Native all the way, until you need text

3 days ago

The author, a long-time macOS/iOS developer, tried to create a Markdown chat in native Swift/SwiftUI but faced limitations like poor text selection and performance issues.
Switching to NSTextView/TextKit 2 and AppKit components like NSCollectionView led to new problems, such as CPU spikes for streaming and cell blinking, with months needed for basic macOS feature parity.
Using WebKit for Markdown worked better, but Electron ultimately provided superior performance, typography, and out-of-the-box functionality for text operations and rich rendering.
The author concludes that for rich text in chat-heavy apps, native SDKs like SwiftUI become constraints, and web-based solutions (Electron, React Native) offer a viable, high-performance alternative with better text models.

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