/webui

Use any web browser as GUI, with your preferred language in the backend and HTML5 in the frontend, all in a lightweight portable lib.

Primary LanguageCMIT LicenseMIT

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WebUI v2.4.2

WebUI is not a web-server solution or a framework, but it allows you to use any web browser as a GUI, with your preferred language in the backend and HTML5 in the frontend. All in a lightweight portable lib.

Screenshot

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Contents

Features

  • Portable (Needs only a web browser at runtime)
  • One header file
  • Lightweight (Few Kb library) & Small memory footprint
  • Fast binary communication protocol
  • Multi-platform & Multi-Browser
  • Using private profile for safety

Showcase

This text editor is a lightweight and portable example written in C using WebUI as the GUI library.

Example

UI & The Web Technologies

Borislav Stanimirov discusses using HTML5 in the web browser as GUI at the C++ Conference 2019 (YouTube).

CPPCon

Web application UI design is not just about how a product looks but how it works. Using web technologies in your UI makes your product modern and professional, And a well-designed web application will help you make a solid first impression on potential customers. Great web application design also assists you in nurturing leads and increasing conversions. In addition, it makes navigating and using your web app easier for your users.

Why Use Web Browsers?

Today's web browsers have everything a modern UI needs. Web browsers are very sophisticated and optimized. Therefore, using it as a GUI will be an excellent choice. While old legacy GUI lib is complex and outdated, a WebView-based app is still an option. However, a WebView needs a huge SDK to build and many dependencies to run, and it can only provide some features like a real web browser. That is why WebUI uses real web browsers to give you full features of comprehensive web technologies while keeping your software lightweight and portable.

How Does it Work?

Diagram

Think of WebUI like a WebView controller, but instead of embedding the WebView controller in your program, which makes the final program big in size, and non-portable as it needs the WebView runtimes. Instead, by using WebUI, you use a tiny static/dynamic library to run any installed web browser and use it as GUI, which makes your program small, fast, and portable. All it needs is a web browser.

Runtime Dependencies Comparison

WebView Qt WebUI
Runtime Dependencies on Windows WebView2 QtCore, QtGui, QtWidgets A Web Browser
Runtime Dependencies on Linux GTK3, WebKitGTK QtCore, QtGui, QtWidgets A Web Browser
Runtime Dependencies on macOS Cocoa, WebKit QtCore, QtGui, QtWidgets A Web Browser

Documentation

Note We are currently writing documentation.

Build

  • Windows

    # GCC
    mingw32-make
    
    # MSVC
    nmake

    Windows SSL/TLS (Optional)

    Download and install the OpenSSL pre-compiled binaries for Windows:

    # GCC
    mingw32-make WEBUI_USE_TLS=1 WEBUI_TLS_INCLUDE="C:\curl-xxx-xxx-mingw\curl-xxx-xxx-mingw\include" WEBUI_TLS_LIB="C:\curl-xxx-xxx-mingw\curl-xxx-xxx-mingw\lib"
    
    # MSVC
    nmake WEBUI_USE_TLS=1 WEBUI_TLS_INCLUDE="C:\Program Files\OpenSSL-xxx\include" WEBUI_TLS_LIB="C:\Program Files\OpenSSL-xxx\lib"
  • Linux

    # GCC
    make
    
    # Clang
    make CC=clang

    Linux SSL/TLS (Optional)

    sudo apt update
    sudo apt install libssl-dev
    
    # GCC
    make WEBUI_USE_TLS=1
    
    # Clang
    make WEBUI_USE_TLS=1 CC=clang
  • macOS

    make

    macOS SSL/TLS (Optional)

    brew install openssl
    make WEBUI_USE_TLS=1

Examples

Wrappers

Language Status Link
Go ✔️ Go-WebUI
Nim ✔️ Nim-WebUI
Pascal ✔️ Pascal-WebUI
Python ✔️ Python-WebUI
Rust not complete Rust-WebUI
TypeScript / JavaScript ✔️ Deno-WebUI
V ✔️ V-WebUI
Zig ✔️ Zig-WebUI
Odin not complete Odin-WebUI
Delphi ✔️ WebUI4Delphi

Supported Web Browsers

Browser Windows macOS Linux
Mozilla Firefox ✔️ ✔️ ✔️
Google Chrome ✔️ ✔️ ✔️
Microsoft Edge ✔️ ✔️ ✔️
Chromium ✔️ ✔️ ✔️
Yandex ✔️ ✔️ ✔️
Brave ✔️ ✔️ ✔️
Vivaldi ✔️ ✔️ ✔️
Epic ✔️ ✔️ not available
Apple Safari not available coming soon not available
Opera coming soon coming soon coming soon

License

Licensed under MIT License.

Stargazers

Stargazers repo roster for @webui-dev/webui