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web-view   Build Status Latest Version

This library provides Rust bindings for the webview library to allow easy creation of cross-platform Rust desktop apps with GUIs based on web technologies.

It supports two-way bindings for communication between the Rust backend and JavaScript frontend.

It uses Cocoa/WebKit on macOS, gtk-webkit2 on Linux and MSHTML (IE10/11) on Windows, so your app will be much leaner than with Electron.

For usage info please check out the examples and the original readme.

Contributions and feedback welcome :)

screenshot

Suggestions:

  • If you like type safety, write your frontend in Elm or PureScript*, or use a Rust frontend framework that compiles to asm.js, like yew.
  • Use parcel to bundle & minify your frontend code.
  • Use inline-assets to inline all your assets (css, js, html) into one index.html file and embed it in your Rust app using include_str!().
  • If your app runs on windows, add an icon to your Rust executable to make it look more professional™
  • Use custom npm scripts or just or cargo-make to automate the build steps.
  • Make your app state persistent between sessions using localStorage in the frontend or rustbreak in the backend.
  • Btw, instead of injecting app resources via the js api, you can also serve them from a local http server (e.g. bound to an ephemeral port).
  • Happy coding :)

* The free PureScript By Example book contains several practical projects for PureScript beginners.

Contribution opportunities:

  • Create an issue for any question you have
  • Docs
  • Feedback on this library's API and code
  • Some functions don't have FFI yet, e.g. webview_dialog
  • Test it on non-windows platforms, report any issues you find
  • Showcase your app
  • Add an example that uses Elm or Rust compiled to asm.js
  • Add a PureScript example that does two-way communication with the backend
  • Contribute to the original webview library: E.g. add HDPI support on Windows
  • Make it possible to create the webview window as a child window of a given parent window. This would allow webview to be used for the GUIs of VST audio plugins in Rust.

Ideas for apps:

  • Rust IDE (by porting xi-electron to web-view)
  • Data visualization / plotting lib for Rust, to make Rust more useful for data science
  • Crypto coin wallet
  • IRC client, or client for other chat protocols
  • Midi song editor, VJ controller
  • Rust project template wizard: Generate new Rust projects from templates with user-friendly steps
  • GUI for pijul

Note: The API can still change. Currently there is only one function (run()) that takes all args, but maybe a builder would be better..