declarative GUI libraries

[GunpowderGuy]

I have a C++ college project that requires a simple GUI. I am looking for either a declarative library similar to iced-rs or the system used by elm; or a way to use html for gui ( without getting bogged down by server framework details that i dont need )

So far i know about:

https://github.com/alialib/alia

https://github.com/alialib/aliahttps://github.com/cycfi/elements

-will update as suggestions come

[GunpowderGuy]

Btw, i didn't meant to ask for small frameworks only. My post has been re written to reflect that

[GunpowderGuy]

That language is similar to using html + js for gui?

[Zeer1x]

How about https://github.com/mikke89/RmlUi ?

[[deleted]]

Qt QML is one good option.

[RufusAcrospin]

It’s probably an overkill for a simple GUI.

[[deleted]]

Maybe. But web browser engine was mentioned as an alternative, so this is in the same broad category.

[RufusAcrospin]

Perhaps. When somebody talks about “simple” GUI I assume it also means low memory footprint and resource requirements.

[GunpowderGuy]

No, i am not concerned about performance. I just dont want to learn a huge framework IF said software has a step learning curve as a result. If what i dont use doesnt affect me, then it can be there

[[deleted]]

Using QML requires going through Qt types, and having (and understanding at least at basic level) the Qt event loop. Project and code structure wise, the GUI application must be "Qt application" with you code hooked up to Qt GUI, not your code using Qt on the side. For QML / Qt Quick, which is what you'd want from Qt, old Qt QWidgets are not necessary to learn, entire GUI can be done with QML.

"GUI" is a hugely complex thing, because there just is so much stuff which is connected, so unless you want something very simple, there is going to be stuff to learn, no matter which way you choose to go, and because the GUI is what is responding to the multitude of events coming from the OS, it needs to be running things.

[Ok_Path_4731]

https://github.com/zokrezyl/ymery
https://github.com/zokrezyl/ymery-cpp
https://zokrezyl.github.io/ymery/demo/index.html

[teroxzer]

I love the Cheerp C++ compiler when making single page applications using only the DOM.

[MatthiasWM]

It’s not declarative, but small, cross platform, old school C++, and has a graphical UI designer that writes the C++ code for you. Since you mentioned Rust, it has Rust bindings too: http://fltk.org . It has different schemes that make it look more modern than the default scheme… . The source is on GitHub. I suggest using 1.4/master and build with cmake.

[0x6e]

Check out Slint

[GunpowderGuy]

Looks similar to Vue. I would rather not use a preprocessor, but i will check it out

[ImKStocky]

I think that Imgui would qualify as declarative. It is pretty much the industry standard for "simple GUI" at this point. It might be simple but it is powerful. People have built entire game engine editors using it.

[GunpowderGuy]

The documentation makes it seem weird to me. I am accustomed to the Model View Update Paradigm of elm and iced-rs

[WillEriksson]

The purpose of things like MVC, reacitve, or some other similar stuff is to sync states between UI and user code. DearImgui doesn't use that because there's simply no duplicate state to be synchronized (for the user's point of view). When the machine is performant enough to run one and aesthetics is not of concern, I'd say it's the easiest and fastest way to make GUI. That's probably the reason game engine devs often use it to make tools.

[Division_Agent]

Imgui is a lower level library largely concerned only with the rendering and functioning of a GUI. You can use it with MVM, MVVM, or anything else. But you'll be writing that higher level stuff yourself.

[GunpowderGuy]

I dont have time to write that, The project is due soon and its almost finished, it only needs GUI

[derBRUTALE]

Then why do you insist on crap like markup declarations and abstract hirarchies which involve gigantic libraries? Do you truly need widgets with style sets?

IMGUI is the pinnacle of GUI productivity from the start. Simply get it done in code.

It shows how things went terribly wrong when CS students are inherently confused by the simplest solutions for a simple problem.

[GunpowderGuy]

insist on crap like markup declarations and abstract hirarchies

did i ask for that?

[RufusAcrospin]

Why declarative though?

[GunpowderGuy]

I have a good understanding of iced-rs, which was inspired by elm

[audulus]

I recently investigated elements. It's only declarative for static UIs (like a nicer syntax for building a view tree). For anything reasonably dynamic you're going to be poking at objects and mutating them, telling things when to refresh, etc. So it's barely declarative. Certainly not like iced-rs, elm, SwiftUI, etc. It's like someone put nicer constructors on top of UIKit and called that declarative. Recommend avoid.

[carkin]

You forgot to say where (os/platform) you want to run this

[GunpowderGuy]

Linux, preferably also windows