cssgrid
Yue
cssgrid | Yue | |
---|---|---|
2 | 8 | |
22 | 3,341 | |
- | 2.6% | |
8.6 | 7.1 | |
7 months ago | about 1 month ago | |
Nim | C++ | |
- | GNU Lesser General Public License v3.0 only |
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cssgrid
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So you want to write a GUI framework (2021)
( https://github.com/elcritch/cssgrid )
However, text input is hard and tedious! Then you ideally would need to handle the different keybindings for each OS. You also loose any plugins the OS'es provide. Not to mention the lack of accessibility.
I recall reading that browsers shim out to native OS text fields and wonder how that's done. It really seems like the best approach for small GUI libraries to enabled first class text input.
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Declarative User Interfaces with constraints-based layout engine for Python
https://github.com/elcritch/cssgrid/blob/main/tests/tlayout....
Super easy to let autoflow pack around your main items which is great for UIs:
Yue
- This year in Servo: over 1000 pull requests and beyond
- Yue: A library for creating native cross-platform GUI apps
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So you want to write a GUI framework (2021)
For a recent project I chose Yue (https://libyue.com/), a cross-platform native widget GUI toolkit with C++, JavaScript/Node.js, and Lua. I've only used the Lua interface and macOS backend, but it has worked quite well, despite the very steep learning curve. This was also my first desktop GUI app, so I had to learn many implicit concepts that weren't obvious from the otherwise extensive documentation.
Yue was also the only option that 1) supported macOS, 2) supported Lua, 3) was sufficiently comprehensive to build a non-toy GUI app, 4) and that I could integrate into my (static) build. I couldn't even get the wxWidgets Lua interfaces to compile, and Qt and Fltk had similar stories, whereas reverse-engineering the baroque Yue build (based on Google's internal build systems) was relatively simple. Yue had some sharp edges, but I was able to work around them whilst patiently waiting for patches and fixes upstream.
Immediate mode interfaces were a non-starter for me. For a non-trivial set of otherwise typical controls and window management you have to implement too much yourself, plus being non-native they not only felt wrong (which admittedly is somewhat subjective; the younger crowd seems to think non-native, immediate mode interfaces look more state-of-the-art), but lacked other interfaces for proper desktop integration, like theme change signaling (i.e. notification that a user switch between light and dark modes in the macOS system settings panel).
All-in-all I would highly recommend Yue.
- WxWidgets 3.2.0 Released
- Yue – A library for creating native cross-platform GUI apps
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Gtk4 Tutorial
I settled for Yue: https://github.com/yue/yue It's been around for several years. The deciding factor for me was that is has well maintained Lua bindings as part of the core project alongside JavaScript (Node.js) and C++.
I didn't have much luck with libui (crashes, missing features, etc), and various immediate mode alternatives just require too many dependencies and other work that made integration too painful. Plus, Lua bindings for all these were always stale. In fact, Lua binding quality is pretty poor all around including for GTK, Qt, WxWidgets, and FLTK.
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Portal Windows for Electron
There are many more JavaScript developers than C++ developers.
Personally I like Yue, a cross-platform native toolkit library: https://github.com/yue/yue But much of project was already using Lua, so Node.js and Electron were never viable solutions.
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What is your “I don't care if this succeeds” project?
A native GUI library https://github.com/yue/yue.
It was a disaster when I announced it on Hacker News, and I got numerous harassments from strangers.
But anyway 2 years since then and I'm still working on it.
What are some alternatives?
traitsui - TraitsUI: Traits-capable windowing framework
Vaca - C++ Win32 wrapper to develop GUI apps
fidget - Figma based UI library for nim, with HTML and OpenGL backends.
NanoGUI - Minimalistic GUI library for OpenGL
pyrract - A React-esque library for Python
libui - Simple and portable (but not inflexible) GUI library in C that uses the native GUI technologies of each platform it supports.
enaml-web - Build interactive websites with enaml
imgui - Dear ImGui: Bloat-free Graphical User interface for C++ with minimal dependencies
sciter - Sciter: the Embeddable HTML/CSS/JS engine for modern UI development
kiwi-java - A Java port of the Kiwi C++ implementation of the Cassowary constraint solving algorithm
wxWidgets - Cross-Platform C++ GUI Library