Borislav Stanimirov discusses using HTML5 in the web browser as GUI at the C++ Conference 2019 (YouTube).
Web application UI design is not just about how a product looks but how it works. Using web technologies in your UI makes your product modern and professional, And a well-designed web application will help you make a solid first impression on potential customers. Great web application design also assists you in nurturing leads and increasing conversions. In addition, it makes navigating and using your web app easier for your users.
Today's web browsers have everything a modern UI needs. Web browsers are very sophisticated and optimized. Therefore, using it as a GUI will be an excellent choice. While old legacy GUI lib is complex and outdated, a WebView-based app is still an option. However, a WebView needs a huge SDK to build and many dependencies to run, and it can only provide some features like a real web browser. That is why WebUI uses real web browsers to give you full features of comprehensive web technologies while keeping your software lightweight and portable.
Think of WebUI like a WebView controller, but instead of embedding the WebView controller in your program, which makes the final program big in size, and non-portable as it needs the WebView runtimes. Instead, by using WebUI, you use a tiny static/dynamic library to run any installed web browser and use it as GUI, which makes your program small, fast, and portable. All it needs is a web browser.
| GUI | Windows Dependencies | Linux Dependencies | macOS Dependencies |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tauri | WebView2 | GTK/WebKitGTK | WKWebView, WebKit |
| Qt | Qt bundles | Qt bundles, libxcb, libxkbcommon... | Qt bundles |
| Electron | Embedded Chromium + Node.js | Embedded Chromium + Node.js | Embedded Chromium + Node.js |
| NW.js | Embedded Chromium + Node.js | Embedded Chromium + Node.js | Embedded Chromium + Node.js |
| WebUI | Only A Web Browser | Only A Web Browser | Only A Web Browser |
| Compiler | Command |
|---|---|
| GCC | mingw32-make |
| MSVC | nmake |
| Compiler | Command |
|---|---|
| GCC | make |
| Clang | make CC=clang |
| Compiler | Command |
|---|---|
| Default | make |
```c #include "webui.h"
int main() { size_t my_window = webui_new_window(); webui_show(my_window, " Hello World ! "); webui_wait(); return 0; } ```
```cpp #include "webui.hpp" #include
int main() { webui::window my_window; my_window.show(" C++ Hello World ! "); webui::wait(); return 0; } ```
More C/C++ Examples
Other Languages
| Compiler | Type | Command |
|---|---|---|
| GCC | Static | gcc -Os -Wl,-subsystem=windows my_application.c -I"_PATH_TO_WEBUI_INCLUDE_" -L"_PATH_TO_WEBUI_LIB_" -lwebui-2-static -lws2_32 -Wall -luser32 -static -lole32 -lstdc++ -luuid -o my_application.exe |
| GCC | Dynamic | gcc -Wl,-subsystem=windows my_application.c -I"_PATH_TO_WEBUI_INCLUDE_" -L"_PATH_TO_WEBUI_LIB_" "webui-2.dll" -lws2_32 -Wall -luser32 -lole32 -o -lstdc++ -luuid my_application.exe |
| MSVC | Static | cl my_application.c /I"_PATH_TO_WEBUI_INCLUDE_" /link /LIBPATH:"_PATH_TO_WEBUI_LIB_" /SUBSYSTEM:WINDOWS webui-2-static.lib user32.lib Advapi32.lib Shell32.lib Ole32.lib /OUT:my_application.exe |
| MSVC | Dynamic | cl my_application.c /I"_PATH_TO_WEBUI_INCLUDE_" /link /LIBPATH:"_PATH_TO_WEBUI_LIB_" /SUBSYSTEM:WINDOWS webui-2.lib user32.lib Advapi32.lib Shell32.lib Ole32.lib /OUT:my_application.exe |
| Compiler | Type | Command |
|---|---|---|
| GCC | Static | gcc -Os my_application.c -I"_PATH_TO_WEBUI_INCLUDE_" -L"_PATH_TO_WEBUI_LIB_" -lwebui-2-static -lpthread -lm -ldl -o my_application |
| GCC | Dynamic | gcc my_application.c -I"_PATH_TO_WEBUI_INCLUDE_" -L"_PATH_TO_WEBUI_LIB_" -lwebui-2 -lpthread -lm -ldl -o my_application |
| Clang | Static | clang -Os my_application.c -I"_PATH_TO_WEBUI_INCLUDE_" -L"_PATH_TO_WEBUI_LIB_" -lwebui-2-static -lpthread -lm -ldl -o my_application |
| Clang | Dynamic | clang my_application.c -I"_PATH_TO_WEBUI_INCLUDE_" -L"_PATH_TO_WEBUI_LIB_" -lwebui-2 -lpthread -lm -ldl -o my_application |
| Compiler | Type | Command |
|---|---|---|
| Clang | Static | clang -Os my_application.c -I"_PATH_TO_WEBUI_INCLUDE_" -L"_PATH_TO_WEBUI_LIB_" -lwebui-2-static -lpthread -lm -framework Cocoa -framework WebKit -o my_application |
| Clang | Dynamic | clang my_application.c -I"_PATH_TO_WEBUI_INCLUDE_" -L"_PATH_TO_WEBUI_LIB_" -lwebui-2 -lpthread -lm -framework Cocoa -framework WebKit -o my_application |
| Language | v2.5.0 API | Link |
|---|---|---|
| Python | ✔️ | Python-WebUI |
| Go | ✔️ | Go-WebUI |
| Zig | ✔️ | Zig-WebUI |
| Nim | ✔️ | Nim-WebUI |
| V | ✔️ | V-WebUI |
| Rust | ✔️ | Rust-WebUI |
| TS / JS (Deno) | ✔️ | Deno-WebUI |
| TS / JS (Bun) | ✔️ | Bun-WebUI |
| Swift | ✔️ | Swift-WebUI |
| Odin | ✔️ | Odin-WebUI |
| Pascal | ✔️ | Pascal-WebUI |
| Purebasic | ✔️ | Purebasic-WebUI |
| - | - | - |
| C# | ✔️ | CS-WebUI |
| C# | not complete | WebUI4CSharp |
| FSharp-WebUI | ✔️ | FSharp-WebUI |
| Common Lisp | not complete | cl-webui |
| Delphi | not complete | WebUI4Delphi |
| WebUI.NET | not complete | WebUI.NET |
| QuickJS | not complete | QuickUI |
| PHP | not complete | PHPWebUiComposer |
| Browser | Windows | macOS | Linux |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mozilla Firefox | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Google Chrome | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Microsoft Edge | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Chromium | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Yandex | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Brave | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Vivaldi | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Epic | ✔️ | ✔️ | not available |
| Apple Safari | not available | coming soon | not available |
| Opera | coming soon | coming soon | coming soon |
| WebView | Status |
|---|---|
| Windows WebView2 | ✔️ |
| Linux GTK WebView | ✔️ |
| macOS WKWebView | ✔️ |
Licensed under MIT License.
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