See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immediate_mode_(computer_graphics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immediate_mode_(computer_graph... , and https://en.wikipedia.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immediate_mode_(computer_graphics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immediate_mode_(computer_graph... , and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immediate_mode_GUI https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immediate_mode_GUI . TLDR: instead of declaring your GUI objects/components ahead of time, and letting a framework render the prepared scene graph (while calling you back when there are user triggered state changes), you just draw the GUI objects yourself in your main loop, just like you draw all your other objects (backgrounds, sprites, models etc).