Release 0.4 — Stateless widgets, component trait, responsive views, WebGL support, and more!

[hecrj]

Iced is an experimental cross-platform GUI library for Rust focused on simplicity and type-safety. Inspired by Elm.

This PR marks the end of the 0.4.0 milestone and the launch of a new release 🚀

New features

• Stateless widgets (Stateless widgets #1284)
  A brand new widget API that removes the need to keep track of internal widget state. No more button::State in your application!

• Component trait (iced_lazy and Component trait #1131)
  A new trait to implement custom widgets with internal mutable state while using composition and The Elm Architecture.

• Responsive widget (Responsive widget #1193)
  A widget that is aware of its dimensions and can be used to easily build responsive user interfaces.

• Experimental WebGL support (Experimental WebGL wgpu backend support #1096)
  Applications can now be rendered into an HTML canvas when targeting Wasm by leveraging the WebGL support in wgpu. Thanks to @pacmancoder and @kaimast!

• Support for Raspberry Pis and older devices (feat: add support to ARM devices (and older hardware) #1160)
  The compatibility of our OpenGL renderer has been improved and should run on any hardware that supports OpenGL 2.1+ or OpenGL ES 2.0+. Additionally, we started maintaining Docker images for aarch64 and armv7 to easily cross-compile iced applications and target Raspberry Pis. Thanks to @derezzedex!

• Simpler Renderer APIs (Reduce the surface of the Renderer APIs #1110)
  The surface of the Renderer APIs of the library has been considerably reduced. Instead of a Renderer trait per widget, now there are only 3 traits that are reused by all the widgets.

Showcase

During this last year, many awesome applications have been created with iced! As I do in every release, I would like to highlight some of the coolest ones:

• Borderlands 3 Save Editor, a tool to help you modify your Borderlands 3 Saves and Profiles.
• ENSnano, a 3D graphical application for DNA nanostructures.
• Lembas, a plugin management tool completely written in Rust for the game "Lord of the Rings Online".
• Linkage, a desktop typing tutor.
• OctaSine, a VST2 frequency modulation synthesizer written in Rust.
• Offline Chess Puzzles, a tool to view and solve puzzles from the Lichess puzzle database.
• PWDuck, a little duck 🦆 protecting your passwords.
• Töörö Editor, a cross-platform sound editor for the Fred's Lab Töörö hardware synthesizer.
• Universal Android Debloater, a cross-platform GUI written in Rust using ADB to debloat non-rooted Android devices.

And there are more! Check out our Project Showcase.

Community

Since the last release, we have also started setting up the foundations for our open-source community.

We created a GitHub organization to centralize all of the core pieces of the project and adopt other important parts of the ecosystem that can be officially maintained by the community. So far, we have adopted two crates:

• iced_audio, useful widgets for audio applications such as VST / LV2 plugins.
• iced_aw, additional widgets for the library.

We also migrated from our old Zulip instance to a new Discord server, where we hold meetings regularly to review and coordinate work. These meetings have been quite successful so far! Feel free to join them!

Finally, we are actively working on proper learning material and documentation. In that direction, we have an official learning guide and a new website in the works.

Thank you! 🎉

Finally, I want to give my thanks to everyone that has contributed to this release:

• @0x192 implemented the Default trait for pure::State (Implement Default for pure::State #1298).
• @13r0ck added support for selecting a value of a PickList by scrolling (add scrolling to pick_lists #872).
• @Ace4896 added placeholder support for the PickList widget (Add Placeholders to PickList #888).
• @aentity fixed a bug causing high memory usage of the Svg widget (Use ceil on svg dimensions, fix svg memory usage ref #841 #952).
• @akavel implemented proper handling of Exif orientation for raster images in iced_wgpu.
• @akhilman fixed an issue with window transparency in iced_glow (Fix window holes behind transparent objects #1021).
• @Alch-Emi introduced ContentFit support for the Image and Svg widgets (ContentFit support for images #1219).
• @AldoMX added a select_all method to text_input::State (Added select_all method to TextInput. #776).
• @AlisCode decoupled image::Handle from iced_native and lowered the trait bound of text::Renderer::Font (Decouple image::Handle from iced_native and lower trait bound on text::Renderer::Font #1155).
• @AndiHofi allowed Application::run to return on native platforms (Application::run returns on native platforms #1112).
• @ATiltedTree improved the compatibility of iced_wgpu by using the preferred texture format of the window surface (wgpu: Use the preferred texture format of the surface #978).
• @BillyDM
  • fixed iced_wgpu panicking when a SwapChain frame is outdated (Don't panic when wgpu swapchain frame is outdated #667), and
  • tweaked the default styling of the Rule widget (tweak default rule style #994).
• @blefevre added support for asymmetrical padding (Add support for asymmetrical padding #630).
• @casperstorm implemented a pure version of the Tooltip widget (Implemented Tooltip as Pure #1315).
• @Chiheisen
  • fixed the layout logic of PickList to respect custom fonts (pick_list: fix layouting not respecting fonts #886), and
  • improved the layout logic of the image::Viewer widget (image viewer: Only calculate viewport based width/length for Length::Unit|Shrink #885).
• @clarkmoody
  • added support for generic elements in the title bars of a PaneGrid (PaneGrid Events in Title Bar Area #892), and
  • introduced overlay support for the title bar of a PaneGrid (Pane Grid Title Bar Overlay #920).
• @cmot17 fixed an issue with text selection in the TextInput widget (Fix issue with text selection in text_input widget #1098).
• @cossonleo fixed the overlay position of the Component widget (Fix component overlay position #1205).
• @Cupnfish
  • fixed a typo in the documentation (fix typo #810),
  • and added a primary backend option to the WGPU_BACKEND environment variable (Add a primary backend that can be set #876).
• @daladim added the iced logo to the documentation (Added icon in docs #1147).
• @derezzedex added support for ARM devices and older hardware (feat: add support to ARM devices (and older hardware) #1160).
• @diegodox fixed a typo in the documentation of canvas::Program (Fix typo in documentation of canvas::Program #927).
• @Dispersia upgraded wgpu to 0.8 (Upgrade wgpu #830).
• @EkardNT added support for Sandbox applications to quit gracefully (Allow Sandbox applications to exit. #1175).
• @feylinara fixed a memory leak in the integration_opengl example (Fix memory leak in opengl integration example #1181).
• @gonsor added text_color to the Style of a Checkbox (Add checkbox text_color styling #1116).
• @Imberflur
  • upgraded winit to 0.25 (Bump winit to 0.25 #919),
  • fixed a few links in the documentation (Fix a few doc links #1121), and
  • fixed the hash_layout implementation of the Container widget (Include alignment in the container layout hash #1140).
• @Kaiden42 implemented a Toggler widget (Implement Toggler widget for iced_native #535).
• @LordRatte updated links in the documentation to point to the new iced-rs organization (Change GitHub namespace to new org to prevent link-rot #1168).
• @Luni-4
  • added executable permissions to the todos example in CI for macOS builds (Open the todos example via double-click on MacOS #956), and
  • stopped the shell from opening on Windows (CI: Run a Windows application without starting the shell too #1049).
• @marienz fixed overlay calls not being forwarded when using Element::map (Forward overlay() calls in iced_pure::element::Map #1294).
• @mettz fixed an incorrect color being used with Element::explain (Fix color issue with Debugger::explain implementation for Renderer #1109).
• @mtsr documented how to disable a Button (Disabled button docs and consistent behavior #646).
• @nicksenger
  • fixed the Widget::height implementation of the Component widget (Fix Widget::height for Component #1149),
  • implemented Widget::overlay for Component (Implement overlay for Component #1154),
  • fixed layout invalidation of nested components (fix: nested component layout invalidation #1169),
  • fixed the overlay layout for the Responsive widget (Fix: overlay layout for Responsive #1262),
  • fixed the diffing strategy for nested pure components (Fix nested pure components #1301),
  • fixed the diffing strategy for pure stateless components (Fix diffing issue with pure stateless components #1309), and
  • fixed a panic when using a pure Component in a pure Responsive widget (Allow use of pure::Component within pure::Responsive #1319).
• @n8henrie fixed the path to ferris.png in the tour example (Fix path to ferris.png #1157).
• @oknozor fixed the visibility of the constants in the blit shader in iced_wgpu (Fix blit shader constants visibility #1084).
• @PolyMeilex
  • upgraded wgpu to 0.9 (Update wgpu to 0.9 #925),
  • upgraded wgpu to 0.10 (wgpu: Update to 0.10 #1000), and
  • upgraded wgpu to 0.11 (Update wgpu to 0.11 #1081).
• @pacmancoder implemented experimental WebGL support in iced_wgpu (Experimental WebGL wgpu backend support #1096).
• @RamType0 removed unnecessary String allocation in some examples (Remove unnecessary String allocation #1106).
• @RDambrosio016 fixed example links in the documentation to point to the latest release (Change examples to point to 0.3 examples, not 0.2 #877).
• @sundy-li fixed the README of the integration_opengl example.
• @taiki_e enabled the qr_code feature in docs.rs (Enable qr_code feature on docs.rs #815).
• @TannerRogalsky
  • disabled the default features in the twox-hash dependency (Disable default features in twox-hash dependency. #1117)
  • fixed async traits for Wasm (Native web fixes. #1118).
• @tarkah
  • added a new Hidden variant to window::Mode (add window visibility #825),
  • introduced a new Moved variant to window::Event (Add window::Event::Moved #965),
  • fixed the overlays on a PaneGrid title bar not closing when dragging a pane (fix: allow titlebar overlays to close when dragging pane #971),
  • added a Fill variant for Alignment (Add Align::Fill variant #1044),
  • removed redundant Slider messages (Don't rebroadcast redundant slider messages #1114),
  • added a line dash API for the Canvas widget (Add line dash API #1225), and
  • fixed the text wrapping of the selected option of a PickList (Fix PickList text wrapping #1318).
• @thenlevy
  • fixed the dimensions of scissor_rect in iced_wgpu being too large in some circumstances (Prevent scissor_rect region to be larger than the target texture in wgpu::Backend::flush #818), and
  • implemented event handling of the Enter key for TextInput (Make TextInput emit a Submit message when the key NumpadEnter is pressed #1150).
• @ThisIsRex fixed the position of the handle and rail of a Slider (Slider fix #1286).
• @traxys introduced a window::Setting to toggle drag and drop on Windows (Allow disabling drag and drop on windows #893).
• @xy37v replaced Zulip mentions in the README with the new Discord server (Replace Zulip with Discord in README #1151).
• @yamadapc improved the support of iced_glow for multi-windowed applications (Fix glow and multiple windows usage #980).
• @yusdacra
  • added methods to control a Scrollable programmatically (Add methods to control Scrollable programmatically #607),
  • introduced a flag to toggle multithreaded rasterization of text primitives (feat: expose draw_cache_multithread as a feature #914), and
  • updated links in the documentation (docs: update all 0.2 github links to 0.3 #915).
• @ZakisM optimized the RGBA / BGRA conversion for vectorial images in iced_wgpu (This commit optimizes the algorithm used to convert rgba pixels into bgra pixels for SVG's. #875).
• @zdevwu added text_color and font methods to Radio and Checkbox (Added text color and font options for native radio and checkbox #831).

I am very grateful for all your contributions. Thank you! 🎉

[TannerRogalsky]

Incredible release! Thank you for your work and congratulations! You should be very proud!

[greatest-ape]

Congratulations and thank you! 🥳

It's really cool that you chose to feature OctaSine! There is a new release coming up soon, with a redesigned GUI. Here is a sneak peek ;-)

[Luni-4]

What a great release! Thank you everyone for your work! 😃

[0x192]

Big thank to all the contributors and a huge thank for the one and only @hecrj! Kudos for this release! 🏆

I really wasn't ready to see this release featuring my side-project Universal Android Debloater. Thank you!

I also feel a bit illegitimate to appear in the contributors list simply because I implemented the Default trait for a struct. I'll try to tackle a real issue next time! 🙂