Request for Visual Editor Similar to Windows Forms Designer

[DevsHorizon]

I would like to propose the addition of a visual editor in raylib, similar to the Windows Forms Designer. This tool will significantly enhance the user experience by providing a graphical interface for the placement of components such as buttons and other interactive elements.

Benefits:

Ease of Use: A visual editor allows for intuitive drag-and-drop placement of UI components, making it easier for developers, especially beginners, to design their applications.

Increased Productivity: It reduces the time needed to manually code the positions and properties of components, allowing developers to focus more on functionality and logic.

Improved Accuracy: With a visual representation, users can precisely place and align components, reducing the chances of errors and misplacement.

Simplified Coding: Placing components through code can be challenging and time-consuming. A visual editor eliminates the need for manual coding of component positions, making the process more straightforward and efficient.

Enhanced Creativity: A visual editor encourages experimentation and creativity, enabling developers to quickly test different layouts and designs.

Implementing a feature like this in raylib would bridge the gap between coding and design, making the development process more efficient and user-friendly.

Thank you for considering this request. I believe it will greatly benefit the raylib community.

[DevsHorizon]

@asdqwe But i think it would be beneficial if it will be a part of raylib because it will help in designing the application and it should be a part of raylib not a binding or wrappers

[raysan5]

@DevsHorizon It would be great but I'm afraid I don't have the resources to make it possible. Feel free to work on it like others users have done.

By the way, my rGuiLayout tool is quite similar to your request, also free and open source.

[orcmid]

@DevsHorizon I think there are two factors here.
First, The Windows Forms Designer is a component of Microsoft Visual Studio for development of .NET applications. It is highly integrated into that infrastructure and is part of a very integrated model for GUI app development. It is a non-trivial matter. It is like asking to have a complete graphical-app generator scheme for raylib apps. I wonder why it is not adequate to simply build applications that way (or go to Unity as well).

Secondly, for open-source projects, feature requests are usually relatively focused and even so require someone to volunteer to do it, along with maintainer (i.e., @raysan5) agreement that it is a worthy thing to incorporate and then be maintained. It works best when the folks who have the itch for it can step up, build it, and test it along with some commitment for any future maintenance. Otherwise, it is necessary to find someone who has such an itch and can commit to the work.

An alternative is to do a flex project that integrates atop forks of raylib releases to provide a model with ambitions of such scope. That decouples from burdening raylib development while providing a clean, cooperative separation. That's not unlike how raylib has externals dependencies and (as a rule) does not do maintenance on those dependencies.

I know I'm harping on this, in case others who see something nice think that is an easy thing to have here. Even for funded projects, this sort of goes against the grain. The expense of such an endeavor is unimaginable. That the result is simple and wonderful to use hides all of that background. Please appreciate that is a great achievement, but it was provided at non-trivial cost by a commercial software provider.

[DevsHorizon]

@raysan5 We want to help but we are new to raylib and do not have expertise in C or C++. Could you please advise us on what we should do next? We have laid out the basic planning for a visual designer. We would like to open a discussion to gather further ideas and suggestions from the community. Your expertise and feedback will be invaluable in shaping this project. Please share your thoughts, and any contributions are greatly appreciated.

Thank you

[orcmid]

@DevsHorizon

@raysan5 We want to help but we are new to raylib and do not have expertise in C or C++. Could you please advise us on what we should do next?
...
We would like to open a discussion to gather further ideas and suggestions from the community.

1. Change this issue to a Discussion. As the originator you are able to do that in the sidebar here. Done.
2. Provide a top-level sketch of how it would work. For example, is the designer a GUI app that emits something that compiles into a raylib app? What is the integration into raylib and how does it work in the development cycle: design, compile, test, modify/correct, rinse repeat? What new artifacts are created and used on behalf of the designer? How will actions and dialogs be tied in at the designer level? (There is nothing like code-behind in raylib. Also, what about audio integration? Is there a file format for saved and reused designs, design work in-progress?)
3. Also, look at other tools that are used separately from raylib, such as Blender. And find out what the Visual Studio Form Designer produces and think about what a counterpart might be when used in conjunction with raylib. The Form Designer is not designing animations and transformations in them though. ActiveX and equivalents might be instructive.
4. Also look at game development courses and tools. There are many on Udemy and gamedev.tv has many offerings. Look at Unity and Unreal to the degree you can without having to make any investment. Microsoft also promotes a game-development toolchain. Check that out.
5. Prototype with something small that demonstrates the process and that can be refined by progressive spiraling through rounds of feature and functionality expansion.

Have all of these considerations in mind. There will also be considerations of platforms the designer will run on and what raylib configurations and versions are kept pace with and/or adapted/selected for.

Depending on the coupling of the designer with raylib, it might not matter how the designer itself is programmed, but some degree of software development programming and engineering is required. I still suspect that it should be a separate project, once you determine that there are enough contributors to aid in the technical effort.

PS: I am not volunteering for this. I have enough challenging work on my plate as it is and I have not done the work that is enumerated above for any kind of game-development tool-chain.

PPS: I don't see how it is intended to make such a designer "part of raylib." Raylib has no framework or harness engine that is used in the manner of Visual Studio or even Visual Studio Code (and equivalent tools for other platforms). There have been integrated visual designers for games though. You might be able to find some when looking around for examples.

[raysan5]

@DevsHorizon did you check rGuiLayout from my previous comment?

[DevsHorizon]

@raysan5 yes i just started

[DevsHorizon]

@raysan5 @orcmid Could you please provide a comprehensive list of all UI components in Raylib (e.g., Button, Label, etc.) along with their properties (such as position, size, color, text) for each component?

[raysan5]

Check raygui.h

[orcmid]

@DevsHorizon

@raysan5 @orcmid Could you please provide a comprehensive list of all UI components in Raylib (e.g., Button, Label, etc.) along with their properties (such as position, size, color, text) for each component?

There are no such things in raylib. As @raysan5 has remarked, the only facility of that nature is
raygui.h. This is not part of raylib. It is a separate
raygui GitHub project/repository. It does depend on raylib and can be used as part of a raylib-based application.

I am puzzled by this request. I think there should be more examination of raylib examples to see what is done with raylib. This can be accomplished by running the on-line examples or downloading the package that includes compilation and running of examples.

Please say what is the attraction of raylib that leads to this request. What kind of applications are in mind?

[orcmid]

@DevsHorizon I read the @raysan5 remark too quickly.

rguilayout is yet another project, along with rguiIcons and and rguiStyler, emitting code that depends on rgui.h of particular versions.

It looks like a counterpart of Windows Forms Designer is almost there already. It definitely depends on ability to write C language programs though (or other languages which can use C language code, whether by bindings or otherwise). That's to be used. To be developed and built upon, more skills are required including understanding of the APIs that are depended upon. 

Is this what you have in mind, not something oriented to game creation and the layouts that apply in those cases?

[DevsHorizon]

@DevsHorizon I read the @raysan5 remark too quickly.

rguilayout is yet another project, along with rguiIcons and and rguiStyler, emitting code that depends on rgui.h of particular versions.

It looks like a counterpart of Windows Forms Designer is almost there already. It definitely depends on ability to write C language programs though (or other languages which can use C language code, whether by bindings or otherwise). That's to be used. To be developed and built upon, more skills are required including understanding of the APIs that are depended upon.

Is this what you have in mind, not something oriented to game creation and the layouts that apply in those cases?

My ideas

1. A complete new file format written in python
2. A c# module responsible for writing the design to the file based on settings done in designer parsing the file in designer and loading the layout when we edit in designer parsing and lading the layout for a raylib application
3. The designer will be a tool itself that is built in raylib written in Raylib-cs

Share your ideas and thought

write separate comment for each idea

[DevsHorizon]

i can understand
but what is Out of scope for you

[insanebytes]

I think @raysan5 is talking about is your idea is out of scope to raylib in general, because you are talking about an implementation for one final tool based on raylib, and reading your comments your idea is that each component of raygui is a object for your application, and raylib only is a "framework" for multimedia applications, but you as developer should take care of implementation of your needs, because he is providing this awesome framework for free, so don´t expect others to do your work.

Also where is the fun part of learn and develop to make something by yourself.

[orcmid]

@DevsHorizon

1. A complete new file format written in python

I don't understand this use of Python. Python is a scripting language. I would expect a file format design to use something like JSON or even XML, maybe even some organization of files in a Zip (not uncommon).

[raysan5]

@insanebytes is right.

[DevsHorizon]

i will keep in mind