lvgl VS Elements C++ GUI library

So here is the thing: The iPod Nano 7g is from 2012. I've seen many people designing custom PCBs and releasing Kickstarter projects for custom audio players[5] or game handhelds[6]. I know Rockbox (which is great, but its lacks support for Wifi and Bluetooth AFAIK and just does not compete with the UX of iPod's audio book features in my opinion) and iPod Linux. 10 years ago someone even reverse engineered the iPod Nano 6g display[3].

Although I'm not skilled enough in PCB-Design, after some research I found the Lilygo T-Display S3 Pro[4] based on ESP32 S3, which would be the size, but lacks audio and OS. There is also the Mango PI CyberPad[7], which looked interesting, but maybe is already too clunky.

Programming wise, LVGL[8] may be a good framework to develop a modern and efficient UI - at least it looks promising.

So, why is nobody interested in recreating an iPod nano like device? It should be doable with modern tech, but Phones have completely taken over the marked...

1: https://www.reddit.com/r/audiobooks/comments/14ue4un/comment/ks1sj99/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

2: https://github.com/advplyr/audiobookshelf-app/issues/847

3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TedIzmguP0

4: https://www.lilygo.cc/products/t-display-s3-pro

5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1C597AkhGtw

6: https://www.funkey-project.com/

7: https://mangopi.org/cp1m

8: https://lvgl.io/

LVGL is a graphics library used mostly for embedded UI's. Main website: https://lvgl.io/

Popular embedded UI library

If you need something written in C and very tiny, I recommend LVGL https://lvgl.io/

The factory code uses the Lvgl graphic library. https://github.com/lvgl/lvgl

I'm trying to interface SPI LCD (ILI943) with Zynq 7020 (PYNQ-Z2 board) and LVGL embedded UI libary. And considering between two approaches:

There's a relatively new C++ GUI library literally called "Elements". Not sure how it works though, but the way it looks, and the music background of its creator makes it appear designed for DAWs.

https://github.com/cycfi/elements

Further, if you we want a "modern" C++ GUI framework what actually would be modern would be to use mechanisms in the language itself as a quasi-DSL from within the language. This is something like what Joel de Guzman is doing with Elements

It's a complex domain. The closest we have at the moment is Elements which hasn't been proposed for Boost (yet?) but is by Joel de Guzman, the primary author of Boost.Spirit.

I ended up with elements gui https://github.com/cycfi/elements

If you don't want to use Qt I honestly think your best bet may be to become an early adopter of cycfi elements depending on your project. Elements is still rough but is useable for small applications. I think when it is finished it will be the best choice for a retained mode GUI library, but right now it is missing a lot of things (e.g. the standard common dialogs, "open", "Save as", etc.) , and has basically zero documentation.

github link

For the past year we were evaluating EFL, QML and Flutter for our embedded TV devices after having used the first two for last 5+ years and choice was made to go with Flutter. Performance is great, license is great, and development experience, judged by the whole development team, is the best. Hence my remark on being sad as QML could have had a great future, even transitioned to modern C++ without need for separate language, if there was a huge adoption and proper choices made by the company, e.g. see https://github.com/cycfi/elements.