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I'm working on a GUI toolkit that should match the requirements: Slint - https://slint.dev https://slint.dev Can be compiled statically in a single .exe that is

I'm working on a GUI toolkit that should match the requirements: Slint - https://slint.dev https://slint.dev Can be compiled statically in a single .exe that is smaller than 40M. Has a license that allow proprietary on desktop for free. Has dark/light styles. Even comes with a (work in progress) drag and drop WYSISYG editor.

bnolsen 2y ago
[flagged]
- ogoffart 2y ago
  There must be some confusion. This is not a web framework, it is a compiled framework with API for several programming languages (including C++) and no HTML/CSS.
- Klonoar 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - dang 2y ago
    From https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html: "Please don't comment on whether someone read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that."" I realize project != article but the same point applies. Note that if by following that guideline, your comment gets "shortened" to the empty string, the implication would be not to post. More helpful, though, would be to supply some specific information.
    - Klonoar 2y ago
      shrug I acknowledge your comment, and I'm aware of the guidelines. I'm not the only one who questioned their response, so I don't feel particularly off balance here.
      - dang 2y ago
        Oh I'm not saying your underlying point was wrong or bad! It's a question of how you express it. If it pattern-matches to a snarky internet dismissal, that makes it a bad HN comment even if the point is right. That's because readers will react more to the pattern-match than anything else. It's even more important to follow the guidelines when your point is right, because if you don't, then you give readers an extra reason (e.g. snarky dismissal) to discredit the truth (i.e. your correct point) and this is a bad deal for everyone. Past explanations in case helpful: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=truth%20discredit%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor.... p.s. I don't think what you did was so bad and the length of my response here is just because I think you might find it interesting. It's not meant to pile on criticism.
IshKebab 2y ago
> Can be compiled statically in a single .exe that is smaller than 40M. That's... quite a high bar. Last I checked even a QML app was only like 20 MB. Why so big?
- ogoffart 2y ago
  40MB was the criteria coming from the article. But it's much smaller than that. I don't have the exact number in mind. I'd say much less than 20MB.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
StarterPro 2y ago
I'm going through the documentation right now, and I'm a bit confused. How would I integrate it to use for the WInforms UI?
CyberDildonics 2y ago
Where did the idea come from that starting with a 40MB exe is small? That's completely outrageous. You could embed all of python, tk, fltk, wxwidgets and pyqt and still not be close to 40MB. FLTK static binaries start at 100KB, win32 binaries can start at 1KB, Juce is about 2MB. Using GLFW or SDL for an openGL window then using IMGUI would start at a few hundred kilobytes. What are you doing in there that makes your binaries 100x times as big and why would this be a selling point?
- utensil4778 2y ago
  Man, as a C# dev, I'd kill for a single exe output. The binary being only 40MB is an absolute fantasy. We have a project at work, it's nothing crazy, mostly shuffling data from one pipe to another, maybe a few thousand lines of code. A true standalone build including dotnet is over 180MB. The build that relies on the system dotnet install is still over 50MB. It's not even a GUI, it's a background service. Things on Windows have a bad habit of enormous binary bloat, I'm not sure why. I don't think the problem is near as bad on Linux in general, but I don't have enough experience with linux dev to really say
  - neonsunset 2y ago
    This has been solved since .NET 6/7 and the results should pleasantly surprise you: - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/core/deploying/single-file/overview https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/core/deploying/sing... - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/core/deploying/trimming/trim-self-contained https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/core/deploying/trim... Alternatively, you could try the following first (use .NET 8 SDK): dotnet publish -o out -p:PublishSingleFile=true -p:PublishTrimmed=true Also, I just tried worker template (it includes generic host, DI, logger, etc.) and it's only 5 MiB when AOT compiled on macOS: dotnet new worker --aot dotnet publish -o out Will likely take less on Windows and Linux.
  - wordofx 2y ago
    You already have that as a .net dev. I deploy my asp.net site to Linux by building it as a self contained single file. Deploy services. Have a couple of WPF apps both self contained single file. They all end up around 43-85mb. The services are smaller when trimming is applied at around 30mb. Not a single project has ended up over 100mb but I can see that happening if you have a ton of nuget packages.
fuzztester 2y ago
Wasn't it mentioned in an HN post or comment somewhat recently (like a few weeks ago)? I think I saw it then, and checked out the site and a few demos at the time.
hoten 2y ago
I've been evaluating GUI frameworks for rewriting the editor of a cross platform (Mac Windows Linux and web) game editor I maintain, and this looks worth a shot, thanks for sharing here! I want to move away from the ancient allegro GUI we use, and so far have evaluated ImGui, RmlUi, and Qt, but so far not totally sold on anything.
user_7832 2y ago
Thanks for the link, slint looks really interesting. As someone who's never made a GUI app would you consider it an "easy" task to make one using slink? Also I didn't see any results when searching the documentation for titlebar, is there any way to theme or change it using slink? TIA!

bnolsen 2y ago

[flagged]

ogoffart 2y ago
There must be some confusion. This is not a web framework, it is a compiled framework with API for several programming languages (including C++) and no HTML/CSS.
Klonoar 2y ago
[flagged]
- dang 2y ago
  From https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html: "Please don't comment on whether someone read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that."" I realize project != article but the same point applies. Note that if by following that guideline, your comment gets "shortened" to the empty string, the implication would be not to post. More helpful, though, would be to supply some specific information.
  - Klonoar 2y ago
    shrug I acknowledge your comment, and I'm aware of the guidelines. I'm not the only one who questioned their response, so I don't feel particularly off balance here.
    - dang 2y ago
      Oh I'm not saying your underlying point was wrong or bad! It's a question of how you express it. If it pattern-matches to a snarky internet dismissal, that makes it a bad HN comment even if the point is right. That's because readers will react more to the pattern-match than anything else. It's even more important to follow the guidelines when your point is right, because if you don't, then you give readers an extra reason (e.g. snarky dismissal) to discredit the truth (i.e. your correct point) and this is a bad deal for everyone. Past explanations in case helpful: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=truth%20discredit%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor.... p.s. I don't think what you did was so bad and the length of my response here is just because I think you might find it interesting. It's not meant to pile on criticism.

IshKebab 2y ago

> Can be compiled statically in a single .exe that is smaller than 40M. That's... quite a high bar. Last I checked even a QML app was only like 20 MB. Why so big?

ogoffart 2y ago
40MB was the criteria coming from the article. But it's much smaller than that. I don't have the exact number in mind. I'd say much less than 20MB.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

StarterPro 2y ago

I'm going through the documentation right now, and I'm a bit confused. How would I integrate it to use for the WInforms UI?

CyberDildonics 2y ago

Where did the idea come from that starting with a 40MB exe is small? That's completely outrageous. You could embed all of python, tk, fltk, wxwidgets and pyqt and still not be close to 40MB. FLTK static binaries start at 100KB, win32 binaries can start at 1KB, Juce is about 2MB. Using GLFW or SDL for an openGL window then using IMGUI would start at a few hundred kilobytes. What are you doing in there that makes your binaries 100x times as big and why would this be a selling point?

utensil4778 2y ago
Man, as a C# dev, I'd kill for a single exe output. The binary being only 40MB is an absolute fantasy. We have a project at work, it's nothing crazy, mostly shuffling data from one pipe to another, maybe a few thousand lines of code. A true standalone build including dotnet is over 180MB. The build that relies on the system dotnet install is still over 50MB. It's not even a GUI, it's a background service. Things on Windows have a bad habit of enormous binary bloat, I'm not sure why. I don't think the problem is near as bad on Linux in general, but I don't have enough experience with linux dev to really say
- neonsunset 2y ago
  This has been solved since .NET 6/7 and the results should pleasantly surprise you: - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/core/deploying/single-file/overview https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/core/deploying/sing... - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/core/deploying/trimming/trim-self-contained https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/core/deploying/trim... Alternatively, you could try the following first (use .NET 8 SDK): dotnet publish -o out -p:PublishSingleFile=true -p:PublishTrimmed=true Also, I just tried worker template (it includes generic host, DI, logger, etc.) and it's only 5 MiB when AOT compiled on macOS: dotnet new worker --aot dotnet publish -o out Will likely take less on Windows and Linux.
- wordofx 2y ago
  You already have that as a .net dev. I deploy my asp.net site to Linux by building it as a self contained single file. Deploy services. Have a couple of WPF apps both self contained single file. They all end up around 43-85mb. The services are smaller when trimming is applied at around 30mb. Not a single project has ended up over 100mb but I can see that happening if you have a ton of nuget packages.

fuzztester 2y ago

Wasn't it mentioned in an HN post or comment somewhat recently (like a few weeks ago)? I think I saw it then, and checked out the site and a few demos at the time.

hoten 2y ago

I've been evaluating GUI frameworks for rewriting the editor of a cross platform (Mac Windows Linux and web) game editor I maintain, and this looks worth a shot, thanks for sharing here! I want to move away from the ancient allegro GUI we use, and so far have evaluated ImGui, RmlUi, and Qt, but so far not totally sold on anything.

user_7832 2y ago

Thanks for the link, slint looks really interesting. As someone who's never made a GUI app would you consider it an "easy" task to make one using slink? Also I didn't see any results when searching the documentation for titlebar, is there any way to theme or change it using slink? TIA!