/eframe_template

The easy way to make a Rust app with a GUI

Primary LanguageRust

eframe template

dependency status Build Status

This is a template repo for eframe, a framework for writing apps using egui.

The goal is for this to be the simplest way to get started writing a GUI app in Rust.

You can compile your app natively or for the web, and share it using Github Pages.

Getting started

Start by clicking "Use this template" at https://github.com/emilk/eframe_template/ or follow these instructions.

Change the name of the crate: Chose a good name for your project, and change the name to it in:

  • Cargo.toml
    • Change the package.name from eframe_template to your_crate
    • Change the package.authors
    • Change the package.default-run from eframe_template_bin to your_crate_bin (note the _bin!)
    • Change the bin.name from eframe_template_bin to your_crate_bin (note the _bin!)
  • main.rs
    • Change eframe_template::TemplateApp to your_crate::TemplateApp
  • docs/index.html
    • Change the <title>
    • Change the <script src=… line from eframe_template.js to your_crate.js
    • Change the wasm_bindgen(… line from eframe_template_bg.wasm to your_crate_bg.wasm (note the _bg!)
  • docs/sw.js
    • Change the './eframe_template.js' to ./your_crate.js (in filesToCache array)
    • Change the './eframe_template_bg.wasm' to ./your_crate_bg.wasm (in filesToCache array)
  • Remove the web build of the old name: rm docs/eframe_template*

Learning about egui

src/app.rs contains a simple example app. This is just to give some inspiration - most of it can be removed if you like.

The official egui docs are at https://docs.rs/egui. If you prefer watching a video introduction, check out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtUkr_z7l84. For inspiration, check out the the egui web demo and follow the links in it to its source code.

Testing locally

Make sure you are using the latest version of stable rust by running rustup update.

cargo run --release

On Linux you need to first run:

sudo apt-get install libxcb-render0-dev libxcb-shape0-dev libxcb-xfixes0-dev libspeechd-dev libxkbcommon-dev libssl-dev

On Fedora Rawhide you need to run:

dnf install clang clang-devel clang-tools-extra speech-dispatcher-devel libxkbcommon-devel pkg-config openssl-devel libxcb-devel

For running the build_web.sh script you also need to install jq and binaryen with your packet manager of choice.

Compiling for the web

Make sure you are using the latest version of stable rust by running rustup update.

You can compile your app to WASM and publish it as a web page. For this you need to set up some tools. There are a few simple scripts that help you with this:

./setup_web.sh
./build_web.sh
./start_server.sh
open http://127.0.0.1:8080/
  • setup_web.sh installs the tools required to build for web
  • build_web.sh compiles your code to wasm and puts it in the docs/ folder (see below)
  • start_server.sh starts a local HTTP server so you can test before you publish
  • Open http://127.0.0.1:8080/ in a web browser to view

The finished web app is found in the docs/ folder (this is so that you can easily share it with GitHub Pages). It consists of three files:

  • index.html: A few lines of HTML, CSS and JS that loads your app. You need to edit this (once) to replace eframe_template with the name of your crate!
  • your_crate_bg.wasm: What the Rust code compiles to.
  • your_crate.js: Auto-generated binding between Rust and JS.

You can test the template app at https://emilk.github.io/eframe_template/.

Updating egui

As of 2022, egui is in active development with frequent releases with breaking changes. eframe_template will be updated in lock-step to always use the latest version of egui.

When updating egui and eframe it is recommended you do so one version at the time, and read about the changes in the egui changelog and eframe changelog.