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

Summary


In this chapter, we looked at the last of the toolkits to be explored in this book, Fyne. We learned how it was created specifically for Go so as to make it simple to build graphical applications. We quickly got set up with the toolkit and explored how to build applications that will run identically on macOS, Windows, and Linux.

We looked at the architecture of the Fyne toolkit and its use of vector graphics to provide scalable graphical interfaces. By learning the features of the layout, canvas, and widget packages, we saw how to quickly build basic user interfaces. We also saw how Fyne provides two different themes, light and dark, which will be used based on user settings or environment variables.

Applying this knowledge, we built the sixth version of our GoMail application, which included built-in material design icons and avoided any thread-handling complexities. We also explored the image APIs and background processing capabilities by re-building the GoImages application designed...