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

Theming


One of the large benefits of using a GTK+ (or Qt)-based API is that the widget set can be themed. Users are able to install any number of themes (or write their own) to control how applications look. While this can add a testing overhead, they will behave the same across all platforms so the burden is somewhat reduced.

Let's see a few different themes applied to our GoMail application illustrated here, starting with a great light theme named Clearlooks.

  • The Clearlooks theme on Linux:
  • Compose in Clearlooks:

 

On Windows, the default theme looks more like the standard widgets, though the user can load any other GTK+ theme. Notice that the default icons are also different, more in-keeping with the operating system standards.

  • The Windows default theme:
  • Compose with Windows:

There are also many dark themes; Arc Dark is very popular.

  • Arc Dark theme running on Linux:
  • Ark Dark compose window:

Many themes are designed for nostalgia, including this CDE theme, which is based on a colorful desktop environment...