Ask AI Any Question About the WebUIUse any web browser or WebView as GUI, with your preferred language in the backend and modern web technologies in the frontend, all in a lightweight portable library.
Borislav Stanimirov discusses using HTML5 in the web browser as GUI at the C++ Conference 2019 (YouTube).
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.
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 While old legacy GUI lib is complex and outdated, a WebView-based app is still an option.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.
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 Tauri / 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 BrowserCompiler Command GCCNote We are currently writing documentation.
mingw32-make MSVC nmake Windows SSL/TLS (Optional)
Download and install the OpenSSL pre-compiled binaries for Windows:
# GCC mingw32-make WEBUI_USE_TLS=1 WEBUI_TLS_INCLUDE="C:\curl-xxx-xxx-mingw\curl-xxx-xxx-mingw\include" WEBUI_TLS_LIB="C:\curl-xxx-xxx-mingw\curl-xxx-xxx-mingw\lib" # MSVC nmake WEBUI_USE_TLS=1 WEBUI_TLS_INCLUDE="C:\Program Files\OpenSSL-xxx\include" WEBUI_TLS_LIB="C:\Program Files\OpenSSL-xxx\lib"Compiler Command GCC
make Clang make CC=clang Linux SSL/TLS (Optional)
sudo apt update sudo apt install libssl-dev # GCC make WEBUI_USE_TLS=1 # Clang make WEBUI_USE_TLS=1 CC=clangCompiler Command Default
make macOS SSL/TLS (Optional)
brew install openssl make WEBUI_USE_TLS=1Minimal WebUI Application
C
#include "webui.h"
int main() {
size_t my_window = webui_new_window();
webui_show(my_window, "<html><head><script src=\"webui.js\"></script></head> Hello World ! </html>");
webui_wait();
return 0;
}C++
#include "webui.hpp"
#include <iostream>
int main() {
webui::window my_window;
my_window.show("<html><head><script src=\"webui.js\"></script></head> C++ Hello World ! </html>");
webui::wait();
return 0;
}More C/C++ Examples
Other Languages
gcc -Os -Wl,-subsystem=windows my_application.c -I"_PATH_TO_WEBUI_INCLUDE_" -L"_PATH_TO_WEBUI_LIB_" -lwebui-2-static -lws2_32 -Wall -luser32 -static -lole32 -o my_application.exe GCC Dynamic gcc -Wl,-subsystem=windows my_application.c -I"_PATH_TO_WEBUI_INCLUDE_" -L"_PATH_TO_WEBUI_LIB_" "webui-2.dll" -lws2_32 -Wall -luser32 -lole32 -o my_application.exe MSVC Static cl my_application.c /I"_PATH_TO_WEBUI_INCLUDE_" /link /LIBPATH:"_PATH_TO_WEBUI_LIB_" /SUBSYSTEM:WINDOWS webui-2-static.lib user32.lib Advapi32.lib Shell32.lib Ole32.lib /OUT:my_application.exe MSVC Dynamic cl my_application.c /I"_PATH_TO_WEBUI_INCLUDE_" /link /LIBPATH:"_PATH_TO_WEBUI_LIB_" /SUBSYSTEM:WINDOWS webui-2.lib user32.lib Advapi32.lib Shell32.lib Ole32.lib /OUT:my_application.exe Windows With SSL/TLS (Optional) Compiler Type Command GCC Static gcc -Os -Wl,-subsystem=windows my_application.c -I"_PATH_TO_WEBUI_INCLUDE_" -L"_PATH_TO_WEBUI_LIB_" -lwebui-2-secure-static -lws2_32 -Wall -luser32 -static -lole32 -o my_application.exe GCC Dynamic gcc -Wl,-subsystem=windows my_application.c -I"_PATH_TO_WEBUI_INCLUDE_" -L"_PATH_TO_WEBUI_LIB_" "webui-2-secure.dll" -lws2_32 -Wall -luser32 -lole32 -o my_application.exe MSVC Static cl my_application.c /I"_PATH_TO_WEBUI_INCLUDE_" /link /LIBPATH:"_PATH_TO_WEBUI_LIB_" /SUBSYSTEM:WINDOWS webui-2-secure-static.lib user32.lib Advapi32.lib Shell32.lib Ole32.lib /OUT:my_application.exe MSVC Dynamic cl my_application.c /I"_PATH_TO_WEBUI_INCLUDE_" /link /LIBPATH:"_PATH_TO_WEBUI_LIB_" /SUBSYSTEM:WINDOWS webui-2-secure.lib user32.lib Advapi32.lib Shell32.lib Ole32.lib /OUT:my_application.exe Compiler Type Command GCC Static gcc -Os my_application.c -I"_PATH_TO_WEBUI_INCLUDE_" -L"_PATH_TO_WEBUI_LIB_" -lwebui-2-static -lpthread -lm -ldl -o my_application GCC Dynamic gcc my_application.c -I"_PATH_TO_WEBUI_INCLUDE_" -L"_PATH_TO_WEBUI_LIB_" -lwebui-2 -lpthread -lm -ldl -o my_application Clang Static clang -Os my_application.c -I"_PATH_TO_WEBUI_INCLUDE_" -L"_PATH_TO_WEBUI_LIB_" -lwebui-2-static -lpthread -lm -ldl -o my_application Clang Dynamic clang my_application.c -I"_PATH_TO_WEBUI_INCLUDE_" -L"_PATH_TO_WEBUI_LIB_" -lwebui-2 -lpthread -lm -ldl -o my_application Linux With SSL/TLS (Optional) Compiler Type Command GCC Static gcc -Os my_application.c -I"_PATH_TO_WEBUI_INCLUDE_" -L"_PATH_TO_WEBUI_LIB_" -lwebui-2-secure-static -lpthread -lm -ldl -o my_application GCC Dynamic gcc my_application.c -I"_PATH_TO_WEBUI_INCLUDE_" -L"_PATH_TO_WEBUI_LIB_" -lwebui-2-secure -lpthread -lm -ldl -o my_application Clang Static clang -Os my_application.c -I"_PATH_TO_WEBUI_INCLUDE_" -L"_PATH_TO_WEBUI_LIB_" -lwebui-2-secure-static -lpthread -lm -ldl -o my_application Clang Dynamic clang my_application.c -I"_PATH_TO_WEBUI_INCLUDE_" -L"_PATH_TO_WEBUI_LIB_" -lwebui-2-secure -lpthread -lm -ldl -o my_application Compiler Type Command Clang Static clang -Os my_application.c -I"_PATH_TO_WEBUI_INCLUDE_" -L"_PATH_TO_WEBUI_LIB_" -lwebui-2-static -lpthread -lm -framework Cocoa -framework WebKit -o my_application Clang Dynamic clang my_application.c -I"_PATH_TO_WEBUI_INCLUDE_" -L"_PATH_TO_WEBUI_LIB_" -lwebui-2 -lpthread -lm -framework Cocoa -framework WebKit -o my_application macOS With SSL/TLS (Optional) Compiler Type Command Clang Static clang -Os my_application.c -I"_PATH_TO_WEBUI_INCLUDE_" -L"_PATH_TO_WEBUI_LIB_" -lwebui-2-secure-static -lpthread -lm -framework Cocoa -framework WebKit -o my_application Clang Dynamic clang my_application.c -I"_PATH_TO_WEBUI_INCLUDE_" -L"_PATH_TO_WEBUI_LIB_" -lwebui-2-secure -lpthread -lm -framework Cocoa -framework WebKit -o my_application Browser Windows macOS Linux Mozilla Firefox ✔️ ✔️ ✔️ Google Chrome ✔️ ✔️ ✔️ Microsoft Edge ✔️ ✔️ ✔️ Chromium ✔️ ✔️ ✔️ Yandex ✔️ ✔️ ✔️ Brave ✔️ ✔️ ✔️ Vivaldi ✔️ ✔️ ✔️ Epic ✔️ ✔️ not available Apple Safari not available coming soon not available Opera coming soon coming soon coming soon WebView Status Windows WebView2 ✔️ Linux GTK WebView ✔️ macOS WKWebView ✔️
Licensed under MIT License.
RetroSearch is an open source project built by @garambo | Open a GitHub Issue
Search and Browse the WWW like it's 1997 | Search results from DuckDuckGo
HTML:
3.2
| Encoding:
UTF-8
| Version:
0.7.4