new-gui/README.md

# gui

Package gui implements a abstraction layer for Go visual elements.

Definitions:

```go
* Toolkit: the underlying GUI library (MacOS gui, Windows gui, gtk, qt, etc)
* Node: A binary tree of all the underlying widgets
```

Principles:

```go
* Make code using this package simple to use
* Hide complexity internally here
* Isolate the GUI toolkit
* Widget names should try to match [Wikipedia Graphical widget]
* When in doubt, search upward in the binary tree
* It's ok to guess. Try to do something sensible.
```

## Debian Build

This worked on debian sid (mate-desktop) on 2023/12/03
I didn't record the dependances needed (gtk-dev)

```go
export GO111MODULE="off"
make
```

Hello World Example

```go
// This creates a simple hello world window
package main

import 	(
	"log"
	"go.wit.com/wit/gui/gui"
)

var myGui *gui.Node // This is your gui object

// go will sit here until the window exits
func main() {
	myGui = gui.Init()
}

// This initializes the first window and 2 tabs
func helloworld() {
	window := myGui.NewWindow()

	group := window.NewGroup("foo bar")
	group.NewButton("hello", func() {
		log.Println("world")
	})
}
```

External Toolkits

```go
* andlabs - [https://github.com/andlabs/ui](https://github.com/andlabs/ui)
* gocui - [https://github.com/awesome-gocui/gocui](https://github.com/awesome-gocui/gocui)
```

The next step is to allow this to work against go-gtk and go-qt.

TODO: Add Fyne, WASM, native macos & windows, android and
hopefully also things like libSDL, faiface/pixel, slint

## Bugs

"The author's idea of friendly may differ to that of many other people."

-- quote from the minimalistic window manager 'evilwm'

## References

Useful links and other
external things which might be useful

* Wikipedia Graphical widget - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphical_widget](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphical_widget)
* Github mirror - [https://github.com/wit-go/gui](https://github.com/wit-go/gui)
* Federated git pull - [https://github.com/forgefed/forgefed](https://github.com/forgefed/forgefed)
* GO Style Guide - [https://google.github.io/styleguide/go/index](https://google.github.io/styleguide/go/index)

```go
* [Wikipedia Graphical widget]
* [Github mirror]
* [Federated git pull]
* [GO Style Guide]
```

## Functions

### func [DebugWidgetWindow](/debugWidget.go#L52)

`func DebugWidgetWindow(w *Node)`

### func [DebugWindow](/debugWindow.go#L21)

`func DebugWindow()`

Creates a window helpful for debugging this package

### func [ExampleCatcher](/chan.go#L37)

`func ExampleCatcher(f func())`

### func [Indent](/debug.go#L124)

`func Indent(b bool, a ...interface{})`

### func [SetDebug](/debug.go#L28)

`func SetDebug(s bool)`

### func [SetFlag](/debug.go#L50)

`func SetFlag(s string, b bool)`

### func [ShowDebugValues](/debug.go#L82)

`func ShowDebugValues()`

### func [StandardExit](/main.go#L153)

`func StandardExit()`

The window is destroyed and the application exits
TODO: properly exit the plugin since Quit() doesn't do it

### func [Watchdog](/watchdog.go#L16)

`func Watchdog()`

This program sits here.
If you exit here, the whole thing will os.Exit()
TODO: use Ticker

This goroutine can be used like a watchdog timer

## Types

### type [GuiArgs](/structs.go#L29)

`type GuiArgs struct { ... }`

This struct can be used with the go-arg package

#### Variables

```golang
var GuiArg GuiArgs
```

### type [Node](/structs.go#L59)

`type Node struct { ... }`

The Node is a binary tree. This is how all GUI elements are stored
simply the name and the size of whatever GUI element exists

#### func [New](/main.go#L120)

`func New() *Node`

There should only be one of these per application
This is due to restrictions by being cross platform
some toolkit's on some operating systems don't support more than one
Keep things simple. Do the default expected thing whenever possible

### type [Symbol](/plugin.go#L17)

`type Symbol any`

## Sub Packages

* [log](./log)

* [toolkit](./toolkit)

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