libui-node

v0.2.1

Published

2 years ago

Node.js bindings for libui

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mavenave

parroit

libui desktop multiplatform GUI

libui-node

Node.js bindings for libui library.

libui is a lightweight, portable GUI library that uses the native GUI technologies of each platform it supports.

It is in early stage of development, but is evolving at great pace and is really awesome. It could become an awesome alternative to Electron to develop multiplatform GUI, expecially suited to develop small apps.

Screenshots

macOS

Linux

Windows

Supported platforms

Windows: Windows Vista SP2 with Platform Update or newer
Unix: GTK+ 3.10 or newer
Mac OS X: OS X 10.8 or newer
Node.js version 4 or greater.

Prerequisites

Windows

windows-build-tools or Visual Studio 2015 to compile the project.
Visual C++ Redistributable Package per Visual Studio 2013

Linux

If they are not provided by default in your distribution:

build-essential to compile the project.
GTK+ 3

macOS

Xcode 8 to compile the project.

Installation

npm install -S libui-node

libui prebuilt binaries are automatically downloaded after install.

If you get this error on Windows:

'__pfnDliNotifyHook2': redefinition; different type modifiers

you need to install latest npm version:

$ npm i -g npm

see this node-gyp issue for more details.

Documentation & examples

Documentation is in docs folder. You can also find working examples in examples folder.

How to run the examples

First, you have to clone the GitHub repo and npm install it:

git clone https://github.com/parro-it/libui-node.git
npm install

Then, to run the control gallery example (requires Node.js >= 6), type:

npm start

For the core api, example, type:

npm run start-core

To run other examples:

node <path to example file>

Contribution & design

Each libui control implementation is written in it's own C++ file in src folder.
Each control is implemented in it's own C++ class, each class is a simple wrapper of related libui C functions.
Header files are in src/includes folder.
Control events does not follow node convention: if you attach an handler to an event, previous one will be overwritten and never be called.
We build the project using the awesome nbind tool, that automate the process of linking a straight C++ class to Node.js stuff...

Related projects

libui - Simple and portable (but not inflexible) GUI library in C that uses the native GUI technologies of each platform it supports.
nbind - Magical headers that make your C++ library accessible from JavaScript
proton-native - A React environment for cross platform native desktop apps https://proton-native.js.org