WebUI Deno v2.3.0

Website Website Website

Use any web browser as GUI, with Deno in the backend and HTML5 in the frontend, all in a lightweight Deno module.

ScreenShot

Features

  • Fully Independent (No need for any third-party runtimes)
  • Lightweight ~900 Kb for the whole package & Small memory footprint
  • Fast binary communication protocol between WebUI and the browser (Instead of JSON)
  • Multi-platform & Multi-Browser
  • Using private profile for safety
  • Original library written in Pure C

Screenshot

This text editor example is written in Deno using WebUI as the GUI library.

ScreenShot

Installation

import * as webui from "https://deno.land/x/webui@latest/mod.ts";

Minimal Example

const my_window = webui.new_window();
webui.show(my_window, "<html>Hello World</html>");
await webui.wait();

More examples

Documentation

CppCon 2019 Presentation

Borislav Stanimirov explained at C++ Conference 2019 (YouTube) how beneficial it is to use the web browser as GUI.

ScreenShot

UI & The Web Technologies

Web application UI design is not just about how a product looks but how it works. Using web technologies in your UI makes your product modern and professional, And a well-designed web application will help you make a solid first impression on potential customers. Great web application design also assists you in nurturing leads and increasing conversions. In addition, it makes navigating and using your web app easier for your users.

Why Use Web Browser?

Today’s web browsers have everything a modern UI needs. Web browsers are very sophisticated and optimized. Therefore, using it as a GUI will be an excellent choice. While old legacy GUI lib is complex and outdated, a WebView-based app is still an option. However, a WebView needs a huge SDK to build and many dependencies to run, and it can only provide some features like a real web browser. That is why WebUI uses real web browsers to give you full features of comprehensive web technologies while keeping your software lightweight and portable.

How does it work?

ScreenShot

Think of WebUI like a WebView controller, but instead of embedding the WebView controller in your program, which makes the final program big in size, and non-portable as it needs the WebView runtimes. Instead, by using WebUI, you use a tiny static/dynamic library to run any installed web browser and use it as GUI, which makes your program small, fast, and portable. All it needs is a web browser.

Runtime Dependencies Comparison

WebView Qt WebUI
Runtime Dependencies on Windows WebView2 QtCore, QtGui, QtWidgets A Web Browser
Runtime Dependencies on Linux GTK3, WebKitGTK QtCore, QtGui, QtWidgets A Web Browser
Runtime Dependencies on macOS Cocoa, WebKit QtCore, QtGui, QtWidgets A Web Browser

Supported Web Browsers

OS Browser Status
Windows Mozilla Firefox ✔️
Windows Google Chrome ✔️
Windows Microsoft Edge ✔️
Windows Chromium ✔️
Windows Yandex ✔️
Windows Brave ✔️
Windows Vivaldi ✔️
Windows Epic ✔️
Windows Opera coming soon
- - -
Linux Mozilla Firefox ✔️
Linux Google Chrome ✔️
Linux Microsoft Edge ✔️
Linux Chromium ✔️
Linux Yandex ✔️
Linux Brave ✔️
Linux Vivaldi ✔️
Linux Epic Does Not Exist
Linux Opera coming soon
- - -
macOS Mozilla Firefox ✔️
macOS Google Chrome ✔️
macOS Microsoft Edge ✔️
macOS Chromium ✔️
macOS Yandex ✔️
macOS Brave ✔️
macOS Vivaldi ✔️
macOS Epic ✔️
macOS Apple Safari coming soon
macOS Opera coming soon

Supported Languages

Language Status Link
C/C++ ✔️ WebUI
Python ✔️ Python-WebUI
TypeScript / JavaScript ✔️ Deno-WebUI
Go ✔️ Go-WebUI
Rust Not Complete Rust-WebUI
V ✔️ V-WebUI
Nim ✔️ Nim-WebUI
Zig Not Complete Zig-WebUI

License

Licensed under MIT License.

Stargazers

Stargazers repo roster for @webui-dev/deno-webui