wNim

wNim is Nim's Windows GUI Framework, based on winim. Layout DSL is powered by Yuriy Glukhov's Kiwi constraint solving library.

Code Examples

Basic code structure:

import wNim

let app = App()
let frame = Frame(title="Hello World", size=(400, 300))

frame.center()
frame.show()
app.mainLoop()

Event handler:

button.wEvent_Button do ():
  frame.delete()

frame.wIdExit do ():
  frame.delete()

frame.wEvent_Size do ():
  layout()

Layout DSL:

panel.layout:
  staticText:
    top = panel.top + 10
    left = panel.left + 10
  button:
    right + 10 = panel.right
    bottom + 10 = panel.bottom

Autolayout:

panel.autolayout """
  V:|-[col1:[child1(child2)]-[child2]]-|
  V:|-[col2:[child3(child4,child5)]-[child4]-[child5]]-|
  H:|-[col1(col2)]-[col2]-|
"""

Getter and Setter:

let frame = Frame()

# wxWidgets/wxPython style
frame.setLabel("Hello World")
echo frame.getLabel()

# nim style
frame.label = "Hello World"
echo frame.label

Screenshots

Install

With git on windows:

nimble install wNim

Without git:

1. Download and unzip this moudle (by click "Code" button).
2. Start a console, change current dir to the folder which include "wNim.nimble" file.
   (for example: C:\wNim-master\wNim-master>)
3. Run "nimble install"

Import

The easiest way to use wNim is to import the whole package.

import wNim

However, the modules of wNim can be aslo imported one by one to speed up compilation time.

import wNim/[wApp, wFrame]

There are some simple rules:

1. For every classes in wNim, there is a corresponding module.
   For example: wFrame, wIcon, wMenu, etc.
2. wApp module must be imported in every wNim program.
3. Symbols in wColors and wKeyCodes modules are imported automatically with wApp module.
4. All event classes in wNim share the same constructor: Event(), so all subclasses module
   of wEvent will be imported with wEvent module automatically.
5. wMacros, wUtils, and wTypes modules are three special module in wNim.
   See their document for more information.

Compile

To compile the examples, try following command:

nim c -d:release -d:strip --opt:size --app:gui demo.nim

For Windows XP compatibility, add:

-d:useWinXP

To compile by Tiny C Compiler, or want to add some resource files, take a look at https://github.com/khchen/winim/tree/master/tcclib

Q & A

Q: Why did I start this project?

At first, I just wanted to write some code to test and prove my Winim library. I wrote some event handlers, some GUI control classes, and more. Finally, it became a whole GUI framework.

Q: Why do the class and API names look so alike wxWidgets?

English is not my mother tongue. I often have no idea how to name an object or a function. So, I borrowed wxWidgets' names to develop my own framework.

Q: Why not add Linux or macOS support?

I start from winim. It is just a Windows API module.

Q: How is wNim compare to nimx, libui, NiGui etc?

They are all good GUI libraries. I think wNim is easier to use and produces smaller .exe files. However, it only supports Windows.

Docs

• https://khchen.github.io/wNim/wNim.html
• https://github.com/khchen/wNim/wiki

License

Read license.txt for more details.

Copyright (c) 2017-2021 Kai-Hung Chen, Ward. All rights reserved.