Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

Thank you, CTOnews.com netizens, don't forget v's clue delivery! CTOnews.com news on December 8, CTOnews.com previously reported that "QQ project team: an internal test version of Windows based on Electron technology is expected to be released next year." now Tencent client engineer (Zhihu ID:MagiLu) has answered some questions that everyone is concerned about.

The following is the original answer:

The internal test version of Windows QQ based on Electron technology is expected to be released in 2023. What are the new features of this version?

Thank you for your use and attention to the new version of desktop QQ NT. This year, the QQ team launched an architecture upgrade plan for QQ. The first stop is to solve the problem of slow iteration on the desktop. We used the new architecture to ReFactor the QQ code from front to back, and chose Electron as the new version of QQ desktop UI cross-platform solution. It is based on the comprehensive consideration of improving R & D efficiency, framework maturity, team technology and talent accumulation.

1. The background of the new version of QQ using cross-platform solutions due to historical reasons, QQ first has the Windows version, then Mac and Linux versions, the three ends are the earliest independent teams and independent code implementation, Windows features the most rich and comprehensive, Mac focuses on innovation experience, relatively few functions, Linux the most crude, with the baptism of the mobile Internet, a variety of organizational structure adjustment, talent flow and business replacement The current desktop-side QQ is in a state of bloated, difficult to maintain and lack of update iterations.

With the popularity of telecommuting and distance education, the desktop side begins to return to everyone's field of vision, and there is a strong demand, but it is obviously a high-cost, high-input and difficult task to maintain the three desktop ends of QQ Windows / Mac / Linux at the same time, and to ensure that each end maintains a fast and high-quality iteration. In this context, in order to re-polish the QQ desktop, we need to reuse as much code as possible, achieve a set of code, multi-terminal operation, experience unity, improve R & D efficiency, continuously improve client performance and user product experience, and meet the needs of users of the three desktop platforms Windows / Mac / Linux. As a result, cross-platform reuse has become our natural choice.

two。 The choice of cross-platform solution first of all, we hope that the final choice of cross-platform solution should be mature enough, low development and use costs, do not need to use the framework itself, but also need to invest huge additional labor costs. In fact, we have all encountered similar problems in the use of cross-platform frameworks such as React Native, Flutter and Tauri. In addition to functional development, in order to build the framework ecology, perimeter and tool chain well, we also need to invest huge additional costs. Qt also has similar problems. Using Electron, for Web front-end development students, is basically zero cost, most of the existing Web front-end infrastructure can be directly reused, and the efficiency of using Web to develop UI is very high in the mainstream technology stack. And in recent years, the mainstream desktop applications have basically chosen Electron, such as VScode, Discord, Slack, Skype, Whatsapp, Figma and so on (https://www.electronjs.org/ apps). New desktop applications are basically the first choice of Electron. In addition, the iterative speed and community atmosphere of the Electron version are very online.

Secondly, whether the technology selection is suitable for the current team is also a consideration, whether the team has relevant technology accumulation, whether there is a talent reserve to continue to invest in this technology stack is also very important. Qt is indeed a good choice for performance, but at present the team does not have much accumulation of Qt and basic infrastructure, and there is actually a shortage of relevant talents in the market, so it is more difficult to recruit, while the current QQ team Web front-end team accumulation is relatively sufficient, which can better balance quality, performance and efficiency.

Finally, Electron is only the cross-platform part of the current new version of QQ desktop UI, which accounts for a relatively small portion of the overall project. It is not webQQ or a web version of QQ or an embedded browser. The new version of QQ is actually refactored and rewritten completely based on the NT architecture. The basic idea is shown in the figure below. You can see that the core QQ logic is still running on C++.

The memory usage of 3.Electron applications as for the memory problems of Electron applications that people are concerned about, it is not impossible to optimize and solve them. Because of the short-cycle usage paths of general Web applications, they often pay little attention to memory usage. While the use of QQ group chat and picture and text messages are more common, it will also bring a lot of tests to memory. But when we settle down and analyze each scenario in full detail, combined with customized depth optimization of Electron and optimization of communication with Native, memory can be well controlled, and the rest is to find out some memory leaks. At this stage, we will basically release a new version in one to two weeks. For example, today's grayscale Mac version has been greatly optimized in terms of memory consumption. Interested students can use the latest version and can run for a long time compared with the old version. It has been significantly optimized, and the optimization is still ongoing. Please look forward to it.

4. User experience and feedback since the launch of the new Mac version of QQ, we have been iterating over new features while continuously optimizing performance. In the process, we have also received a lot of good internal test feedback and praise, which also gives us a lot of confidence to choose and adhere to this technical route.

Finally, the new version of LinuxQQ is already in internal testing and will be available soon. The rapid launch of a full-featured Linux version of QQ is also due to the significant improvement in iterative efficiency brought about by the selected solution.

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