FerroDesign

FerroDesign is a native design editor built with FerroUI, a Rust UI framework, with compiled XAML and the FerroUI Vello backend. It runs on the desktop and in the browser (WebAssembly): the same editor, controls, document model and scene renderer in both.

Open it in the browser: https://ferroui.github.io/FerroDesign/

The editor has pages and layers, an infinite canvas, layout guides, editable vector networks, rich text with paragraph formatting, image cropping, effects and masks, continuous corners, variable-width strokes, auto-layout, components with variants, local variables, prototypes, comments, undo and redo, and portable export. Its feature coverage and limits are in docs/FEATURES.md, and the complete guide to editing, persistence, validation and rendering performance is in docs/GUIDE.md. FerroDesign is not an official Figma product and does not claim complete Figma compatibility.

The editor is FerroUI UI: Editor.xaml compiles into FerroUI controls, the canvas is a Control, and artwork is drawn through the public DrawingContext, geometry, brush, pen, text and imaging APIs. The HTML host page only starts WebAssembly and provides browser storage, clipboard and downloads.

Repository layout

Path	Content
crates/ferrodesign-core/	the renderer-independent document, geometry, editing and layout engine
crates/ferrodesign-app/	the editor: compiled XAML shell, canvas, renderer, platform services; its host page is in wwwroot/
tests/	browser validation scenarios (Playwright) and the script tests of the host page
scripts/	the browser build, the renderer graph check and the browser validation runner
docs/	the guide, feature and design notes, and the validation evidence of the former FerroUI branch
FerroUI/	FerroUI as a git submodule; the editor builds against its crates

The repository follows the layout of FerroUI applications described in FerroUI/docs/apps.md: the workspace dependencies and profiles of Cargo.toml are kept in step with the submodule by FerroUI/scripts/apps/sync-workspace.py, and the CI is FerroUI's shared application workflow. The framework changes the editor needed (FerroUI pull request 358) are part of FerroUI main.

Native launcher

git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/FerroUI/FerroDesign.git
cd FerroDesign
cargo run --locked --profile fast-release -p ferrodesign-app
cargo run --locked -p ferrodesign-app -- --software                         # Vello CPU
cargo run --locked -p ferrodesign-app -- --render-smoke /tmp/ferrodesign.png  # headless frame

Rust 1.99 or newer is required, with the platform prerequisites of FerroUI (on Linux a C++ toolchain, pkg-config, and the Fontconfig and FreeType development packages). The launcher uses Vello hybrid with Metal on macOS, GLX on Linux/X11 and WGL on Windows, each with a Vello CPU fallback.

Browser

FerroUI/scripts/browser/setup.sh ~/browser-tools
source ~/browser-tools/env.sh
scripts/build-browser.sh
python3 -m http.server 8080 --directory target/browser/ferrodesign-app

The module draws with Vello alone: the build stops when Skia enters the dependency graph of the browser target (scripts/check-renderer.sh). The page requests Vello hybrid on WebGL2 and falls back to Vello CPU with Software2D presentation; ?RenderingMode=Software2D or ?RenderingMode=WebGL2 requests one surface exactly.

Test

cargo test --locked -p ferrodesign-core
cargo test --locked -p ferrodesign-app --lib -- --test-threads=1
node --test tests/*.test.mjs

Run npm ci && node tests/browser.mjs to drive the built site in Chromium. Pull requests run all scenario groups in Software2D, the WebGL2 smoke group, and the browser storage checks. The full matrix also runs on the nightly schedule. See the scenario groups.

License

MIT, see LICENSE. The embedded fonts keep their own licenses, see NOTICE.md.