bung87 / crowngui

Web Technologies based Crossplatform GUI Framework, WebView in Nim

crowngui

Web Technologies based Crossplatform GUI Framework

It uses Cocoa/WebKit on macOS, gtk-webkit2 on Linux and webview2 on Windows

crowngui contains managed code only, no native code.

crowngui provide CLI tool for bundling application easier.

CLI tool:
crowncli.

Architecture

how bindProcs works?

figure generated via asciiflow

┌─────────────┐         ┌──────────────────────────────┐       ┌─────────────────────────┐
│             │         │                              │       │                         │
│             │         │store hook function in `eps`  │       │when trigger js function │
│             │         │hook accept one string param  │       │internally it use browser│
│  bindProcs  ├────────►│and returns string that wraps ├──────►│`postMessage` api send   │
│             │         │nim proc call.                │       │json string with scope,  │
│             │         │And generate js function and  │       │name, argument.          │
│             │         │dispatch to main queue.       │       │                         │
└─────────────┘         └──────────────────────────────┘       └────────────┬────────────┘
                                                                            │
                                                                            ▼
                        ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
                        │browser add callback when received message          │
                        │it calls Webview's `invokeCb` which implements      │
                        │as `generalExternalInvokeCallback`                  │
                        │it parse argument as json retrieve scope,           │
                        │name, argument,then call the hook stored.           │
                        │                                                    │
                        └────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Usage

file: yourexecutable.nim

import crowngui

when isMainModule:
  const   
    cssDark = staticRead"assets/dark.css".strip.unindent.cstring
    cssLight = staticRead"assets/light.css".strip.unindent.cstring

  let app = newApplication( staticRead("assets/demo.html") )
  when not defined(bundle):
    let theme = if "--light-theme" in commandLineParams(): cssLight else: cssDark
    app.css(theme)
  app.run()
  app.exit()

Your project .nimble file

bin           = @["yourexecutable"]

crowncli will bundle your executable to exe on windows, .app on mac

Your project root can have "logo.png" which will generate as icon of application.

CLI usage

crowncli [build,run] --help

Usage:
  [build,run] [required&optional-params] [flags: string...]
Options:
  -h, --help                         print this cligen-erated help
  --help-syntax                      advanced: prepend,plurals,..
  -t=, --target=   string  REQUIRED  set target
  -w=, --wwwroot=  string  ""        set wwwroot
  -r, --release    bool    false     set release

Examples

crown_excel crowngui based excel viewer

Prerequires

rcedit for windows exe icon on non-windows platform requires wine

Development

run
crowncli run --target macos

build
crowncli build --target macos

Cross compilation for Windows

To cross compile for Windows from Linux or macOS using the MinGW-w64 toolchain:

nim c -d:mingw myproject.nim

Use --cpu:i386 or --cpu:amd64 to switch the CPU architecture.

The MinGW-w64 toolchain can be installed as follows:

Ubuntu: apt install mingw-w64
CentOS: yum install mingw32-gcc | mingw64-gcc - requires EPEL
OSX: brew install mingw-w64

References

Distribute your app and the WebView2 Runtime

WebView2 Win32 Reference

crowngui's Issues

Using webview2.nim

I want to use the code in webview2.nim without the crowngui app to learn something about the internals of webview, it seems it should be possible because there is this code at line 250:

when isMainModule:
  SetCurrentProcessExplicitAppUserModelID("webview2 app")
  var v = newWebView()
  assert v.webview_init() == 0

  v.run

but there is no newWebView() proc which can be called.
How can I write a newWebView() that starts the app?
I tried to add this at line 252: import ../../webview.nim
and I can compile, but it fails to run with this error:
ERROR:window_impl.cc(121)] Failed to unregister class Chrome_WidgetWin_0. Error = 0

WebView text is blurry, then flashes, then clear

my case is on win10
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/29911006/webview-text-is-blurry-then-flashes-then-clear

MicrosoftEdge/WebView2Feedback#571

anwser is setting DPI awareness

Error: undeclared identifier: 'ID' in stable and latest

Installing crowngui@#head
Building crowngui/crowngui.exe using c backend
C:\Users\dev1lroot\AppData\Local\Temp\nimble_9460\githubcom_bung87crowngui_#head\src\crownguipkg\webview.nim(22, 11) Error: undeclared identifier: 'ID'
Tip: 49 messages have been suppressed, use --verbose to show them.
Error: Build failed for package: crowngui
... Execution failed with exit code 1
... Command: I:\WindowsLibrary\Terminal\nim-1.4.6\bin\nim.exe c --colors:on --noNimblePath -d:release -d:NimblePkgVersion=0.2.7 --path:C:\Users\dev1lroot.nimble\pkgs\regex-0.19.0 --path:C:\Users\dev1lroot.nimble\pkgs\unicodedb-0.9.0 --path:C:\Users\dev1lroot.nimble\pkgs\xlsx-0.4.5 --path:C:\Users\dev1lroot.nimble\pkgs\zip-0.3.1 --path:C:\Users\dev1lroot.nimble\pkgs\static_server-2.2.0 --path:C:\Users\dev1lroot.nimble\pkgs\finder-0.2.0 --path:C:\Users\dev1lroot.nimble\pkgs\zippy-0.5.6 --path:C:\Users\dev1lroot.nimble\pkgs\jsonschema-0.2.1 --path:C:\Users\dev1lroot.nimble\pkgs\ast_pattern_matching-1.0.0 --path:C:\Users\dev1lroot.nimble\pkgs\objc_runtime-0.1.0 --path:C:\Users\dev1lroot.nimble\pkgs\darwin-#master --path:C:\Users\dev1lroot.nimble\pkgs\darwin-#master --hints:off -o:C:\Users\dev1lroot\AppData\Local\Temp\nimble_9460\githubcom_bung87crowngui_#head\crowngui.exe C:\Users\dev1lroot\AppData\Local\Temp\nimble_9460\githubcom_bung87crowngui_#head\src\crowngui.nim

on win10 when `bindProcs` only last js function generated and dispatched

on win10 when bindProcs only last js function generated and dispatched, on win11 it works fine, now bindPrco family returns js string that generate js and dispatch at once, kinda of bug, now avoiding it and get a little improvements.

add resize api to nimPNG remove imageman dependency