Hi,
While I heard of Ionic a few years ago, it seems that a lot has changed since then. Just want to confirm that as of now (2021), whether it’s possible to develop Windows desktop apps using Ionic (v4 or v5)?
Some source online said it can but it also needs electron; not sure what that means. I thought both electron and ionic are UI frameworks so unsure why it needs both of them.
Electron is not a UI framework. It just lets you convert a web app into a PWA that runs as a desktop app.
Ionic has a UI framework, which is also called Ionic Framework…
Ionic the company has created a spiritual successor to Cordova called Capacitor, which allows you to convert a web app into a IOS or Android app, with just a few commands. And it handles plugins, that you can use to access native APIs, (hopefully) without needing to write code in the native language.
You can use Capacitor without the Ionic UI library.
When you also want to convert your web app into a desktop app, then you use Capacitor in combination with Electron.
Thanks for clarifying this.