DlangUI

[Chris via Digitalmars-d-announce]

On Tuesday, 20 May 2014 at 18:13:36 UTC, Vadim Lopatin wrote:
> Hello!
>
> I would like to announce my project, DlangUI library - 
> cross-platform GUI for D.
> https://github.com/buggins/dlangui
> License: Boost License 1.0
>
> Native library written in D (not a wrapper to other GUI 
> library) - easy to extend.
> As a backend, uses SDL2 on any platform, Win32 API on Windows, 
> XCB on Linux. Other backends can be added easy.
> Tested on Windows and Linux.
> Supports hardware acceleration - drawing using OpenGL when 
> built with version=USE_OPENGL.
> Unicode support.
> Internationalization support.
> Uses Win32 API fonts on Windows, and FreeType on other 
> platforms.
> Same look and feel can be achieved on all platforms.
> Flexible look and feel - themes and styles.
> API is a bit similar to Android UI.
> Flexible layout, support of different screen DPI, scaling.
> Uses two phase layout like in Android.
> Supports drawable resources in .png and .jpeg, nine-patch pngs 
> and state drawables like in Android.
> Single threaded. Use other threads for performing slow tasks.
> Mouse oriented.
>
> Actually, it's a port (with major redesign) of my library used 
> for cross-platform version of my application CoolReader from 
> C++.
>
>
> State of project: alpha. But, already can be used for simple 2D 
> games and simple GUI apps.
> I'm keeping in mind a goal to write D language IDE based on 
> dlangui. :)
> Adding support of 3D graphics is planned.
>
>
> Currently implemented widgets:
>
> TextWidget - simple static text (TODO: implement multiline 
> formatting)
> ImageWidget - static image
> Button - simple button with text label
> ImageButton - image only button
> TextImageButton - button with icon and label
> CheckBox - check button with label
> RadioButton - radio button with label
> EditLine - single line edit
> EditBox - multiline editor
> VSpacer - vertical spacer - just an empty widget with 
> layoutHeight == FILL_PARENT, to fill vertical space in layouts
> HSpacer - horizontal spacer - just an empty widget with 
> layoutWidth == FILL_PARENT, to fill horizontal space in layouts
> ScrollBar - scroll bar
> TabControl - tabs widget, allows to select one of tabs
> TabHost - container for pages controlled by TabControl
> TabWidget - combination of TabControl and TabHost
>
> Layouts - Similar to layouts in Android
>
> LinearLayout - layout children horizontally or vertically 
> depending on orientation
> VerticalLayout - just a LinearLayout with vertical orientation
> HorizontalLayout - just a LinearLayout with vertical orientation
> FrameLayout - all children occupy the same place; usually onle 
> one of them is visible
> TableLayout - children are aligned into rows and columns of 
> table
>
> List Views - similar to lists in Android UI API.
> ListWidget - layout dynamic items horizontally or vertically 
> (one in row/column) with automatic scrollbar; can reuse widgets 
> for similar items
> ListAdapter - interface to provide data and widgets for 
> ListWidget
> WidgetListAdapter - simple implementation of ListAdapter 
> interface - just a list of widgets (one per list item) to show
>
>
> Sample project, example1 contains demo code for most of dlangui 
> API.
>
> Try it using DUB:
>
>     git clone https://github.com/buggins/dlangui.git
>     cd dlangui
>     dub run dlangui:example1
>
> Fonts note: on Linux, several .TTFs are loaded from hardcoded 
> paths (suitable for Ubuntu).
> TODO: add fontconfig support to access all available system 
> fonts.
>
> Helloworld:
>
> // main.d
> import dlangui.all;
> mixin DLANGUI_ENTRY_POINT;
>
> /// entry point for dlangui based application
> extern (C) int UIAppMain(string[] args) {
>     // resource directory search paths
>     string[] resourceDirs = [
>         appendPath(exePath, "../res/"),   // for Visual D and 
> DUB builds
>         appendPath(exePath, "../../res/") // for Mono-D builds
>     ];
>
>     // setup resource directories - will use only existing 
> directories
>     Platform.instance.resourceDirs = resourceDirs;
>     // select translation file - for english language
>     Platform.instance.uiLanguage = "en";
>     // load theme from file "theme_default.xml"
>     Platform.instance.uiTheme = "theme_default";
>
>     // create window
>     Window window = Platform.instance.createWindow("My Window", 
> null);
>     // create some widget to show in window
>     window.mainWidget = (new Button()).text("Hello 
> world"d).textColor(0xFF0000); // red text
>     // show window
>     window.show();
>     // run message loop
>     return Platform.instance.enterMessageLoop();
> }
>
> DDOC generated documentation can be found there: 
> https://github.com/buggins/dlangui/tree/master/docs
> For more info see readme and example1 code.
>
> I would be glad to see any feedback.
> Can this project be useful for someone? What features/widgets 
> are must have for you?
>
>
> Best regards,
>      Vadim  <coolreader.org at gmail.com>
> 	

Thanks a million! Please keep it up. Finally we get our own GUI. 
I've been dreaming of this for years. As has been mentioned 
before, bindings are only as good as the UI they bind to. With a 
native UI you can use the full power of the language itself. 
Talking about templates and stuff ...

Are you planning to make it C(++) compatible so that non-D-people 
could use it too?