History

Marshall Bowers 7321c814ce gpui: Add `restrict_scroll_to_axis` to match web scrolling behavior (#25963 ) This PR adds a new `restrict_scroll_to_axis` style to allow consumers to opt-in to the scrolling behavior found on the web. When this is enabled the behavior will be such that: - Scrolling using the mouse wheel will only scroll the Y axis - Scrolling using the mouse wheel with <kbd>Shift</kbd> held will only scroll the X axis This behavior is useful in scenarios where you have some vertically-scrollable content that is interspersed with horizontally-scrollable elements, as otherwise the scroll will be constantly hijacked by the horizontally-scrollable elements while trying to scroll up and down in the vertically-scrollable container. I think that this behavior should be the default, but it's a bit of a sweeping change to make all at once, so for now it remains opt-in. Release Notes: - N/A		2025-03-03 17:32:08 -05:00
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docs	gpui: Update docs to reflect removal of View, ViewContext, WindowContext (#24008 )	2025-01-31 11:40:42 -08:00
examples	gpui: Maintain `img` aspect ratio when `max_width` is set (#25632 )	2025-03-03 12:36:27 +01:00
resources/windows	windows: Move manifest file to `gpui` (#11036 )	2024-04-26 13:56:48 -07:00
src	gpui: Add `restrict_scroll_to_axis` to match web scrolling behavior (#25963 )	2025-03-03 17:32:08 -05:00
tests	Improve keymap json schema (#23044 )	2025-01-13 02:34:35 +00:00
build.rs	Add a shader compilation step to GPUI's build process (#23862 )	2025-01-29 22:09:27 +00:00
Cargo.toml	Fix leaked editor (#25530 )	2025-02-25 03:10:45 +00:00
LICENSE-APACHE	chore: Add crate licenses. (#4158 )	2024-01-23 16:56:22 +01:00
README.md	gpui: Update docs to reflect removal of View, ViewContext, WindowContext (#24008 )	2025-01-31 11:40:42 -08:00

README.md

Welcome to GPUI!

GPUI is a hybrid immediate and retained mode, GPU accelerated, UI framework for Rust, designed to support a wide variety of applications.

Getting Started

GPUI is still in active development as we work on the Zed code editor and isn't yet on crates.io. You'll also need to use the latest version of stable Rust and be on macOS or Linux. Add the following to your Cargo.toml:

gpui = { git = "https://github.com/zed-industries/zed" }

Everything in GPUI starts with an Application. You can create one with Application::new(), and kick off your application by passing a callback to Application::run(). Inside this callback, you can create a new window with App::open_window(), and register your first root view. See gpui.rs for a complete example.

Dependencies

GPUI has various system dependencies that it needs in order to work.

macOS

On macOS, GPUI uses Metal for rendering. In order to use Metal, you need to do the following:

Install Xcode from the macOS App Store, or from the Apple Developer website. Note this requires a developer account.

Ensure you launch XCode after installing, and install the macOS components, which is the default option.

Install Xcode command line tools
```
xcode-select --install
```
Ensure that the Xcode command line tools are using your newly installed copy of Xcode:
```
sudo xcode-select --switch /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer
```

The Big Picture

GPUI offers three different registers depending on your needs:

State management and communication with Entity's. Whenever you need to store application state that communicates between different parts of your application, you'll want to use GPUI's entities. Entities are owned by GPUI and are only accessible through an owned smart pointer similar to an Rc. See the app::context module for more information.
High level, declarative UI with views. All UI in GPUI starts with a view. A view is simply an Entity that can be rendered, by implementing the Render trait. At the start of each frame, GPUI will call this render method on the root view of a given window. Views build a tree of elements, lay them out and style them with a tailwind-style API, and then give them to GPUI to turn into pixels. See the div element for an all purpose swiss-army knife of rendering.
Low level, imperative UI with Elements. Elements are the building blocks of UI in GPUI, and they provide a nice wrapper around an imperative API that provides as much flexibility and control as you need. Elements have total control over how they and their child elements are rendered and can be used for making efficient views into large lists, implement custom layouting for a code editor, and anything else you can think of. See the element module for more information.

Each of these registers has one or more corresponding contexts that can be accessed from all GPUI services. This context is your main interface to GPUI, and is used extensively throughout the framework.

Other Resources

In addition to the systems above, GPUI provides a range of smaller services that are useful for building complex applications:

Actions are user-defined structs that are used for converting keystrokes into logical operations in your UI. Use this for implementing keyboard shortcuts, such as cmd-q. See the action module for more information.
Platform services, such as quit the app or open a URL are available as methods on the app::App.
An async executor that is integrated with the platform's event loop. See the executor module for more information.,
The [gpui::test] macro provides a convenient way to write tests for your GPUI applications. Tests also have their own kind of context, a TestAppContext which provides ways of simulating common platform input. See app::test_context and test modules for more details.

Currently, the best way to learn about these APIs is to read the Zed source code, ask us about it at a fireside hack, or drop a question in the Zed Discord. We're working on improving the documentation, creating more examples, and will be publishing more guides to GPUI on our blog.