IUP for Zig

A Zig language idiomatic and type-checked bindings for IUP Portable User Interface Toolkit

Examples

First look

A simple hello world example looks like this:

const iup = @import("iup.zig");

pub fn main() !void {
    try iup.MainLoop.open();
    defer iup.MainLoop.close();

    var main_dialog = try (iup.Dialog.init()
        .setTitle("Hello World")
        .setChildren(
        .{
            iup.VBox.init()
                .setMargin(10, 10)
                .setGap(10)
                .setAlignment(.ACenter)
                .setChildren(
                .{
                    iup.Label.init()
                        .setTitle("Hello World from IUPforZig"),
                    iup.Button.init()
                        .setTitle("OK")
                        .setActionCallback(exit),
                },
            ),
        },
    ).unwrap());
    defer main_dialog.deinit();

    try main_dialog.showXY(.Center, .Center);
    try iup.MainLoop.beginLoop();
}

fn exit(button: *iup.Button) !void {
    iup.MainLoop.exitLoop();
}

Resulting in this:

IUP Metadata

This project contains source-code automatically generated by The IUP Metadata Project.

Most of the hard/repetitive work was done by code-gen tool, however, the API guidelines and all the interop code belongs here on this project.

API

Zig does not require any special treatment to use C libraries, so to use IUP in Zig, it is as simple as adding @cInclude("iup.h") in your source code, no need for special bindings!

This project attempts to create Zig bindings for IUP Toolkit with idiomatic and type-checked API, where none of the original IUP's declarations are exposed in the public interface, only names and concepts are kept as close as possible.

Comparison:

IUP simple example in C:

#include <stdlib.h>
#include <iup.h>

int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
  Ihandle *dlg, *multitext, *vbox;

  IupOpen(&argc, &argv);

  multitext = IupText(NULL);
  vbox = IupVbox(
    multitext,
    NULL);
  IupSetAttribute(multitext, "MULTILINE", "YES");
  IupSetAttribute(multitext, "EXPAND", "YES");

  dlg = IupDialog(vbox);
  IupSetAttribute(dlg, "TITLE", "Simple Notepad");
  IupSetAttribute(dlg, "SIZE", "QUARTERxQUARTER");

  IupShowXY(dlg, IUP_CENTER, IUP_CENTER);
  IupSetAttribute(dlg, "USERSIZE", NULL);

  IupMainLoop();

  IupClose();
  return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}

Equivalent example in Zig:

const iup = @import("iup.zig");

pub fn main() !void {
    try iup.MainLoop.open();
    defer iup.MainLoop.close();

    var main_dialog = try (iup.Dialog.init()
        .setTitle("Simple Notepad")
        .setSize(.Quarter, .Quarter)
        .setChildren(
        .{
            iup.VBox.init()
                .setChildren(
                .{
                    iup.Text.init()
                        .setMultiline(true)
                        .setExpand(.Yes),
                },
            ),
        },
    ).unwrap());
    defer main_dialog.deinit();

    try main_dialog.showXY(.Center, .Center);
    try iup.MainLoop.beginLoop();
}

How to build

Download Zig;
Install IUP shared libraries and run:

NOTE: curl is needed to download IUP binaries.

Linux

./install_iup.sh
zig build run

Windows

.\install_iup.bat
zig build run

For more information, please visit IUP's download page for your platform: https://sourceforge.net/projects/iup/files/3.30/

Dependencies for libim and libcd may be required: https://sourceforge.net/projects/imtoolkit/files/3.15/ https://sourceforge.net/projects/canvasdraw/files/5.14/

Pending work

Support for collections and indexed attributes (list items for example)
Complete the Simple Notepad example.
Support Linux and Windows (using shared libs)
Investigate how to build IUP from C sources in Zig.
More tests, and sanitize failing tests.
Additional controls (image library, matrix, GLCanvas, scintilla, plot, etc)

Feel free to place any comments/issues/PRs, it will be very nice to receive any feedback 🚀.

Prior Art

Some great projects that served as inspiration.

License

This project is a free and unencumbered software released into the public domain. Plese visit unlicense.org for more details.
IUP is a Tecgraf/PUC-Rio project licensed under the terms of the MIT license. Please visit https://www.tecgraf.puc-rio.br/iup/ for more details.