4 ms·

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

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.
- CyberDildonics 6y ago
  IMGUI draws within a window, it does not create new windows. FLTK (like other GUI libraries) automatically uses native file dialogs. Drag and drop means you can drag files into the program, drag strings out of the program, etc. as well as copy and paste in and out of the program. IMGUI is great at what it does, but it does not have native file dialogs or drag and drop. I don't think it interfaces with the OS at all.
follower 6y ago
> once you go down the road of using tools made for only very basic UIs. As noted elsewhere in the thread, the Godot editor (supporting UI, 2D & 3D) itself is built with Godot, so it's definitely not just "very basic" UIs. FWIW, from your list, Godot doesn't currently support these AFAIK: * physical printing, spreadsheet tables, a native look And, does support: * fonts, drag and drop, copy and paste, custom widgets, widget layout, functions to hide OS specific system stuff [for Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS + others]. And, does support these with some privosos: * various modal and non-modal windows (v3.2 is all in one window but shows modal/non-modal sub-windows within it, v4.0 in dev supports multiple system windows) * menus (but not native system menus) * unicode (Freetype is used for rendering but higher level multi-language support is currently less advanced)
- krapp 6y ago
  Godot is also designed to be extensible, so it wouldn't be impossible to just write a plugin (either published or application specific) to integrate whatever app-dev specific features are needed.

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.

CyberDildonics 6y ago
IMGUI draws within a window, it does not create new windows. FLTK (like other GUI libraries) automatically uses native file dialogs. Drag and drop means you can drag files into the program, drag strings out of the program, etc. as well as copy and paste in and out of the program. IMGUI is great at what it does, but it does not have native file dialogs or drag and drop. I don't think it interfaces with the OS at all.

follower 6y ago

> once you go down the road of using tools made for only very basic UIs. As noted elsewhere in the thread, the Godot editor (supporting UI, 2D & 3D) itself is built with Godot, so it's definitely not just "very basic" UIs. FWIW, from your list, Godot doesn't currently support these AFAIK: * physical printing, spreadsheet tables, a native look And, does support: * fonts, drag and drop, copy and paste, custom widgets, widget layout, functions to hide OS specific system stuff [for Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS + others]. And, does support these with some privosos: * various modal and non-modal windows (v3.2 is all in one window but shows modal/non-modal sub-windows within it, v4.0 in dev supports multiple system windows) * menus (but not native system menus) * unicode (Freetype is used for rendering but higher level multi-language support is currently less advanced)

krapp 6y ago
Godot is also designed to be extensible, so it wouldn't be impossible to just write a plugin (either published or application specific) to integrate whatever app-dev specific features are needed.