libui
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andlabs
Please set up Patreon for this!
This is the only sane UI project in the world. Please create a Patreon so we can support you.
We are a business user evaluating libui for the desktop GUI for our product, and if you create a means to support you we will contribute a non-trivial amount monthly to its maintenance if we select it.
It appears good enough for our basic Windows and Mac client, but is lacking some things we would need for more serious usage.
For more serious uses we'd need:
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A web control to allow sites or web rendered content (e.g. Google Maps) to be embedded. This could be the host default web control library ala projects like webview. It would be nice if the resources for this only existed when the control was visible. This would give kind of the best of both worlds in terms of the large amount of stuff you can use with Electron apps and not having a big fat browser engine running all the time.
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Some rough edges smoothed off around platform-specific menus, window options, stylistic control, etc. It would be fine to just expose key platform-specific things via settings that are no-ops on other platforms.
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Is CMake too much to ask? I think Meson is really nice but cmake is 'the standard'. Not a deal breaker but it would be nice to be able to plug into any C/C++ project and go.
I can answer that last one: the switch to meson was away from cmake, sorry. While it caused fewer headaches for other people than my original handwritten makefiles, it caused all new problems for everyone, myself included. I think some issues are tagged as such if you want to see examples.
I'm working on smoothing out the rough edges in the remodel branch, but it is taking longer than I originally had hoped because I need better free-time time management
I honestly think the existing master is almost there, at least for simple use cases. I think a web control, a few more core widgets, and some more fine grained control would get you almost all the way to a system useful for a very wide range of apps.
Then there's mobile. If this can be made to work there it becomes literally the only lightweight cross platform option. All other cross platform options are much heavier and tend to come bundled into a giant monolith that forces you to use a specific language, runtime, build system, etc.
My advice: go for the 90th percentile. Go for the features that 90% of software needs and ignore the "long tail" for now. That will give you a lightweight true native cross platform UI library that will be useful for a great many (but not all) projects.
Also I'm sure you could create a patreon and get some funding for this. You have almost 10k stars on a beta project. There's clearly demand for this.
The other possibilities we're evaluating are HTML5+CSS rendering with webview to avoid having to bundle Electron, and Flutter. The latter is interesting but isn't native and requires us to learn yet another language (Dart).
This is architecturally the favorite, but we'll have to see if we can use it yet.
I will contribute to a Patreon as well. I'm not a company-backed individual, but I will support this. This is the project that makes 'write your code, depending on the OS it draws OS-specific widgets' happen with least surprise.
If this thing shows life in terms of PRs reviewed, merged, issues opened, commented, closed (whether fixed or not), I will be investing my cross-platform stuff into this, as this is conceptually simpler on the wetware than QT, doesn't require using Pascal like Lazarus, and doesn't eat all the RAM like electron.
Please - you are doing God's work, crack open a Patreon so we can support you!
💰 💰 💰 💰 💰 💰 💰 💰 💰 💰 💰 💰 💰 💰 💰 TAKE MY MONEY TAKE IT TAKE IT TAKE IT💰 💰 💰 💰 💰
I'm serious. This is the only sane UI project on Earth, possibly in our quadrant of the galaxy.
Also wanted to add that we're considering this for our desktop client, but wouldn't be willing to use it unless there's a pulse. That's another motive for wanting to see a Patreon or something similar set up, or maybe adoption by a sponsor. In either case the idea would be to get some support behind this thing so it doesn't go away.
If we were bigger we'd consider sponsoring of even adopting it.
Anything that facilitates the cross-platform development of performant native applications deserves props and money. And I’m just a user, but had to put up with the flurry of Electron “apps” that has unfortunately come to be a norm for many Western companies. I love that this is much lighter than even Qt and wxWidgets!
Props, money, and documentation/tutorials. I can provide all 3 in various doses.
Honestly without this Electron or something like it is the only viable option. Developing the app N times for N platforms is stupid and totally out. Qt is honestly not that much less bloated than Electron and in my experience often looks worse.
(I don't want to put words in andlabs mouth, but you should also consider that the limiting factor might be time rather than money if his job doesn't allow him to put more time into libui.)
Might be legal issue as well .. taking Patreon $ is probably considered a violation of the "no moonlighting" clause.
his job
Depending on how much money people actually donate, Patreon could, eventually, become their main source of income... if they ever make one.
I have a sneaking suspicion that at this point @andlabs is pretty much burned out with this at this point, which is not unreasonable or a failure on OP's part or anything of the sort, sometimes it just happens. Maybe also OP doesn't feel there isn't enough demand to warrant the logistics involved of setting up a patreon for this (tax, anti-moonlighting clause in employment contract with enforcement depending on state/city/company/manager), or just wants to keep this as a personal project. All of these are fine, and within OP's rights.
To OP, there are multiple alternatives if Patreon is not your thing.
- Github Sponsor
- Open Collective
- Bitcoin Just put your BTC address here and it's trivial for others to send, but the number of people willing to deal with bitcoin is much smaller than those with patreon. If it's a small amount, then you also could look at it sideways and squint and pretend it's not there, in terms of moonlighting, but I would of course not advise that.
To @adamierymenko , if you are serious about throwing money in terms of commercial backing, consider opening up a bug for one of the things you mentioned on bountysource. If it's enough money for OP, then OP will see that you are actually, so to say, "putting your money where your mouth is". If OP does the feature, then OP gets to take the bounty, otherwise it will sit there in a escrow-of-sorts situation. As a simpler way to get started, you can make one for "Some rough edges smoothed off around platform-specific menus, window options, stylistic control, etc.".
@andlabs we will support you via patreon, myself included. Please, continue. Maybe we can try to find other C++ developers to help. This is a project saner than the old PHP-GTK, wxPHP and PHP-TK that are all old and unmaintained. PHP is now on its version 8, and still lacks support for some sane stable UI Library,
I think financial support is great, but you also need USERS. It is a bit of a chicken-egg problem when a project is at a bottle-neck state, I understand this. In my own projects I do not accept donations (right now) for various reasons; I don't want to deliver suboptimal quality for hobby projects. I also got burned out by some other projects, so I try hard to avoid all that. (I have one "main" project where most of my time goes; the rest is just a hobby.)
I can't say whether this is the case for andlabs, but, for example, my main field is related to molecular biology, just to give an example. If I were to have a side project, even if lots of people would love it, if it is not related to molecular biology it is highly unlikely that I would make it my own "main project" suddenly. My focus is on life, not computers, but I use computers a LOT. Again, this may not be related at all to andlabs but I think one has to consider the time investment to be done.
IMO, the by far best would be to see that people keep on using libui more and more. This in itself will help over time. I found the project only by chance, indirectly so.
The other possibilities we're evaluating are HTML5+CSS rendering with webview to avoid having to bundle Electron, and Flutter. The latter is interesting but isn't native and requires us to learn yet another language (Dart).
Yes, I am in a similar situation. However had, in my case, I flat out refuse to use the joke that is Dart. Ruby spoiled me too much. ;)
But the www and www-specific parts are really dominating right now - which is another reason why libui would be soooooo great! I can avoid javascript too! :) I am sure the python guys would feel in a similar way (ruby and python, while competitors, also sit in the same niche, and if things are possible for python, ruby can easily benefit just as well, so we are in the same boat).
I have a sneaking suspicion that at this point @andlabs is pretty much burned out
Perhaps. Which is why the load should be shared and distributed; otherwise it can become a drag that just kills the motivation. That is another reason why I personally don't accept donations - nothing against them, but I want to work at my own pace, in multiple different projects.
Perhaps a renewed road map may be helpful, e. g. if C++ developers come along, to focus on smaller issues.
This is a project saner than the old PHP-GTK, wxPHP and PHP-TK that are all old and unmaintained.
Yeah. Good old PHP. Never fails to disappoint! ;)
libui or something like libui is a GREAT idea. I hope people can remain committed to that idea. I don't want to be scared into javascript ... even though I think I can't avoid it in the long run. :(
