GXUI – An experimental Go cross-platform UI library | Hacker News Reader

GXUI – An experimental Go cross-platform UI library

github.com

106 pointsvruiz30 comments

A propitious beginning. You'll need xorg-dev, libgl1-mesa-dev, and go-gl/glfw to install. Getting can't find "Arial.ttf" panics? But looks quite nice, though windows take some time to build. Here is a screenshot of "polygons" sample:

http://imgur.com/9xyfaEd

Drop a copy of the ttf file into the folder you are running it from and the panic will go away. The Dark theme looks for SourceCodePro Regular.

Consider compiling the fonts into the binary.

This is what I did for go.uik: https://github.com/skelterjohn/go.uik/blob/master/luxisr.ttf...

I was just building it for fun, I didn't work on this project. That does looks like a quick solution for where they are at right now though.

Well too bad, I was hoping I would be able to cross compile a native gui program.

xorg-dev and libgl1-mesa ? Where are these pulled in ?

I'd love to see this evolve into something production worthy, even if it can't be done in idiomatic go style. A good cross platform GUI library is, to my mind at least, the largest void in an otherwise excellent standard library.

"..we need your permission to use and distribute your code. We also need to be sure of various other things—for instance that you'll tell us if you know that your code infringes on other people's patents.." How can I know that my code doesn't infringes any other people's patents?does it apply if you are not is USA ?

You can't. And, you shouldn't try to find out, either. It's specifically if you know that your code infringes.

At any point in time each part of your code is infringing a number of patents that is growing to infinity.

Patents are a tool of harassing others for big companies. The only thing that is important is will a big company sue you or not.

That is a weird statement they make there, especially since the actual CLA as far as I understand it doesn't talk about that, it just includes provisions that you grant a license to all of your patents that the contribution would infringe.

[...] You hereby grant to Google and to recipients of software distributed by Google a [...] patent license [to use and distribute] the Work, where such license applies only to those patent claims licensable by You that are necessarily infringed by Your Contribution(s) alone or by combination of Your Contribution(s) with the Work to which such Contribution(s) was submitted.

https://cla.developers.google.com/about/google-individual?cs...

Extension: in point 5 this is actually covered:

You represent that Your Contribution submissions include complete details of any third-party license or other restriction (including, but not limited to, related patents and trademarks) of which you are personally aware and which are associated with any part of Your Contributions.

It doesn't require you to know if your code infringes patents, it just requires that IF you know, you disclose it.

Ignorance is bliss.

Would be nice to put what platforms are supported in the Readme.

Well the project is in it's infancy, so this may change, but currently the only thing needed to run it is a platform that supports Go and OpenGL.

This go submitted 19 hours ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9222587 and got no attention. It's now number #1 on github/trending. I believe it was not realized that this is coming directly from google.

With all due respect to David, it's just an experimental library, it's not a thing :)

I don't think too much significance should be placed on the fact that it's coming "from Google".

As mentioned in the Readme, it's just code written by a couple of Googlers that happens to be owned by Google.

I think it will be interesting to see it get more fleshed out, though.

Not enough people hang out in /newest for the cream to always rise to the frontpage. Sometimes things have to be posted a few times to get attention.

Would be nice to know the background of the project.

Writing a UI library is not an easy thing.

Was it written from scratch, or some existing library was used as a reference? Had the authors had any background in developing UI engines? How long it took them to write this?

I really like andlabs gui. Any difference list between these two projects?

Is this going to be supported on Android ?

one step closer to replace Java by Go on Android? ;-)

fake hype; not from google:

> This is not an official Google product (experimental or otherwise), it is just code that happens to be owned by Google.

Well, it WAS started by Googlers, working at Google.

And it's not like officially sanctioned Google programs are not often crap.

google hype tactics : "This is just an experiment to test concept feasibility", "This is unfinished, please consider that.", "This isn't a product, it's an experiment.", "Oh, it's just a side project of some employees, ignore that google owns it."

Well at least the title here on HN doesn't mention Google.

It did before, that was my bad. For me it makes a difference, even if they decline responsibility. Maybe they put it in the official account just to test the reception, and I for one would welcome an officially backed IU Go library with open arms.

There are many 20% time hobby projects by Googlers hosted on the /google GitHub account. Don't read to much into it.

Seems entirely reasonable for these disclaimers to exist given that while Go is a legitimately open source project separate from Google, it is still strongly associated with Google in people's minds (not too surprisingly considering how many of the core Go team work at Google) and thus it wouldn't be hard to imagine some people getting the wrong idea of this somehow being Google's (or the Go team's) "official" answer to UIs in Go.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com