Use any web browser or WebView as GUI.
With Odin in the backend and modern web technologies in the frontend.
Note Odin-WebUI is under development and is currently only tested on macOS and Linux.
Add odin-webui as a submodule in your Odin git project:
git submodule add https://github.com/webui-dev/odin-webui.git webui
webui/setup.shImport the package using the relative path
import ui "webui"toggle Full example creating a project and adding odin-webui as a submodule.
mkdir my_proj && cd my_proj
git init
git submodule add https://github.com/webui-dev/odin-webui.git webui
# Setup the WebUI C library.
weubi/setup.sh
# Create a the main file for the project. And use it in the next step.
touch main.odin// main.odin
package main
import ui "webui"
main :: proc() {
w := ui.new_window()
ui.show(w, "<html>Thanks for using WebUI!</html>")
ui.wait()
}This approach can be useful for quick testing and for development and contribution purposes.
- Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/webui-dev/odin-webui.git- Setup the WebUI C library
cd odin-webui
# Setup the WebUI C library.
./setup.shpackage main
import ui "webui"
import "core:fmt"
UI :: `<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<style>
body {
background: linear-gradient(to left, #36265a, #654da9);
color: AliceBlue;
font: 16px sans-serif;
text-align: center;
}
</style>
<script src="webui.js"></script>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Thanks for using WebUI!</h1>
<button onclick="webui.my_odin_func('myJSArg')">Call Odin!</button>
<button id="exit">Exit</button>
</body>
</html>`
// Odin function used as bind callback.
my_odin_func :: proc(e: ^ui.Event) {
str_arg := ui.get_arg(string, e)
fmt.printf("JS argument: %s\n", str_arg)
}
main :: proc() {
w := ui.new_window()
ui.bind(w, "my_odin_func", my_odin_func)
// Bind to an ID with a click event.
ui.bind(w, "exit", proc(_: ^ui.Event) {
fmt.println("Bye!")
ui.exit()
})
ui.show(w, UI)
ui.wait()
}Running exmples from the examples directory:
odin run examples/call_odin.odin -file
To use WebUI's debug build in your Odin-WebUI application, add the -debug switch. E.g.:
odin run examples/minimal.odin -file -debugBorislav Stanimirov discusses using HTML5 in the web browser as GUI at the C++ Conference 2019 (YouTube).
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.
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.
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.
| 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 |
| 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 | not complete | Zig-WebUI |
| 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 |
Licensed under the MIT License.