imgui VS egui

Cool project! Graphics programming is _hard_ and anything to make it easier is welcome.

Maybe a dumb question, but why not Imgui (https://github.com/ocornut/imgui). "It's way too big and complex" is a completely reasonable answer, but I found it fantastic for debug menus, and there are a few applications that have used it as their _main_ GUI (Ship of Harkinian as an example).

The most well known immediate mode GUI framework, which egui is also inspired by, is Dear imgui. The egui repository also has a section on the trade offs when it comes to immediate mode GUIs, which I would definitely recommend you check out.

> "Minimize state synchronization."

> void UpdateUI()

Minimize state synchronization by effectively synchronizing state on each screen refresh?

> "Minimize state storage on user side."

> Immediate mode is a style of API where important state is kept in user code

Then reduce state stored in user code by storing "important state" in user code?

> "Minimize setup and maintenance."

I don't find the example convincing. It seems like any more complexity beyond this toy example puts you right back where you started. Building components by hand is stone age ideology regardless of how you push state.

https://github.com/ocornut/imgui/blob/master/examples/exampl...

> "Easy to use to create dynamic UI which are the reflection of a dynamic data set."

Which is great for a video game.

A few JavaFX issues I've encountered while writing KeenWrite[1], my FOSS text editor based heavily on JavaFX:

* Building installer-free cross-platform binaries on a local Linux build machine requires an external packager[2].

* Good luck building an installer-free binary for CPU architectures that differ from the compiler's machine.

* Creating a Windows version will cost $ (to sign).

* Creating a macOS version will cost $ (to sign).

* WebView is a bloated beast that bundles JavaScript and exposes no API to set scrollbar positions.

* FlyingSaucer[3] is a lightweight alternative to WebView, but requires a SwingNode.

* SwingNodes are blurry on Windows.

* SwingNodes issue GDK-3 warnings on Linux.

* Menu latching messes up cross-platform (Alt+Tab is a wrench).

* Modular applications are a pain. Migration has been poorly communicated, poorly documented, and poorly supported.

* RichTextFX has no way of changing the caret style in insert mode.

* PreferencesFX, and likely other FX libraries, has security issues.

* For MDI with dockable panes, you'll need tiwulfx-dock[4].

Java problems:

* Write-once, run anywhere is no longer true.

* Apache Batik for rendering SVG images is buggy, EchoSVG[5] is better.

* Rendering math as SVG is hard[6].

* Cross-platform user data directory that complies with XDG, Windows, and macOS will take effort.

* Reliably locating executable programs cross-platform is a chore.

Depending on your requirements, C++ and imgui may be a better choice.[7]

[1]: https://gitlab.com/DaveJarvis/KeenWrite

[2]: https://github.com/Reisz/warp/

[3]: https://github.com/flyingsaucerproject/flyingsaucer

[4]: https://github.com/panemu/tiwulfx-dock

[5]: https://github.com/css4j/echosvg

[6]: https://gitlab.com/DaveJarvis/KeenType

[7]: https://github.com/ocornut/imgui/issues/4400#issuecomment-89...

> I switched from C++ to C about 7 years ago and never looked back

I'm definitely considering the same, and you're right - it's not C++ itself that appeals to me at all, it's the libraries. I'm not sure what C libraries I'd use for collections (instead of the STL and Abseil [0]), or in lieu of CLI11 [1] or Dear ImGui [2].

[0] https://abseil.io/about/design/swisstables

[1] https://github.com/CLIUtils/CLI11

[2] https://github.com/ocornut/imgui

This discussion around adding shadows to window boarders in imgui is also interesting: https://github.com/ocornut/imgui/issues/1329

I think that world still exists. We're on HN, so there's always going to be a business/startup bias in what we talk about and share here. And doubly so if someone develops a product as open source with a commercial offering to support it from the get go.

Off the top of my head, Imgui[0] is an example of an open source project, widely used, developed by a small group with a main contributor. AssetCooker [1] is a project that I discovered recently which is clearly a passion project from a single developer who shared it with the world. CNCF [2] is an odd one, but in my mind it's a 21st century Apache foundation - they have a bunch of core projects which are complete open source projects, used widely in production and sustained through different models.

I think imgui (of the bunch) is probably closest to the GCC-of-the-early-90's idea.

[0] https://github.com/ocornut/imgui

[1] https://github.com/jlaumon/AssetCooker

[2] https://www.cncf.io/projects/

It's even worse.

> Those were only a few options that I considered. After a very long time trying out all sorts of different libraries and at one point even writing my own MFC styles, I figured out that for simple apps there is simply nothing better suited than Dear ImGui.

They decided to go with the option that deviates the most from the standard Windows UI because there are no native controls at all and it's a nightmare for accessibility (see https://github.com/ocornut/imgui/issues/4122). I use it for prototyping privately, but I'd never make anything I want to release into the world with it.

Yeah, I knew I was in for some onoz when I saw "compiled to WebAssembly and rendered with WebGL". In their defense, it's stunning that any text operations work at all

Also, "There is no DOM, HTML, JS or CSS" is some uh-huh given the considerable amount of silliness involved in view-source:https://www.egui.rs/

One of these projects, which is built using Rust, is egui. In this article, we’ll see how we can build a simple, cross-platform GUI application with it.

Cross-platform UI development is a total mess with literally zero solutions ticking all the boxes.

If you want to write an app which will target all the major platforms (3 desktops and two mobiles), want a native look and minimal effort for every platform you target, there is nothing apart from QT.

If you drop native look requirement, some small things like https://www.egui.rs/ might work for you.

If you drop the minimal effort requirement, all the webivew based mess might help you but it won't be easy due to multiple reasons.

It allow to edit large json files > 500mb. It is written in rust and use the amazing egui library

Probably the hardest part, if you are new to egui, is to work out how to display the widgets you want. The egui demo site is quite handy in this regard. It features the egui widgets, and has GitHub links to the Rust code used to make each widget. This will help you replicate them in your own project.

Thanks for the feedback!

It is definitely fixable. Take a look at https://github.com/emilk/egui/issues/996 for some examples of how others have styled egui, or try out https://app.rerun.io/

Styling is done with `ctx.set_style`, but creating a nice style isn't very easy at the moment (basically you'll have to tweak constants in code, and then recompile). I'm working on making it easier as we speak though!

Nothing is wrong with that, it’s rather a workaround, ultimately I am trying to have one language only including the UI too (been playing with egui),so I don’t have to use JavaScript.

https://github.com/emilk/egui

FWIW, I opened an issue: https://github.com/emilk/egui/issues/4046

That's fair. I don't have experience with other immediate mode libraries. It's good to hear that it's not an intrinsic limitation

https://github.com/emilk/egui?tab=readme-ov-file#layout Here the author discusses the issue directly. They note that there are solutions to the issue, but that they all come with (in their opinion) significant drawbacks.

For my use case, if I have to do a lot of manual work to achieve what I consider behavior that should be handled by the framework, then I don't find that compelling and am inclined to use a retained mode implementation.