6 ms·

This just reads like a godot advertisement...it only has good things to say about godot and only bad things to say about any other library. It's really hard to

This just reads like a godot advertisement...it only has good things to say about godot and only bad things to say about any other library. It's really hard to take the article seriously with so much blatant bias. It also seems to leave out any technical information that a developer using the engine would want to know, like how well it integrates with existing code, what paradigms it uses compared to other UI engines, or whether it uses lazy rendering or if it constantly runs at 60fps, etc.

tomtheelder 6y ago
It's not a Godot advertisement. The author is just excited about exploring the possibility of using a game engine for UI development. The point of this article isn't supposed to be a full dive into the nuts and bolts of using of Godot for UI development or anything, just a speculative piece about a novel use for this piece of technology. I doubt the author even knows the answers to a lot of the questions posed. It's just bringing up an option that most developers wouldn't even consider. This article is asking a question, and just focuses on providing enough detail to frame that question. I don't think the negativity is justified.
- detaro 6y ago
  The "excited about exploring the possibility of using a game engine for UI development" is fine, the "misrepresenting the alternatives" part, especially while ignoring all downsides of Godot, makes it look dodgy and detracts from the piece.
  - addicted 6y ago
    He’s been very clear about what he does and doesn’t know about the alternatives.
CyberDildonics 6y ago
I made this comment when someone was talking about using GLFW and IMGUI to make an application with a openGL window and I think it applies here too, because it is easy to overlook the things that you will eventually need that are not trivial to add once you go down the road of using tools made for only very basic UIs. "I would bet that the easiest thing would be FLTK. You can use system colors and make an openGL window while having everything else you would expect in a UI library. Executables with no dependencies start at a few hundred KB and it is very fast. There is even a single big pdf for documentation and dozens of examples that show off every widget. FLTK is very underrated these days because no one is out there marketing it. GLFW and IMGUI are great libraries, but once you start wanting a program with various modal and non-modal windows, menus, widget layout, a native look, file dialogs, fonts, drag and drop, copy and paste, unicode, spreadsheet tables, physical printing, custom widgets, functions to hide OS specific system stuff (like stat, directory listing etc.) you might wish you had started with something made for what you are trying to do. "
- mwcampbell 6y ago
  Unfortunately, FLTK falls short in at least one important way: it doesn't implement accessibility, e.g. for blind users with screen readers. Godot and immediate-mode GUIs have the same problem. If I'm not mistaken, the most lightweight cross-platform UI toolkit that draws its own widgets (unlike wx or SWT) and implements accessibility is sciter [1]. It's a good thing the antivirus vendors (who seem to be sciter's biggest customers) want to sell to governments. [1]: https://sciter.com/ https://sciter.com/
  - CyberDildonics 6y ago
    That's a closed source for pay gui built on html and css. It probably would not be too difficult to hook into FLTK's label drawing, but this is a general comment about typical small to medium sized guis, originally as a reply to someone needing an internal tool built around an openGL window. Maybe it would be better to make a top level comment and mention that the game engine isn't accessible to blind users.
  - follower 6y ago
    > it doesn't implement accessibility, e.g. for blind users with screen readers. Godot [has] the same problem. Yeah, this is currently a valid criticism--it's an aspect I'm hoping will see more development attention in the future. I did recently discover this project which is working on improving the situation: https://github.com/lightsoutgames/godot-accessibility/ https://github.com/lightsoutgames/godot-accessibility/
- lasagnaphil 6y ago
  IMGUI is still pretty impressive though. You can certainly create modal/non-modal windows, menus, custom widgets, file dialogs, fonts, drag and drop, unicode, tables without any other libraries. It's just that the approach is fundamentally different from what you see in retained-mode GUIs. (And if you need any OS-specific functionality like file dialogs, you can easily use other external libraries) One of the few weaknesses of IMGUI is theming though. Don't expect to create one of those fancy Material-themed apps with animations, it's primarily intended for creating dry, technical tools of the likes of game engines and modelling/animation tools. It's more in the mindset of creating 'tools' rather than 'apps', and it really depends on your usecase.
kanobo 6y ago
To be fair the author is writing about his high-level view of the future in the perspective as a big fan of Godot. With that in mind, I think you'll be disappointed by the answers to you questions. On paper, Godot (or any other game engine) obviously makes no sense to most people for these kinds of UI, but having people like the author go against the grain to explore the possibility is great.
naikrovek 6y ago
It's ok to be excited about stuff and to write about it.
read_if_gay_ 6y ago
> whether it uses lazy rendering or if it constantly runs at 60fps This point was mentioned in the article. Seems like you made up your mind without reading too closely.

tomtheelder 6y ago

It's not a Godot advertisement. The author is just excited about exploring the possibility of using a game engine for UI development. The point of this article isn't supposed to be a full dive into the nuts and bolts of using of Godot for UI development or anything, just a speculative piece about a novel use for this piece of technology. I doubt the author even knows the answers to a lot of the questions posed. It's just bringing up an option that most developers wouldn't even consider. This article is asking a question, and just focuses on providing enough detail to frame that question. I don't think the negativity is justified.

detaro 6y ago
The "excited about exploring the possibility of using a game engine for UI development" is fine, the "misrepresenting the alternatives" part, especially while ignoring all downsides of Godot, makes it look dodgy and detracts from the piece.
- addicted 6y ago
  He’s been very clear about what he does and doesn’t know about the alternatives.

CyberDildonics 6y ago

I made this comment when someone was talking about using GLFW and IMGUI to make an application with a openGL window and I think it applies here too, because it is easy to overlook the things that you will eventually need that are not trivial to add once you go down the road of using tools made for only very basic UIs. "I would bet that the easiest thing would be FLTK. You can use system colors and make an openGL window while having everything else you would expect in a UI library. Executables with no dependencies start at a few hundred KB and it is very fast. There is even a single big pdf for documentation and dozens of examples that show off every widget. FLTK is very underrated these days because no one is out there marketing it. GLFW and IMGUI are great libraries, but once you start wanting a program with various modal and non-modal windows, menus, widget layout, a native look, file dialogs, fonts, drag and drop, copy and paste, unicode, spreadsheet tables, physical printing, custom widgets, functions to hide OS specific system stuff (like stat, directory listing etc.) you might wish you had started with something made for what you are trying to do. "

mwcampbell 6y ago
Unfortunately, FLTK falls short in at least one important way: it doesn't implement accessibility, e.g. for blind users with screen readers. Godot and immediate-mode GUIs have the same problem. If I'm not mistaken, the most lightweight cross-platform UI toolkit that draws its own widgets (unlike wx or SWT) and implements accessibility is sciter [1]. It's a good thing the antivirus vendors (who seem to be sciter's biggest customers) want to sell to governments. [1]: https://sciter.com/ https://sciter.com/
- CyberDildonics 6y ago
  That's a closed source for pay gui built on html and css. It probably would not be too difficult to hook into FLTK's label drawing, but this is a general comment about typical small to medium sized guis, originally as a reply to someone needing an internal tool built around an openGL window. Maybe it would be better to make a top level comment and mention that the game engine isn't accessible to blind users.
- follower 6y ago
  > it doesn't implement accessibility, e.g. for blind users with screen readers. Godot [has] the same problem. Yeah, this is currently a valid criticism--it's an aspect I'm hoping will see more development attention in the future. I did recently discover this project which is working on improving the situation: https://github.com/lightsoutgames/godot-accessibility/ https://github.com/lightsoutgames/godot-accessibility/
lasagnaphil 6y ago
IMGUI is still pretty impressive though. You can certainly create modal/non-modal windows, menus, custom widgets, file dialogs, fonts, drag and drop, unicode, tables without any other libraries. It's just that the approach is fundamentally different from what you see in retained-mode GUIs. (And if you need any OS-specific functionality like file dialogs, you can easily use other external libraries) One of the few weaknesses of IMGUI is theming though. Don't expect to create one of those fancy Material-themed apps with animations, it's primarily intended for creating dry, technical tools of the likes of game engines and modelling/animation tools. It's more in the mindset of creating 'tools' rather than 'apps', and it really depends on your usecase.

kanobo 6y ago

To be fair the author is writing about his high-level view of the future in the perspective as a big fan of Godot. With that in mind, I think you'll be disappointed by the answers to you questions. On paper, Godot (or any other game engine) obviously makes no sense to most people for these kinds of UI, but having people like the author go against the grain to explore the possibility is great.

naikrovek 6y ago

It's ok to be excited about stuff and to write about it.

read_if_gay_ 6y ago

> whether it uses lazy rendering or if it constantly runs at 60fps This point was mentioned in the article. Seems like you made up your mind without reading too closely.