Gooey: A GPU-accelerated UI framework for Zig

Gooey: A GPU-accelerated UI framework for Zig(github.com)

85 points by ksec 3 hours ago | 12 comments

ecshafer 29 minutes ago |

This looks good. But the thing that always lets me down on UI frameworks is how much freaking work it is to get something on the screen. My first language was Borland Turbo C++. It was so comparatively simple to do stuff. If I want to write a circle on the screen its just this:

#include <graphics.h> #include <conio.h>

int main() { int gd = DETECT, gm;

    initgraph(&gd, &gm, "C:\\TURBOC3\\BGI");

    circle(320, 240, 100);

    getch();
    closegraph();

    return 0;

}

Making some shapes and forms wasn't that much work either.

If I think back to VB and Windows (whatever it was then) making a basic window, form and some buttons was so simple and easy, they even made GUI builders because they were so good.

Somewhere along the lines GUIs became overly complex to implement.

coffeeaddict1 11 minutes ago | |

This is what you can with Qt:

    #include <QApplication>
    #include <QWidget>
    #include <QPainter>

    class widget : public QWidget {
    void paintEvent(QPaintEvent*) override {
        QPainter p(this).drawEllipse(QPoint(320, 240), 100, 100);
    }
    };

    int main(int argc, char *argv[]) {
        QApplication app(argc, argv);
        widget w;
        w.resize(640, 480);
        w.show();
        return app.exec();
    }

It doesn't seem too complicated to me.

ecshafer 3 minutes ago | | |

That doesn't seem too bad, I agree. Maybe that's why QT is used. I haven't really used QT, but the more modern Windows apis, vulkan, etc all are pretty complicated.

noelwelsh 2 hours ago |

Interesting project, but needs documentation. In particular, what's the model it uses? I.e. how are events, state, etc. handled? Normally I'd just work it out from the code examples, but the example in the README is over 200 lines which is too long for me.

(Don't tell me here. Make your docs better, so everyone benefits!)

WD-42 1 hour ago |

This is great, we need more of this. It's high time we began to escape the dark ages of rule-by-Electron. See Bitwarden's recent fumble of a redesign.

kristoff_it 27 minutes ago |

Another Zig GUI project that people might be interested in is DVUI:

https://github.com/david-vanderson/dvui

vova_hn2 2 hours ago |

> Inspiration

> GPUI - Zed's GPU UI framework

Cool, but a comparison would also be very helpful.

If I decide to make a GUI app with Zig, how do I choose between Gooey and GPUI?

So far, all I know that GPUI is more mature and has at least one successful project built with it, so...

Also:

> Gooey: Turn (almost) any Python 3 Console Program into a GUI application with one line

> https://github.com/chriskiehl/Gooey

shorsher 1 hour ago | |

GPUI is written in Rust, so in this specific case the decision is already somewhat made for you.

torginus 1 hour ago | |

If I remember correctly, Zed's framework didn't set the goal of being able to draw arbitrary graphics/UI and by constraining that, it basically managed to represent everything with quads and distance fields in shaders, which reduced draw calls and GPU state management to a minimum.

ssernikk 1 hour ago | |

> how do I choose between Gooey and GPUI?

GPUI is for rust, not zig

mgrandl 1 hour ago | |

I mean GPUI is rust and Gooey is Zig so if you wanna do a project in Zig you probably wouldn’t choose GPUI.

LouisvilleGeek 1 hour ago | | |

Call it Ziggy

amelius 40 minutes ago |

Nice work but honestly I haven't seen convincing arguments for writing medium to large GUI applications in a language that has no automatic GC.

cookiengineer 49 minutes ago |

Sadface :-(

(Author of Gooey [1], a GUI framework for WebASM in Go)

[1] https://github.com/cookiengineer/gooey

noelwelsh 7 minutes ago | |

I also have one [1]. It's a good name :-)

[1]: https://github.com/creativescala/gooey

Findecanor 11 minutes ago | |

I have also found a UI framework in C++ with OpenGL named Gooey (2008-ish).

And in early 2000, I was in a mailing list for designing a successor/replacement to X11, code-named "Gooey" that never went anywhere.

#include <QApplication> #include <QWidget> #include <QPainter> class widget : public QWidget { void paintEvent(QPaintEvent*) override { QPainter p(this).drawEllipse(QPoint(320, 240), 100, 100); } }; int main(int argc, char *argv[]) { QApplication app(argc, argv); widget w; w.resize(640, 480); w.show(); return app.exec(); }