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If you are targeting Linux with a professional GUI application your only options in 2020 are GTK or Qt (or toolkits that are built on top of those like wxWidget

If you are targeting Linux with a professional GUI application your only options in 2020 are GTK or Qt (or toolkits that are built on top of those like wxWidgets). The other options lack manpower or features. In 2020 you need HiDPI support, Wayland, and accessibility. You probably also want a toolkit that has a strong developer community. GTK and Qt have these. FLTK is under active development but it is missing a lot modern features. Maybe it will get there by 2022. The other option, rolling your own, is a ton of work and a quite a bit of "reinventing the wheel". It's certainly possible but it needs a passionate and dedicated team.

timw4mail 6y ago
Rust has decent GTK bindings, and that's basically the only decent option at the moment.
- pjmlp 6y ago
  But better user relm as well, Gtk-rs alone is a bit of pain if one doesn't want to use Rc<RefCell<>> everywhere (see Gtk-rs samples and clone macro).
shmerl 6y ago
I thought the whole idea is to create an alternative using Rust. Otherwise you can just use existing GTK or Qt bindings.
- raphlinus 6y ago
  What would you propose doing differently than what we're doing? This is a serious question.
  - CameronNemo 6y ago
    Have you looked into iced? It targets Vulkan or WebGL.
    - Jtsummers 6y ago
      He mentions it about halfway down the article along with other systems he's examining.
    - raphlinus 6y ago
      Ah, yes. There is cross-platform infrastructure we could use, which is what Iced does. We have chosen to do things a bit differently. In general, we use platform capabilities where they're available, for a much lighter weight build and less impedance mismatch with native look and feel. It's a tradeoff, and one of the downsides is that the Linux port needs a bit of extra attention. Ultimately, I believe our approach will yield higher quality results, but there's a lot to learn from Iced as well.
      - oconnor663 6y ago
        I remember you wrote before that "there is no such thing as native GUI." Is that more of a high level situation, with text rendering and other lower level things still best handled by "going native"? What other things count as low level like this?
        raphlinus 6y ago
        Yes. What I meant by that was more a reference that platforms increasingly support diverse ecosystems of UI toolkits, especially at the high level. Even on mac there's a choice between SwiftUI and AppKit (technically Catalyst too, but that doesn't seem to be a hit), while on Windows there is even greater diversity. So basically it's a way of saying "just use the native toolkit" doesn't actually solve as many problems as one might think. At the lower level, for some things you really have to integrate deeply with the platform, and for others (text layout is one), there are advantages, including faster builds and smaller binaries. (Ultimately I'd like to have a highly GPU accelerated 2D graphics library that does everything, including text, but that's some ways off and doesn't block current work)
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - shmerl 6y ago
    Sorry, couldn't answer before, HN was doing its weird "you post too often" dance. I guess I misunderstood the intent behind the project. I thought it's like a full alternative to GTK / Qt but in Rust which would be really nice to have, but I get that it would be a much bigger project than something built on top of them.
stuaxo 6y ago
For a subset of applications DearImgui is suitable. There's a gallery of screenshots here. https://github.com/ocornut/imgui/issues/123 https://github.com/ocornut/imgui/issues/123 Unlike the others mentioned it is an immediate mode GUI, which is an interesting approach.
jniedrauer 6y ago
> If you are targeting Linux with a professional GUI application your only options in 2020 are There are other options. Maybe unpopular options, but options nonetheless: Electron, and immediate mode GUIs. They certainly have downsides. But there are "professional" GUI applications in widespread use that are written with both.
- snazz 6y ago
  Immediate mode makes accessibility difficult, in my experience. That's certainly something worth considering.
- pascalshill 6y ago
  Applications made in Electron are not professional. I am shocked anybody uses such applications. Electron is basically a web browser displaying a web page.
  - jniedrauer 6y ago
    Are you suggesting that vscode is "not professional"?

timw4mail 6y ago

Rust has decent GTK bindings, and that's basically the only decent option at the moment.

pjmlp 6y ago
But better user relm as well, Gtk-rs alone is a bit of pain if one doesn't want to use Rc<RefCell<>> everywhere (see Gtk-rs samples and clone macro).

shmerl 6y ago

I thought the whole idea is to create an alternative using Rust. Otherwise you can just use existing GTK or Qt bindings.

raphlinus 6y ago
What would you propose doing differently than what we're doing? This is a serious question.
- CameronNemo 6y ago
  Have you looked into iced? It targets Vulkan or WebGL.
  - Jtsummers 6y ago
    He mentions it about halfway down the article along with other systems he's examining.
  - raphlinus 6y ago
    Ah, yes. There is cross-platform infrastructure we could use, which is what Iced does. We have chosen to do things a bit differently. In general, we use platform capabilities where they're available, for a much lighter weight build and less impedance mismatch with native look and feel. It's a tradeoff, and one of the downsides is that the Linux port needs a bit of extra attention. Ultimately, I believe our approach will yield higher quality results, but there's a lot to learn from Iced as well.
    - oconnor663 6y ago
      I remember you wrote before that "there is no such thing as native GUI." Is that more of a high level situation, with text rendering and other lower level things still best handled by "going native"? What other things count as low level like this?
      - raphlinus 6y ago
        Yes. What I meant by that was more a reference that platforms increasingly support diverse ecosystems of UI toolkits, especially at the high level. Even on mac there's a choice between SwiftUI and AppKit (technically Catalyst too, but that doesn't seem to be a hit), while on Windows there is even greater diversity. So basically it's a way of saying "just use the native toolkit" doesn't actually solve as many problems as one might think. At the lower level, for some things you really have to integrate deeply with the platform, and for others (text layout is one), there are advantages, including faster builds and smaller binaries. (Ultimately I'd like to have a highly GPU accelerated 2D graphics library that does everything, including text, but that's some ways off and doesn't block current work)
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- shmerl 6y ago
  Sorry, couldn't answer before, HN was doing its weird "you post too often" dance. I guess I misunderstood the intent behind the project. I thought it's like a full alternative to GTK / Qt but in Rust which would be really nice to have, but I get that it would be a much bigger project than something built on top of them.

stuaxo 6y ago

For a subset of applications DearImgui is suitable. There's a gallery of screenshots here. https://github.com/ocornut/imgui/issues/123 https://github.com/ocornut/imgui/issues/123 Unlike the others mentioned it is an immediate mode GUI, which is an interesting approach.

jniedrauer 6y ago

> If you are targeting Linux with a professional GUI application your only options in 2020 are There are other options. Maybe unpopular options, but options nonetheless: Electron, and immediate mode GUIs. They certainly have downsides. But there are "professional" GUI applications in widespread use that are written with both.

snazz 6y ago
Immediate mode makes accessibility difficult, in my experience. That's certainly something worth considering.
pascalshill 6y ago
Applications made in Electron are not professional. I am shocked anybody uses such applications. Electron is basically a web browser displaying a web page.
- jniedrauer 6y ago
  Are you suggesting that vscode is "not professional"?