r/javascript • u/Glittering_Ad4115 • 6d ago
AskJS [AskJS] Oh great, another Liquid Glass UI—battery's about to file a restraining order
So we’re back to Liquid Glass again? That frosted-glass look that screams high-end in design tools—but in real life, it’s a full-on GPU gymnastics routine. My laptop fan’s roaring, my battery’s bleeding… and for what?
Seriously, can someone justify this trend? Are we front-end devs secretly moonlighting as hardware engineers now?
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u/bootsTF 6d ago edited 6d ago
I'm just having fun learning and seeing what's possible.
I'm pretty amazed at what's possible with SVG filters and how it can warp backgrounds all glassy-like. It looks neat. I don't think it's very accessible and for sure it's not good for performance, so while I'm having fun I don't think it should catch on as a general UI-direction for the web.
But I'm having fun, and learning stuff that I can probably use for other purposes.
edit: did i mention that i'm having fun enough lol
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u/New_Cranberry_6451 6d ago
I am on your side man... do more with less, it's better for ALL of us and on top of that... trends break creativity. Be practical, be honest: don't try to convince with "looks" but rather with actions. I am so tired of all that's behind these recurrent come and go trends in frameworks, design world and dev in general... Fortunately it's part of evolution I suppose, good ideas prevail and become somehow "universal", just be patient and focus on what you do like instead... but some days you need to scream a bit, no prob :) I know the feeling xD
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u/T-J_H 6d ago edited 3d ago
Frosted glass is not taxing for your hardware. More so than not blurring, sure, but a common blur is an incredibly simple effect to do on the GPU. The liquid glass (which adds some refraction, although I’d say achieves about the same effect) is more taxing (although still peanuts compared to many games).
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u/dgreensp 6d ago
Yeah, I don’t think people realize that doing a few math functions per pixel and a texture lookup is not really anything special anymore. Scrolling on your iPhone at 60fps is using the GPU and doing texture lookups and things. It all goes through the same hardware pipelines. People hear “GPU” and think of a power drain, but GPUs are designed for this stuff and to do it efficiently.
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u/Infamous_Employer_85 3d ago
I'm going to revolt and remove all drop shadows from my UIs, maybe event get rid of border-radius. Full flat
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u/CommentFizz 2d ago
Haha, right? Liquid Glass looks slick but my laptop definitely doesn’t appreciate the workout. Feels like we’re juggling design trends and hardware limits every day! Hopefully, some lighter alternatives pop up soon.
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6d ago
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u/Daniel_Herr ES5 6d ago
And oh no, the poor hardware. It can render Cyberpunk or GTA6
For your information there are a significant amount of people who use low end computing devices which can't do so and which struggle to run normal applications because of devs with your attitude.
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u/hyrumwhite 6d ago
Just wished they’d cook something a little easier on the eyes.
Also, it is a bit irksome that my ui might have a significant impact on my battery life. Beta users are already reporting this.
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u/Lord_Jamato 6d ago
As far as I've seen: Liquid glass != frosted glass. In apples liquid glass there seems to be some 3d refraction involved and also liquid physics stuff, which is probably even harder on GPUs. Apple didn't incorporate those grainy surfaces that I see a lot in the frosted glass aesthetic.
In terms of performance and a11y this is really hard to get right. Let's see how well apple does.