We've never used GCM in conjunction with the desktop app, so I'm not sure where you were looking. Writing and maintaining three different fully native apps for Windows, OSX, and Linux is a non-starter for most organizations these days, but it's particularly true for a small open source project like us.
We developed it as a chrome packaged app because it provides the same experience as a native app (appears fully stand alone, integrates with your native OS launcher, etc), and because that's where the people are in the world we live in today.
Eventually we might consider wrapping it in electron or equivalent, but that's just a question of packaging.
We developed it as a chrome packaged app because it provides the same experience as a native app (appears fully stand alone, integrates with your native OS launcher, etc), and because that's where the people are in the world we live in today.
Eventually we might consider wrapping it in electron or equivalent, but that's just a question of packaging.