GacUI

GPU Accelerated C++ User Interface, with:

• Cross-platform supports (Windows, Linux, macos, HTML5)
  • Native Renderers
  • Hosted Mode to render all windows in one native window (optional)
  • Core/Renderer cross-process separation (optional)
• Built-in powerful text processing libraries
• Built-in data binding and MVVM features
• XML UI description embedding Workflow script language
  • Dynamic loading with C++ dynamic reflection opt-in
    • Allow loading foreign UI with complex behavior in runtime
  • Generate XML and Workflow to C++ source files for static linking (recommended)
    • Allow C++ dyanmic reflection opt-out to significantly improve performance and reduce binary size
• FFI Integration with other programming languages (under development)

Coding Agent Supports

• Rich context, instructions and documentation for developing with coding agents
• GacUI applications UI can be understand and operated by coding agents meanwhile:
  • Works even when the screen is locked.
  • Does not block you from using the computer.

License

Read the LICENSE first.

This project is licensed under the License repo.

Source code in this repo is for reference only, please use the source code in the Release repo.

You are welcome to contribute to this repo by opening pull requests.

Document

For Home Page: click here

For Gaclib: click here

For GacUI: click here

gaclib.net is a mirror to github pages above.

Content of This Project

• The Tutorial shows how to start using this marvelous GUI library.
• The Demos section shows you all demos using this GUI library.

Notice

Using this library requires you to use C++ source files directly in

• The Release folder for Vlpp, Workflow or GacUI.
• The GacGen.exe if you prefer to use XML to build your UI.
• The GacBuild.ps1 if you are build your application with multiple GacUI XML Resource with dependencies.

All other files are for library development only.

Content

This GUI library provides the following features:

• Develop your GUI using pure C++, Workflow script, XML or even JavaScript (under construction).
• Cross-platform abilities.
  • for Windows: Release repo
  • for Linux: wGac repo
  • for macOS: iGac repo
  • for running in Browser using WASM: (2.0)
• Rich control library. Container controls supports MVC and virtual list mode.
• Control template system. You can write your own.
• GPU acceleration.
• XML resource supports.
  • You can use the provided GacGen.exe or GacBuild.ps1 to generate from multiple XML files to binary resources (images) into a compressed binary format.
  • This program will also generate C++ code behind for you. You can fill event handlers (but we suggest you use MVVM and Data Binding instead) in generated C++ files.
  • If you update your UI, GacGen.exe will merge your modification in C++ code and modification in XML together to generate new C++ code behind. Your update will still exist.
    • NOTE: You will see a very obvious mark USERIMPL(/* ... */) in the generated code. Here is where you want to add your code. All your modification outside of these places will be discarded on the next GacGen.exe run.
• MVVM and Data Binding.
  • You can define interfaces that required to build your own MVVM pattern in XML and GacGen.exe will generate the C++ interface declaration for you.
  • You can also use Workflow expressions in Data Binding and statements in event handlers (instead of writing C++ code in code behind).

https://gankra.github.io/blah/text-hates-you/
https://lord.io/text-editing-hates-you-too/

Automation Support for Coding Agent

Since UI Automation is not working when the screen is locked, GacUI prepares facilities to expose UIA features by a http server brought up with the app. This service should be explicitly activated in the source code for security reason.

Applications compose automation directly: construct the concrete service matching the active normal, hosted, core, or renderer controller; substitute it; start either the Windows HTTP or MiniHTTP endpoint; run GuiApplication; then stop the endpoint and service before unsubstituting it. Windows HTTP and cross-platform MiniHTTP expose the same Controls, Dom, and IO contract. MiniHTTP is used by the remoting demos and is not part of GacUI's public API yet.

Remote Protocol Support

GacUI Remote Protocol enables Core and Renderer to run in different process in any programming language. It is current under development, but if you are interested in it, there are demos to try.

All text box related controls are not supported yet, but they are on the way!

Named Pipe, HTTP, and MiniHTTP

In GacUISrc.sln the remoting and remote-view-model demos use these projects:

• RemotingTest_Core.vcxproj
• RemotingTest_Rendering_Win32.vcxproj
• RemotingTest_RvmHost.vcxproj
• CppTest_Rvm.vcxproj

You must offer the same transport argument to every process in one run.

• Core starts a GacUI process but delegates all rendering work to a remote process.
• Rendering_Win32 starts a renderer-only process handles Core's requests.
• RemotingTest_RvmHost provides the service required by /RVMT. It advertises ViewModelChannel for RPC and the internal ViewModelReadyChannel startup signal; renderers advertise only GacUIRemoteProtocol.
• CppTest_Rvm is the Windows-only local variant. It runs the generated application with RemotingTest_RvmHost, without a renderer process.
• Exactly one of /Pipe, /Http or /MiniHttp should be offered to each participating project.
  • Non-Windows platform only enabled /MiniHttp.
• Offer /FCT (default), /RPT or /RVMT to Core.
• For /FCT and /RPT, start Core and then the renderer.
• For /RVMT, start Core first. It intentionally blocks while waiting for RemotingTest_RvmHost; while it is blocked, start RemotingTest_RvmHost. After Core's http://localhost:8888/Automation/RemotingTest_Core/Controls response contains the Remote View Model Test window, start the renderer.
• For the Windows-only local variant, start CppTest_Rvm first. It intentionally blocks while waiting for RemotingTest_RvmHost; while it is blocked, start RemotingTest_RvmHost. This variant does not use a renderer. /Pipe and /Http expose automation through Windows HTTP; /MiniHttp registers automation on the same port-8888 MiniHTTP socket server used for RVM traffic.
• The RVM demos intentionally use a simple ordered-start contract. If RemotingTest_RvmHost disconnects while a requester is running, the requester terminates with an error and the process set must be restarted.
• On Linux and macOS, the portable RVM path is RemotingTest_Core /RVMT with RemotingTest_RvmHost, both using /MiniHttp.

Network Protocol Implementation Details:

• /Pipe is built on top of Named Pipe API for Windows.
• /Http is built on top of http.sys and WinHttp API for Windows.
• /MiniHttp is built on top of TCP/IP Socket API for all platforms. They are for the remote protocol demo only, no security is considered in the source code. If you are going to start your own remote protocol application, I strongly recommended you to use your own network protocol stack. The interface is flexible enough to use any possible way for data transmission, including but not limited to, stdio redirection, DLL interface, any actual network protocol, but no official default implementation is offered.

HTML

By running Core with /Http or /MiniHttp, you can even run GacUI in a browser!

Unit Test

Checkout Project.md for details about compiling and running each test projects.

On Windows, use MSBuild or Visual Studio to build.

On Linux/macOS, run REPO-ROOT/.github/Ubuntu/build.sh in a project folder to update the makefile from vcxproj and build the project.

With the power from Remote Protocol, you could make GacUI running and writing down snapshots as a trace of all UI activities. Check out UnitTest.vcxproj!

After running all test cases (actually don't need to do that as all snapshots are already checked in), check out UnitTestViewer.vcxproj!

Unit test facility and the viewer are released to the Release repo in:

• GacUI.UnitTest.(h|cpp)
• GacUI.UnitTest.UI(h|cpp)
• GacUI.UnitTest.UIReflection(h|cpp): only needed when you run GacUI.UnitTest.UI.cpp without VCZH_DEBUG_NO_REFLECTION compiler option.