Overview

Gwork is a GUI library that can be embedded into existing projects. It has a platform abstraction which can be implemented by the user to provide the features necessary for drawing and input. A number of backends are provided, and samples to show how they might be used. Applications can use an existing backend, or implement their own. Additionally, there is a software renderer, which will work on any platform.

Gwork is skinnable, so its appearance can be changed by modifying the skin bitmap, and/or implementing a new skin. New controls can be added by specialising an existing control, or by starting afresh.

Backend

The backend supplies functionality necessary for Gwork to work, like:

Input

This translates input, e.g. mouse clicks, and keyboard input, into events that can be handled by Gwork, via Gwk::IInputEventListener. Each backend implements this in a way that is appropriate.

Some of the more generic input implementations are reuseable, e.g. Gwk::Input::Windows.

Renderer

The renderer, as you might expect, draws the GUI. Of the backends provided, some are OS specific, like DirectX, some are cross plaform APIs like, Allegro5, and SDL2, and there is a software renderer: Gwk::Renderer::Software.

The render must supply certain functionality like drawing text, textured rectangles, clipping, and texture color sampling. It does this by deriving from Gwk::Renderer::Base.

The renderer requires resources, like textures, and font files. These are read via Gwk::ResourceLoader. This might be implemented to load from disk files, or read from your own resource system. Depending on the implementation Gwk::ResourcePaths might be supplied. This gets a full path for a resource, depending on its type. You might want to organise your directories differently to the default in Gwork. One such implementation is Gwk::Platform::RelativeToExecutablePaths.

Platform

The platform implements Gwk::Platform for each backend. Like input, some of these are reusable, like WindowsPlatform. This supplies minimal functionality for the OS or platform you are on, like Gwk::Platform::Sleep, and Gwk::Platform::GetClipboardText.

Configuring Gwork

Gwork uses cmake to generate project build files in your chosen format. By default, if you choose a given renderer then sensible input and platform will be chosen to build the samples. However, you can choose other combinations. The configs supplied are really just to build the samples, and the whole system can be configured for your particular requirements.

See notes on Building Gwork

Using Gwork

Have a look at the samples for how to use Gwork's API. You basically need to initialise Gwork, create renderer and input, and then in your main loop you update the input, and then render Gwork. It doesn't take over your system, it is just another sub-system to update.