Dlang UI

Cross platform GUI for D. Widgets, layouts, styles, themes, unicode, i18n, OpenGL based acceleration.

WARNING: recent breaking change: some event listeners were renamed, e.g. onClickListener -> click, onFocusChangeListener -> focusChange... WARNING: dependencies in dlangui/deps now are git submodules (if you previously cloned them into deps directory, remove deps dir before updating dlangui project)

Main features:

Crossplatform (Win32, OSX, and Linux are supported in current version); can use SDL2 as a backend.
Mostly inspired by Android UI API (layouts, styles, two phase layout, ...)
Supports highly customizable UI themes and styles
Supports internationalization
Hardware acceleration using OpenGL (when built with version USE_OPENGL)
Fallback to pure Win32 API / SDL / X11 when OpenGL is not available (e.g. opengl dynamic library cannot be loaded)
Actually it's a port (with major refactoring) of GUI library for cross platform OpenGL based implementation of Cool Reader app project from C++.
Non thread safe - all UI operations should be preformed in single thread

Widgets

Widget - base class for all widgets and widget containers, similar to Android's View

Currently implemented widgets:

TextWidget - simple static text (TODO: implement multiline formatting)
ImageWidget - static image
Button - simple button with text label
ImageButton - image only button
TextImageButton - button with icon and label
CheckBox - check button with label
RadioButton - radio button with label
EditLine - single line edit
EditBox - multiline editor
VSpacer - vertical spacer - just an empty widget with layoutHeight == FILL_PARENT, to fill vertical space in layouts
HSpacer - horizontal spacer - just an empty widget with layoutWidth == FILL_PARENT, to fill horizontal space in layouts
ScrollBar - scroll bar
TabControl - tabs widget, allows to select one of tabs
TabHost - container for pages controlled by TabControl
TabWidget - combination of TabControl and TabHost
GridWidgetBase - abstract Grid widget
StringGrid - grid view with strings content
TreeWidget - tree view
ComboBox - combo box with text items
ToolBar - tool bar with buttons
StatusLine - control to show misc application statuses
AppFrame - base class for easy implementation of apps with main menu, toolbars, status bar

Layouts

Similar to layouts in Android

LinearLayout - layout children horizontally or vertically depending on orientation
VerticalLayout - just a LinearLayout with vertical orientation
HorizontalLayout - just a LinearLayout with horizontal orientation
FrameLayout - all children occupy the same place; usually only one of them is visible
TableLayout - children are aligned into rows and columns of table
ResizerWidget - put into LinearLayout between two other widgets to resize them using mouse
ScrollWidget - allow to scroll its child if its dimensions are bigger than possible
DockHost - layout with main widget and additional dockable panels around it
DockWindow - dockable window with caption, usually to be used with DockHost

List Views

Lists are implemented similar to Android UI API.

ListWidget - layout dynamic items horizontally or vertically (one in row/column) with automatic scrollbar; can reuse widgets for similar items
ListAdapter - interface to provide data and widgets for ListWidget
WidgetListAdapter - simple implementation of ListAdapter interface - just a list of widgets (one per list item) to show

Resources

Resources like fonts and images use reference counting. For proper resource freeing, always destroy widgets implicitly.

FontManager: provides access to fonts
Images: .png or .jpg images; if filename ends with .9.png, it's autodetected as nine-patch image (see Android drawables description)
StateDrawables: .xml file can describe list of other drawables to choose based on widget's State (.xml files from android themes can be used directly)
imageCache allows to cache unpacked images
drawableCache provides access by resource id (string, usually filename w/o extension) to drawables located in specified list of resource directories.

Styles and Themes

Styles and themes are a bit similar to ones in Android API.

Theme is a container for styles. Can be load from XML theme resource file.
Styles are accessible in theme by string ID.
Styles can be nested to form hierarchy - when some attribute is missing in style, value from base style will be used.
State substyles are supported: allow to change widget appearance dynamically based on its state.
Widgets use style attributes directly from assigned style. When some attribute is being changed in widget, it creates its own copy of base style, which allows to modify some of attributes, while getting base style attributes if they are not changed in widget. This trick can minimize memory usage for widget attributes when standard values are used.
Current default theme is similar to one in MS Visual Studio 2013
Resources can be either embedded into executable or loaded from external resource directory in runtime

Important notice

If build of your app is failed due to dlangui or its dependencies, probably you have not upgraded dependencies.

Try following:

dub upgrade --force-remove
dub build --force

As well, sometimes removing of dub.json.selections can help.

Win32 builds

Under windows, uses SDL2 or Win32 API as backend.
Optionally, may use OpenGL acceleration via DerelictGL3/WGL.
Uses Win32 API for font rendering.
Optinally can use FreeType for font rendering.
Executable size for release Win32 API based build is 830K.

Build and run demo app using DUB:

    git clone --recursive https://github.com/buggins/dlangui.git
    cd dlangui
    dub run dlangui:example1 --build=release

Run Tetris game example

    dub run dlangui:tetris --build=release

To develop using Visual-D or MonoD, open dlangui.sln using Visual D (or dlangui-monod.sln for MonoD)

To avoid showing console window add win_app.def file to your package source directory and add line to your dub.json.

win_app.def:

"sourceFiles": ["$PACKAGE_DIR/src/win_app.def"]

dub.json:

"sourceFiles-windows": ["$PACKAGE_DIR/src/win_app.def"],

Mac OSX development using Mono-D

DMD, DUB, git, MonoDevelop with Mono-D plugin must be installed

Can use SDL2 or X11 as a backend.

Native Cocoa backend - work is in progress.

In some directory, e.g. ~/src/d/ :

Clone DlangUI repository

    git clone --recursive https://github.com/buggins/dlangui.git

Enter dlangui directory

    cd dlangui

Open solution file with Mono-D

    dlangui-monod-osx.sln

Linux development using Mono-D

Install DUB, DMD, MonoDevelop with Mono-D plugin.

Required libraries: libsdl2, x11, libfreetype, libfontconfig and OpenGL.

Clone DlangUI repository

    git clone https://github.com/buggins/dlangui.git

Enter dlangui directory

    cd dlangui

Open solution file with Mono-D

    dlangui-monod-linux.sln

Try running examples: helloworld, example1, tetris, dmledit, spreadsheet, opengl

Configurations Debug, Release, Unittest build SDL2+OpenGL versions of apps.

Configurations DebugMinimal, ReleaseMinimal, UnittestMinimal build pure SDL2 versions of apps.

If you are creating your own solution / project which uses DlangUI in Mono-D:

Create new solution (assuming that solution directory is located in the same directory as dlangui and "Create directory for solution" option is unchecked; if no - you will need to correct pathes)
Add / create source files of your project (e.g. copy+paste helloworld.d)
Add dlangui library project dlangui/dlangui-monod-linux.dproj to solution

Following settings are to be applied to all configurations of your new project (Debug, Release, Unittest):

In your project options Build/Project Dependencies - mark dlangui-monod-linux item
In your project options Build/Compiling/Linking - check "Link in static/shared libraries from nested dependencies"
In your project options Build/Compiling/Compiling - specify Version constants as "USE_OPENGL;USE_SDL;USE_FREETYPE;EmbedStandardResources" (EmbedStandardResources is required if you want to embed your own additional resources into executable)
If your project needs to embed some resources into executable (usually from "views" directory), specify all directories which contain resources in Build/Compiling/Compiling/Extra Compiler Options, e.g.:
```
-Jviews
-Jviews/res
-Jviews/res/i18n
-Jviews/res/mdpi
-Jviews/res/hdpi
```

In your project options Build/Includes put list of import directories of DlangUI library and its dependencies, like

../dlangui/src
../dlangui/deps/DerelictSDL2/source
../dlangui/deps/DerelictFT/source
../dlangui/deps/DerelictGL3/source
../dlangui/deps/DerelictUtil/source
../dlangui/3rdparty

Now you can build and run your project.

To hack DlangIDE project, you can clone it from https://github.com/buggins/dlangide.git into the same directory dlangui is cloned to. Then just open solution dlangide/dlangide-monod-linux.sln with mono-d.

Windows development using Mono-D

Install GIT, DUB, DMD, MonoDevelop with Mono-D plugin.

Clone DlangUI repository

    git clone https://github.com/buggins/dlangui.git

Enter dlangui directory

    cd dlangui

Open solution file with Mono-D

    dlangui-monod-windows.sln

Try running examples: helloworld, example1, tetris, dmledit, spreadsheet, opengl

Configurations Debug, Release, Unittest build SDL2+OpenGL versions of apps.

Configurations DebugMinimal, ReleaseMinimal, UnittestMinimal build pure win32 versions of apps w/o OpenGL.

If you are creating your own solution / project which uses DlangUI in Mono-D:

Create new solution (assuming that solution directory is located in the same directory as dlangui and "Create directory for solution" option is unchecked; if no - you will need to correct pathes)
Add / create source files of your project (e.g. copy+paste helloworld.d)
Add dlangui library project dlangui/dlangui-monod-linux.dproj to solution

Following settings are to be applied to all configurations of your new project (Debug, Release, Unittest):

In your project options Build/Project Dependencies - mark dlangui-monod-linux item
In your project options Build/Compiling/Linking - check "Link in static/shared libraries from nested dependencies"
In your project options Build/Compiling/Compiling - specify Version constants as "USE_FREETYPE;USE_OPENGL;EmbedStandardResources;Unicode;windows" (EmbedStandardResources is required if you want to embed your own additional resources into executable)
If your project needs to embed some resources into executable (usually from "views" directory), specify all directories which contain resources in Build/Compiling/Compiling/Extra Compiler Options, e.g.:
```
-Jviews
-Jviews/res
-Jviews/res/i18n
-Jviews/res/mdpi
-Jviews/res/hdpi
```

In your project options Build/Includes put list of import directories of DlangUI library and its dependencies, like

../dlangui/src
../dlangui/deps/DerelictSDL2/source
../dlangui/deps/DerelictFT/source
../dlangui/deps/DerelictGL3/source
../dlangui/deps/DerelictUtil/source

Now you can build and run your project.

Windows development using VisualD

Install GIT, DUB, DMD, MS Visual Studio (e.g. Community 2013) + VisualD plugin

Clone DlangUI repository

    git clone --recursive https://github.com/buggins/dlangui.git

For DlangIDE development, close dlangide project on the same directory level as dlangui is cloned:

    git clone --recursive https://github.com/buggins/dlangide.git

Enter dlangui directory

    cd dlangui

Open solution file with Visual-D

    dlangui-msvc.sln

Try running examples: helloworld, example1, tetris, dmledit, spreadsheet, opengl

Configurations Debug, Release, Unittest build SDL2+OpenGL versions of apps.

Configurations DebugMinimal, ReleaseMinimal, UnittestMinimal build pure win32 versions of apps w/o OpenGL.

If you are creating your own solution / project which uses DlangUI in Mono-D:

Create new solution (assuming that solution directory is located in the same directory as dlangui and "Create directory for solution" option is unchecked; if no - you will need to correct pathes)
Add / create source files of your project (e.g. copy+paste helloworld.d)
Add dlangui library project dlangui/dlangui-monod-linux.dproj to solution

Following settings are to be applied to all configurations of your new project (Debug, Release, Unittest):

In your project options Build/Project Dependencies - mark dlangui-monod-linux item
In your project options Build/Compiling/Linking - check "Link in static/shared libraries from nested dependencies"
In your project options Build/Compiling/Compiling - specify Version constants as "USE_FREETYPE;USE_OPENGL;EmbedStandardResources;Unicode;windows" (EmbedStandardResources is required if you want to embed your own additional resources into executable)
If your project needs to embed some resources into executable (usually from "views" directory), specify all directories which contain resources in Build/Compiling/Compiling/Extra Compiler Options, e.g.:
```
-Jviews
-Jviews/res
-Jviews/res/i18n
-Jviews/res/mdpi
-Jviews/res/hdpi
```

In your project options Build/Includes put list of import directories of DlangUI library and its dependencies, like

../dlangui/src
../dlangui/deps/DerelictSDL2/source
../dlangui/deps/DerelictFT/source
../dlangui/deps/DerelictGL3/source
../dlangui/deps/DerelictUtil/source

Now you can build and run your project.

Linux builds (DUB)

Uses SDL2 as a backend.
Uses FreeType for font rendering.
Uses FontConfig to get list of available fonts.
OpenGL is can be optionally used for better drawing performance.
```
  libsdl2, libfreetype, libfontconfig
```

E.g. in Ubuntu, you can use following command to enable SDL2 backend builds:

    sudo apt-get install libsdl2-dev

In runtime, .so for following libraries are being loaded (binary packages required):

    freetype, opengl, fontconfig

Build and run on Linux using DUB:

    dub run dlangui:example1

Other platforms

Other platforms support may be added easy

Third party components used

DerelictGL3 - for OpenGL support
DerelictFT + FreeType library support under linux and optionally under Windows.
DerelictSDL2 + SDL2 for cross platform support
WindowsAPI bindings from http://www.dsource.org/projects/bindings/wiki/WindowsApi (patched)
X11 binding when SDL2 is not used
PNG and JPEG reading code is based on dlib sources

Hello World

// myproject.d
import dlangui;
mixin APP_ENTRY_POINT;

/// entry point for dlangui based application
extern (C) int UIAppMain(string[] args) {
    // create window
    Window window = Platform.instance.createWindow("My Window", null);
    // create some widget to show in window
    window.mainWidget = (new Button()).text("Hello world"d).textColor(0xFF0000); // red text
    // show window
    window.show();
    // run message loop
    return Platform.instance.enterMessageLoop();
}

Sample dub.json:

{
    "name": "myproject",
    "description": "sample DLangUI project",

    "targetPath": "bin",
    "targetType": "executable",

    "dependencies": {
        "dlangui": "~master"
    }
}

Hello World using DML

DlangUI supports creation of widgets from markup.

DML - DlangUI Markup Language - similar to QML.

Example of complex UI easy created from text:

module app;

import dlangui;

mixin APP_ENTRY_POINT;

/// entry point for dlangui based application
extern (C) int UIAppMain(string[] args) {
    // create window
    Window window = Platform.instance.createWindow("DlangUI example - HelloWorld", null);

    // create some widget to show in window
    //window.mainWidget = (new Button()).text("Hello, world!"d).margins(Rect(20,20,20,20));
    window.mainWidget = parseML(q{
        VerticalLayout {
            margins: 10
            padding: 10
            backgroundColor: "#C0E0E070" // semitransparent yellow background
            // red bold text with size = 150% of base style size and font face Arial
            TextWidget { text: "Hello World example for DlangUI"; textColor: "red"; fontSize: 150%; fontWeight: 800; fontFace: "Arial" }
            // arrange controls as form - table with two columns
            TableLayout {
                colCount: 2
                TextWidget { text: "param 1" }
                EditLine { id: edit1; text: "some text" }
                TextWidget { text: "param 2" }
                EditLine { id: edit2; text: "some text for param2" }
                TextWidget { text: "some radio buttons" }
                // arrange some radio buttons vertically
                VerticalLayout {
                    RadioButton { id: rb1; text: "Item 1" }
                    RadioButton { id: rb2; text: "Item 2" }
                    RadioButton { id: rb3; text: "Item 3" }
                }
                TextWidget { text: "and checkboxes" }
                // arrange some checkboxes horizontally
                HorizontalLayout {
                    CheckBox { id: cb1; text: "checkbox 1" }
                    CheckBox { id: cb2; text: "checkbox 2" }
                }
            }
            HorizontalLayout {
                Button { id: btnOk; text: "Ok" }
                Button { id: btnCancel; text: "Cancel" }
            }
        }
    });
    // you can access loaded items by id - e.g. to assign signal listeners
    auto edit1 = window.mainWidget.childById!EditLine("edit1");
    auto edit2 = window.mainWidget.childById!EditLine("edit2");
    // close window on Cancel button click
    window.mainWidget.childById!Button("btnCancel").click = delegate(Widget w) {
        window.close();
        return true;
    };
    // show message box with content of editors
    window.mainWidget.childById!Button("btnOk").click = delegate(Widget w) {
        window.showMessageBox(UIString("Ok button pressed"d), 
                UIString("Editors content\nEdit1: "d ~ edit1.text ~ "\nEdit2: "d ~ edit2.text));
        return true;
    };

    // show window
    window.show();

    // run message loop
    return Platform.instance.enterMessageLoop();
}

There is DMLEdit sample app in DlangUI/examples directory.

You can run it with dub:

    dub run dlangui:dmledit

It allows to edit QML text and see how it will look like when loaded into app (F5 refreshes view).

Syntax highlight, bracket matching, go to error and other useful features are implemented.

DlangIDE project

It is a project to build D language IDE using DlangUI library.

But it already can open DUB based projects, edit, build and run them.

Simple syntax highlight.

DCD integration: go to definition and autocompletion for D source code.

Project page: https://github.com/buggins/dlangide

How to build and run using DUB:

git clone https://github.com/buggins/dlangide.git
cd dlangide
dub run

Faianca/dlangui

Dlang UI

Widgets

Layouts

List Views

Resources

Styles and Themes

Important notice

Win32 builds

Mac OSX development using Mono-D

Linux development using Mono-D

Windows development using Mono-D

Windows development using VisualD

Linux builds (DUB)

Other platforms

Third party components used

Hello World

Sample dub.json:

Hello World using DML

DlangIDE project