using web technology/rendering engines is interesting (Most of my apps follow this model using HTML+WebKit+Cocoa rather than XUL+Gecko+XULRunner).

On the other hand, I find the 3.0 beta to be a step backwards from the native Cocoa 2.x Uploadr in nearly every way. The 2.x version was nicer in all the ways that native Cocoa apps are nicer than cross-platform monstrosities on OS X. Swing, XUL, SWT, etc… they all just look like shit on OS X and there’s no denying it. :0[

I find that on Windows (at least XP… haven’t tried Vista), where the quality of the native GUI toolkit is poorer, cross-platform apps don’t stick out nearly as much or at all. I run Netbeans, Eclipse, and Firefox on XP (via Fusion), and think they all look just fine. But on OS X, they’re just… well… kinda nasty.