nixos-conf-editor VS Relm4

Sounds a lot like nixos-conf-editor :) It allows for arbitrary nix code to be set for any option, and evaluates it to check for the correct type before setting it as the value in your configuration file

Actually already made a similar tool :) https://github.com/vlinkz/nixos-conf-editor

I definitely plan to support as much as I can, but there is definitely a level of complexity that can never be truly translated to a graphical tool. What I've found helpful during development for me is that I split the frontend GUI and the backed parser and editor into two projects (nixos-conf-editor and nix-editor), that way I could tackle a lot of the parsing and editing alone without worrying about specific GUI features needed (and use it for other projects). Later when I need some feature I add it to nix-editor. So far nix-editor supports simple attribute modification, array adding and popping, and recursive attribute definition and dereferencing. It's definitely not perfect by any means, but so far it's been enough for the projects I've been working on. I definitely need to credit any success I've had so far to the developers of rnix-parser which translates nix expression to easy to manage ASTs.

There is Relm (https://relm4.org/). Which is in Rust is just GTK (through it's Rust bindings) with a nice reactivity layer on top.

I’d recommend you checking out https://relm4.org if you know a little Rust. Relm4 is currently the easiest and most intuitive way to write GTK

Relm4 might make your migration easier. It has factories which make it easy to create lists (both sync and async) and recently added TypedListView as another useful abstraction over pure gtk-rs. There is a lot of potential in Rust + GTK, you just have to find idiomatic abstractions.

Did you try Relm? It's an implementation is the elm architecture (think react) on top of Gtk. Given your experience with Gtk it might suit you really well, as you can even take only parts of it and continue using bare Gtk for the rest. Give it a try!

What about relm4? Is it generally feature complete? Can one use relm4 for most things, and drop to gtk4 for the oddball task that is not supported?

https://relm4.org/

Using this example: https://github.com/Relm4/Relm4/blob/main/examples/simple.rs

What advantage would this Rust crate have over Relm4? It seems pretty similar to me, save for the property based syntax that Forte has, instead of the set_* ones used on Relm4.

If you like Rust I recommend Relm4, one of the best experiences I’ve had with a framework tbh, be sure to learn gtk-rs first.