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# ARCHITECTURE | ||
Xilem is a framework that aims to provide a performant and productive option for Rust GUI. | ||
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This crates evolved from various experiments in the Linebender community (Druid, masonry, idiopath, lasagna, crochet, etc) | ||
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This document describes the high-level architecture of xilem. If you want to familirize yourself with the code base, you are just in the right place! | ||
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An evolution of the ideas implemented in xilem can be found in the following resources: | ||
- [Data Oriented GUI (2018)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YTfxresvS8) | ||
- [A Journey through incremental computation (2020)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSuX-LIAU-I) | ||
- [Raph Levien on UI Frameworks (2021)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwuwG2-0n3I) | ||
- [High Performance Rust UI (2022)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVUTZlNCb8U) | ||
- [Ergonomic APIs for hard problems (2022)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Phk0C-kLlho&t=2706s) | ||
- [Xilem Vector Graphics (2023)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjbVnwBtVEk) | ||
- [Announcing Masonry 0.1, and my vision for Rust UI (2023)](https://poignardazur.github.io/2023/02/02/masonry-01-and-my-vision-for-rust-ui/) | ||
- [So you want to write a GUI framework (2021)](https://www.cmyr.net/blog/gui-framework-ingredients.html) | ||
- [Rust GUI Infrastructure (2021)](https://www.cmyr.net/blog/rust-gui-infra.html) | ||
- [Towards a unified theory of reactive UI (2019)](https://raphlinus.github.io/ui/druid/2019/11/22/reactive-ui.html) | ||
- [Towards principled reactive UI (2020)](https://raphlinus.github.io/rust/druid/2020/09/25/principled-reactive-ui.html) | ||
- [Xilem: an architecture for UI in Rust (2022)](https://raphlinus.github.io/rust/gui/2022/05/07/ui-architecture.html) | ||
- [Advice for the next dozen Rust GUIs (2022)](https://raphlinus.github.io/rust/gui/2022/07/15/next-dozen-guis.html) | ||
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## High-level Goals | ||
- **High Performance.** Lightweight state management, retained widget layer, massively parallel rendering backend (Vello), fast startup time, small binary size | ||
- **Productive.** Offer an ergonomic API, code is concise (low Rust tax), idiomatic and UI components compose well | ||
- **Rich 2D graphics model.** | ||
- **Wide platform support.** Windows, MacOS, Linux (Wayland/X11), Android (Google funded), iOS | ||
- **Batteries-included.** Advanced text layout, IME, Accessibility, Animation, Styling | ||
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## Roadmap | ||
<!-- TODO --> | ||
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## Bird's Eye View | ||
The code can be roughly divided into 3 levels: | ||
- Reactive Data Layer | ||
- UI Layer | ||
- Framework Layer | ||
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![The Xilem architectural overview](./docs/assets/xilem-architecture.svg) | ||
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### Reactive layer (`xilem_masonry`, `xilem_web` and `xilem_core`) | ||
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Your main interaction with the framework is through the `app_logic()`. Like Elm, the `app_logic()` contains centralized state. On each cycle (meaning, roughly, on each high-level UI interaction such as a button click), the framework calls a closure, giving it mutable access to the `AppData`, and the return value is a `View` tree. This `View` tree is fairly short-lived; it is used to render the UI, possibly dispatch some events, and be used as a reference for diffing by the next cycle, at which point it is dropped. You pass the `app_logic()` to the framework (represented by `Xilem`) and then use it to create the window and run the UI. | ||
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```rust | ||
struct AppData { | ||
count: u32, | ||
}f | ||
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fn app_logic(data: &mut AppData) -> impl View<AppData, (), Element = impl Widget> { | ||
let count = data.count | ||
let button_label = if count == 1 { | ||
"clicked 1 time".to_string() | ||
} else { | ||
format!("clicked {count} times") | ||
}; | ||
button(button_label, |data: &mut AppData| data.count +=1) | ||
} | ||
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fn main() { | ||
let data = AppData { | ||
count: 0 | ||
} | ||
let app = Xilem::new(data, app_logic); | ||
app.run_windowed("Application Example".into()).unwrap(); | ||
} | ||
``` | ||
The most important construct at the reactive layer is the `View` trait. `View` implementations need to assign the associated `State` and `Element` and implement `build()`, `rebuild()` and `message()`. The `build()` is run only once (first run) to initialize the associated `State` create the associated `Element`of the view. The `rebuild()` is used to update the associated `State` and `Element` and it is what enables Xilem's reactivity. It is worth noting three special types of views the `Adapt`, `Memoize` and `AnyView` views. | ||
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The `Adapt` node is used to adapt/convert from the parent data (often the `AppData`) to the child data (some subset of the `AppData`). The `Adapt` node can also adapt messages from the child scope to the parent scope and vice versa. | ||
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The `View` trees are always eagerly evaluated when the `app_logic()` is called. Even though the `View`'s are very lightweight when the tree becomes large it can create performance issues; the `Memoize` node prunes the `View` tree to improve performance. The generation of the subtree is postponed until the `build()`/`rebuild()` are executed. If none of the `AppData` dependencies change during a UI cycle neither the `View` subtree will be constructed nor the `rebuild()` will be called. The `View` subtree will only be constructed if any of the `AppData` dependencies change. The `Memoize` node should be used when the subtree is a pure function of the `AppData`. | ||
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Generally the Xilem `View` tree is statically typed. `AnyView` allows for the tree to be type erased to enable easy dynamic reconfiguration of the UI. | ||
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### UI Layer (`masonry`) | ||
The associated Elements of the `View` trait are either DOM nodes for `xilem_web`or implementations of the `Widget` trait. | ||
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### Framework Layer (`masonry`) | ||
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## Code Organisation | ||
### `crates/xilem_core` | ||
Contains the `View` trait, `Adapt`, `Memoize`, and `AnyView` view implementations. Is also contains the `Message`, `MessageResult`, `Id` types and the tree-structrure tracking. | ||
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### `crates/xilem_masonry/view` | ||
Contains the view implementations for Xilem native. | ||
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### `crates/xilem_web/ | ||
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### `crates/masonry/ | ||
See `ARCHITECTURE.md` file located under `crates/masonry/doc` |
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