libui VS glimmer-dsl-libui

You can kind of see the desktop UI train wreck in real time here.

We started with simple stable APIs for a common look and feel. For a while these were evolved and made available in other languages. This was back when native apps were consistent and intuitive and you could… uhh… actually write and ship them without bundling giant runtimes or checking a huge compatibility matrix.

Then around 2012 the train rounds the bend and screeeeech it hits some bad track and starts to derail. UI starts trying to emulate the web, a terrible UI platform, and sane compositional UI libraries and APIs are abandoned in favor of XML soup.

Since this stuff is a trash fire, this is followed by multiple incompatible attempts to replace or fix this. Most of these are abandoned dead ends.

Meanwhile the dev community just said fuck it and went to Electron, creating today’s world where a “hello world” app with an OK button is hundreds of megabytes and has to load an entire private copy of a language runtime and rendering engine.

Versions of this comedy of errors have occurred on every other platform, and of course there has been little effort to create a cross platform UI API that’s sane beyond Qt (with its own problems) and dozens of half completed OSS projects.

So enjoy Electron I guess.

There was one sane human being who tried to do this a while ago:

https://github.com/andlabs/libui

It’s the only sane desktop UI project I’ve seen in almost 20 years, an attempt to create an actual cross platform common API. But it’s abandoned of course, likely too difficult for one dev and nobody is going to provide financial support for anything that sane.

Maybe AI will get good enough some day that we can use it to do a thing like that.

What about https://github.com/andlabs/libui

Fantastic! This is similar to the C library `libui` since it also acts as a wrapper of native libraries of each platform.

If only there was a way to interface to these using some declarative minimal and highly opinionated programming language and paradigm...

https://github.com/andlabs/libui

For the GUI you will need a library or framework that interacts with your specifiv operating system and allows you to create windows and a canvas to which you can draw. You could give libui a chance.

libui-ng is a cross-platform GUI library with native widgets written in C. It is based on an earlier, (currently) inactive project known as libui. While Rust bindings for libui have existed for years (see ui-sys and iui), there is no solution for the new libui-ng; libui-ng-sys aims to fill this role.

libui

https://github.com/andlabs/libui is very nice, but unfortunately dead, if it serves your purpose consider using it, this is a fork under development https://github.com/libui-ng/libui-ng

https://github.com/andlabs/libui

Better yet, it has excellent DSLs that make it possible to build desktop apps in a way similar to HTML, but much better due to keeping all code dynamic in one language (no static/dynamic multi-language separation/mixing dissonance):

Maybe a module that uses https://github.com/andlabs/libui or a light HTML renderer?

glimmer-dsl-libui is a more actively maintained alternative

https://github.com/AndyObtiva/glimmer-dsl-libui

Another GitHub Pull Request for Rubio-Radio (open-source Internet radio app built with Ruby) got accepted and merged, which focused on displaying the currently playing song/program, loading all available radio stations (instead of a pre-defined limit), and enhanced full-text-search support including column-specific queries. The changes have been released in rubio-radio gem version 0.0.6. In fact, the enhanced full-text-search support is included in the latest version of Glimmer DSL for LibUI (Ruby Desktop Development GUI Library used to build Rubio-Radio) as part of the refined_table custom control for use in any projects, so software engineers get that feature for free now.

Recently, I blogged about how I contributed Pagination/Filtering support to Rubio-Radio, an Internet radio application built with Ruby and Glimmer DSL for LibUI.

I am particularly impressed by the fact that the developers of those apps fully went the distance by walking the walk, not just talking the talk, especially given that the developers of the first app (RubyCrumbler) were brand new to Glimmer DSL for LibUI and had to exercise great problem solving skills to finish their app on time for their needs.

# From: https://github.com/AndyObtiva/glimmer-dsl-libui#shape-coloring require 'glimmer-dsl-libui' class ShapeColoring include Glimmer::LibUI::Application COLOR_SELECTION = Glimmer::LibUI.interpret_color(:red) before_body { @shapes = [] } body { window('Shape Coloring', 200, 200) { margined false grid { label("Click a shape to select and\nchange color via color button") { left 0 top 0 hexpand true halign :center vexpand false } color_button { |cb| left 0 top 1 hexpand true vexpand false on_changed do @selected_shape&.fill = cb.color end } area { left 0 top 2 hexpand true vexpand true rectangle(0, 0, 600, 400) { # background shape fill :white } @shapes << colorable(:rectangle, 20, 20, 40, 20) { |shape| fill :lime } @shapes << colorable(:square, 80, 20, 20) { |shape| fill :blue } @shapes << colorable(:circle, 75, 70, 20, 20) { |shape| fill :green } @shapes << colorable(:arc, 120, 70, 40, 0, 145) { |shape| fill :orange } @shapes << colorable(:polygon, 120, 10, 120, 50, 150, 10, 150, 50) { fill :cyan } @shapes << colorable(:polybezier, 20, 40, 30, 100, 50, 80, 80, 110, 40, 120, 20, 120, 30, 91) { fill :pink } } } } } def colorable(shape_symbol, *args, &content) send(shape_symbol, *args) do |shape| on_mouse_up do |area_mouse_event| old_stroke = Glimmer::LibUI.interpret_color(shape.stroke).slice(:r, :g, :b) @shapes.each {|sh| sh.stroke = nil} @selected_shape = nil unless old_stroke == COLOR_SELECTION shape.stroke = COLOR_SELECTION.merge(thickness: 2) @selected_shape = shape end end content.call(shape) end end end ShapeColoring.launch

# From: https://github.com/AndyObtiva/glimmer-dsl-libui#class-based-custom-controls require 'glimmer-dsl-libui' require 'facets' Address = Struct.new(:street, :p_o_box, :city, :state, :zip_code) class FormField include Glimmer::LibUI::CustomControl options :model, :attribute body { entry { |e| label attribute.to_s.underscore.split('_').map(&:capitalize).join(' ') text <=> [model, attribute] } } end class AddressForm include Glimmer::LibUI::CustomControl options :address body { form { form_field(model: address, attribute: :street) form_field(model: address, attribute: :p_o_box) form_field(model: address, attribute: :city) form_field(model: address, attribute: :state) form_field(model: address, attribute: :zip_code) } } end class LabelPair include Glimmer::LibUI::CustomControl options :model, :attribute, :value body { horizontal_box { label(attribute.to_s.underscore.split('_').map(&:capitalize).join(' ')) label(value.to_s) { text <= [model, attribute] } } } end class AddressView include Glimmer::LibUI::CustomControl options :address body { vertical_box { address.each_pair do |attribute, value| label_pair(model: address, attribute: attribute, value: value) end } } end class ClassBasedCustomControls include Glimmer::LibUI::Application # alias: Glimmer::LibUI::CustomWindow before_body do @address1 = Address.new('123 Main St', '23923', 'Denver', 'Colorado', '80014') @address2 = Address.new('2038 Park Ave', '83272', 'Boston', 'Massachusetts', '02101') end body { window('Class-Based Custom Keyword') { margined true horizontal_box { vertical_box { label('Address 1') { stretchy false } address_form(address: @address1) horizontal_separator { stretchy false } label('Address 1 (Saved)') { stretchy false } address_view(address: @address1) } vertical_separator { stretchy false } vertical_box { label('Address 2') { stretchy false } address_form(address: @address2) horizontal_separator { stretchy false } label('Address 2 (Saved)') { stretchy false } address_view(address: @address2) } } } } end ClassBasedCustomControls.launch

Glimmer DSL for LibUI (Prerequisite-Free Ruby Desktop Development GUI Library): this gem just won a 2022 Fukuoka Ruby Special Award after getting judged directly by Matz (creator of Ruby) and the Fukuoka Ruby Award Competition Judges! How is that for a Year of The Ruby Desktop accomplishment!!?!

Another reason why this library was created was to address the need for supporting automated declarative drag and drop features in Glimmer DSL for LibUI coming soon (right now, it supports manually implementing drag and drop with area listeners out of the box).