On: Ask HN: What's the best library for making cross-platform UIs?

[rer]

libui is kind of neat. It wraps around GTK+. Why did libui have to do that? In other words, is GTK+ bad enough that the easiest way to use it is to wrap around it?

[barrkel → rer]

GTK+ is dreadful on Windows. I'd stay away.

Personally I implement the UI in as thin a layer as can be architected and reimplement for every platform. It's the best way, and probably cheaper for most apps than trying to force some lowest common denominator library to express what you want in high fidelity.

[rer → barrkel]

Ok, no GTK+! (Could this be fixed with GLib?)

I didn't understand this. When you say you implement the UI as a thin layer do you mean you wrap only the few controls you need?

[andlabs → rer]

libui only wraps around GTK+ on Unix systems. On Windows, it uses the native Windows API directly.

GLib is a utility library; it provides things like container types, filesystem access, networking utilities, threads, object-oriented programming with events and properties, and other similar functions in a platform-independent manner. GTK+ uses GLib. You can use GLib on its own as well. It won't solve the problem of GTK+ being clunky on Windows, though.

[rer → andlabs]

What I don't get is: which library lets you draw stuff on the screen. GLib or GTK+?

I thought that was GLib, and GTK+ was using GLib to implement controls.

Which library does one need to build their own controls?