About Walk
Walk is a "Windows Application Library Kit" for the Go Programming Language.
Its primarily useful for Desktop GUI development, but there is some more stuff.
Setup
Make sure you have a working Go installation. See Getting Started
Note
Go 1.0.x
doesn't work with walk anymore, Make sure you use Go 1.1.x
To Install
Now run go get github.com/lxn/walk
Using Walk
The preferred way to create GUIs with Walk is to use its declarative sub package, as illustrated in this small example:
test.go
package main
import (
"github.com/lxn/walk"
. "github.com/lxn/walk/declarative"
"strings"
)
func main() {
var inTE, outTE *walk.TextEdit
MainWindow{
Title: "SCREAMO",
MinSize: Size{600, 400},
Layout: VBox{},
Children: []Widget{
HSplitter{
Children: []Widget{
TextEdit{AssignTo: &inTE},
TextEdit{AssignTo: &outTE, ReadOnly: true},
},
},
PushButton{
Text: "SCREAM",
OnClicked: func() {
outTE.SetText(strings.ToUpper(inTE.Text()))
},
},
},
}.Run()
}
Build app
In the directory containing test.go
run
go build
To get rid of the cmd window, instead run
go build -ldflags="-H windowsgui"
test.exe.manifest
Create Manifest <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<assembly xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1" manifestVersion="1.0">
<assemblyIdentity version="1.0.0.0" processorArchitecture="*" name="SomeFunkyNameHere" type="win32"/>
<dependency>
<dependentAssembly>
<assemblyIdentity type="win32" name="Microsoft.Windows.Common-Controls" version="6.0.0.0" processorArchitecture="*" publicKeyToken="6595b64144ccf1df" language="*"/>
</dependentAssembly>
</dependency>
</assembly>
Run app
test.exe
Sample Output (Windows 7)
More Examples
There are some examples that should get you started.
Application Manifest Files
Walk requires Common Controls 6. This means that you must put an appropriate application manifest file either next to your executable or embedded as a resource.
You can copy one of the application manifest files that come with the examples.
IMPORTANT: Do not launch your executable before the manifest file is in place. If you do anyway, the program will not run properly. And worse, Windows will not recognize a manifest file, you later drop next to the executable. To fix this, rebuild your executable and only launch it with a manifest file in place.