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MyGui: A Retained-Mode GUI Framework for Windows

Note: This project is a learning exercise in building a GUI framework from scratch using Rust and the raw Windows API. For production applications, consider using mature frameworks.

Goal

This project aims to create a simple, modular, and idiomatic Rust framework over the raw Windows API. It provides a foundational layer for building lightweight GUI applications, focusing on a clean architecture and a flexible API.

Core Concepts

MyGui is built on a retained-mode rendering model. This means:

1. You define a scene: You tell the framework what to draw by building a Scene populated with Drawable objects (like text, shapes, etc.).
2. The framework handles rendering: The framework "retains" this scene graph and is responsible for automatically redrawing it whenever the window needs to be repainted (e.g., when it's resized or uncovered).

This contrasts with immediate-mode rendering, where the application must manually issue draw calls every single frame.

Current Features

• Windowing: A high-level abstraction over Win32 window creation, class registration, and the message loop.
• Retained-Mode Rendering: A hardware-accelerated rendering pipeline using Direct2D and DirectWrite.
• Scene Graph: A Scene object that manages a collection of Drawable trait objects.
• Extensible Event System: A trait-based EventHandler system allows for a clean separation of application logic from window messages.
• Basic Text Rendering: A TextObject for drawing text to the screen.

Roadmap (Upcoming Features)

I am actively working on evolving this project into a more flexible and powerful library. Key priorities include:

• Flexible Window Configuration: Introducing a WindowBuilder to allow for easy and idiomatic configuration of window properties (size, title, etc.).
• Composable Event System: Allowing multiple EventHandlers to be registered, enabling better code organization for complex applications.
• Advanced Text Rendering: Implementing proper text layout and measurement using IDWriteTextLayout for correct and efficient text rendering.
• Adherence to Rust Conventions: Aligning the project with standard community practices (e.g., crate naming).

For a detailed list of tasks, see TASKS.md.

Building and Running

This project uses Cargo, Rust's package manager and build system.

• Build: To compile the project, navigate to the project root directory and run:

  cargo build
  

• Run: To build and run the executable, use:

  cargo run