Book Image

Hands-On GUI Application Development in Go

By : Andrew Williams
Book Image

Hands-On GUI Application Development in Go

By: Andrew Williams

Overview of this book

Go is often compared to C++ when it comes to low-level programming and implementations that require faster processing, such as Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs). In fact, many claim that Go is superior to C++ in terms of its concurrency and ease of use. Most graphical application toolkits, though, are still written using C or C++, and so they don't enjoy the benefits of using a modern programming language such as Go. This guide to programming GUIs with Go 1.11 explores the various toolkits available, including UI, Walk, Shiny, and Fyne. The book compares the vision behind each project to help you pick the right approach for your project. Each framework is described in detail, outlining how you can build performant applications that users will love. To aid you further in creating applications using these emerging technologies, you'll be able to easily refer to code samples and screenshots featured in the book. In addition to toolkit-specific discussions, you'll cover more complex topics, such as how to structure growing graphical applications, and how cross-platform applications can integrate with each desktop operating system to create a seamless user experience. By delving into techniques and best practices for organizing and scaling Go-based graphical applications, you'll also glimpse Go's impressive concurrency system. In the concluding chapters, you'll discover how to distribute to the main desktop marketplaces and distribution channels. By the end of this book, you'll be a confident GUI developer who can use the Go language to boost the performance of your applications.
Table of Contents (25 chapters)
Title Page
Copyright and Credits
About Packt
Contributors
Preface
Comparison of GUI Toolkits
Index

Background and vision for Fyne


The Fyne project was created by Andrew Williams (the author of this book) in response to growing criticism of the complexity in existing graphical toolkits and application APIs. It was designed with the aim of being easy to use, and the Go language was chosen for its powerful simplicity. Like the Shiny project we explored in Chapter 8, Shiny – Experimental Go GUI API, its APIs benefit from being created specifically for the Go language.

As with the other widget toolkits in Section 3, Modern Graphical Toolkits, it facilitates the building of graphical applications that look identical across all platforms, rather than adopting the look and feel of the operating system.

"Fyne's APIs aim to be the best for developing beautiful, usable, and lightweight applications for desktop and beyond."                                                                                                                                    -github.com/fyne-io/fyne/wiki/Vision

The toolkit...