imgui

Arena allocators only work when everything has the same lifetime. There are game-like UI libraries (https://github.com/ocornut/imgui) but to use them you have to write your program like you're a gamedev and Conway's Law usually fights that.

Just dropping a note that the developers want it referred to as Dear ImGui. https://github.com/ocornut/imgui/blob/master/docs/FAQ.md#q-w...

They are using imgui. It would be hard to find a game studio that doesn't. https://github.com/ocornut/imgui

I noticed that too. I wonder if the creator has ever seen a dime of Rockstar's GTA money. Looks like no[1], but at least there are a few other AAA developers there. [1]: https://github.com/ocornut/imgui/wiki/Sponsors

Looks like they are using IMGUI as dev tool: https://github.com/ocornut/imgui

ImGui does have a bunch of wrappers in different languages. [1] That said, native-ish interface would feel better IMO. I always appreciate applications that “feel native”. Qt and Python's Toga [2] are a couple libraries that pop up in my mind. [1]: https://github.com/ocornut/imgui/wiki/Bindings [2]: https://beeware.org/project/projects/libraries/toga/

It looks like imgui, a declarative UI library optimized to be rendered by the GPU : https://github.com/ocornut/imgui

The default ImGui rasterizer (imstb_truetype) is rubbish. The new rasterizer (imgui_freetype) should be used instead. https://github.com/ocornut/imgui/tree/master/misc/freetype

Dear Imgui has an impressive implementation of detachable tabs. https://github.com/ocornut/imgui/wiki/Multi-Viewports

I've been using a similar stack (C++ and WASM) to build some simple applications and I enjoy it very much. For the UI components, text rendering and layout I use Dear ImGui [0] as I am very familiar with it and it allows me to implement GUIs very fast. The biggest convenience is that you can run the same code both as a native application and as a web app. The biggest drawback is you usually get 100% CPU usage when there is an active animation in the WebGL canvas because you need to redraw everything (similar to the OP's example). If you are interested, checkout my Github template repo [1] - it contains a few examples: [0] https://github.com/ocornut/imgui [1] https://github.com/ggerganov/ggweb

I picked your write-up on that unstructured attempt of making a page of definitions: https://github.com/ocornut/imgui/wiki/About-the-IMGUI-paradi... Thanks!

I have done lots of UI interfaces in different platforms. I have used Motif and X Windows, Win32, MFC, Gtk, Qt, Cocoa, simple Web interfaces, DirectX, OpenGL, Metal. I love Dear Imgui: https://github.com/ocornut/imgui It is the simplest thing in the world. If you are starting and are going to do 3D graphics anyway you don't need state(you just redraw the screen 60 times per second). Anything else is extremely sophisticated. I also loved Qt, but the policies got a little cumbersome, and went native. The big problem is that with state there is a lot of complexity involved that is dependent on a platform, and once you pick one it is hard to change. The big advantage of 3d graphics and dear imgui or any other open source software is that it works anywhere and you are not as dependent on a single company.

You'd probably be wrong! Let me introduce you to https://github.com/ocornut/imgui

Perhaps confusingly, the term "immediate mode GUI" usually describes an API style. NOT an implementation detail. It suggests a particular implementation, but in practice most nontrivial "immediate mode" GUI libraries (including egui [1] and the famous Dear-IMGUI [2] [3] ) retain some "shadow state" between frames. The existence or scope of that state is a (sometimes-leaky) implementation detail that shouldn't distract from the fact that the API presented is still "immediate mode." [1] https://github.com/emilk/egui#ids [2] https://github.com/ocornut/imgui/blob/master/docs/FAQ.md#q-a... [3] https://github.com/ocornut/imgui/wiki/About-the-IMGUI-paradi...