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

Metadata and icons


Before we start on the technical aspects of creating an application release, there are a few prerequisites to consider. The application name is probably set by now, but do you have a great description for it? Do you know how to articulate the key features of your software in a way that will grab the attention of potential users? Have you (or your design team) created a great app icon that will be memorable and somehow indicative of its functionality?

If you will not be distributing through a managed channel such as an app store, you should consider how the application will be discovered by your target audience. There's a lot of discussion and information online about Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and a growing amount about App Store Optimization (ASO), so we will not go into detail here. What's clear in the current software climate is that ease of discovery and memorability are now more important than ever before.

Application icon

Picking your icon is probably the single...