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

Navigating your application


Consistent and easy-to-follow navigation through a complex application is hard to attain but doing it well can lead to dramatically improved user experience. A typical application has a core set of functionality—which should always be easy to access—and a larger set of additional tools and helpful features that are used less frequently. Keeping the balance between core features and additional functionality is something that many applications haven't yet solved. Overcrowded toolbars and very long menus are problems we encounter on a regular basis:

Menus, toolbars, shortcuts, and drop-down lists all above a document in Microsoft Office 2007

Finding ways to limit the various options onscreen should lead to less user confusion. It's the responsibility of an application designer to make a clear and easy-to-use interface, not to present all of the options and expect users to learn how to navigate. There are various methods for adjusting a user interface to focus on the...