Slint 1.0 Released as Rust-based GUI Toolkit

Rohan Timalsina

April 26, 2023 - TuxCare expert team

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The Slint team announced the release of Slint 1.0, an open-source graphical toolkit based on the Rust programming language, on April 3rd, 2023.

Formerly known as SixtyFPS, Slint began its development in May 2020 with the aim of solving the requirement for modern graphical interfaces. With the release of Slint 1.0, it is out of development mode and ready to deploy in production projects.

Slint, a Rust-focused GUI toolkit, promises to be a next-generation GUI toolkit with scalability, inclusivity, toolability, ability, and cross-platform compatibility.

Streamlined UI Development

With declarative programming, Slint streamlines UI development. The UI is described using declarative language and a syntax that is simple to read, write, and understand while offering a comprehensive approach to describe the various graphical elements. The UI description is converted to native code by the Slint compiler, which also optimizes it.

Slint includes tooling assistance for code completion, navigation, refactoring, and syntax highlighting to hasten the UI development process. Slint’s live preview displays the changes in real-time to give you immediate feedback as you develop and improve the UI.

Available for many platforms

Slint allows you to build user interfaces for several operating systems such as Linux (desktop and embedded), macOS, Windows, WebAssembly, Blackberry QNX, and even bare metal (without any OS). Furthermore, it supports different processor architectures, which include ARM Cortex-M and Cortex-A, Intel x86, RISC-V, Cadence Tensilica, and more.

Slint’s graphical applications can operate on systems with as little as 300 kB of RAM, including devices like the Raspberry Pi Pico which has only 264 kB internal RAM and an ARM Cortex-M0+ processor. Thus, it is an excellent option for creating UIs of applications for embedded devices.

Future Plans

The Slint developers plan to include iOS and Android support, allowing mobile app developers to utilize Slint to build native applications. They are also evaluating other programming languages, such as Python and Go, to determine which ones Slint should offer APIs for. Furthermore, work is in progress for developing a graphical editor, which will enable designers to effortlessly drag and drop widgets and elements for creating the UI.

Conclusion

To sum up, Slint is a wonderful choice for developing desktop applications for Windows, macOS, and Linux. It holds dual licenses: the GPLv3 open-source license and a proprietary license, for a sustainable business model. This means users have the option to choose open-source or proprietary. It is an open-source project by the company SixtyFPS GmbH and the source code is available on GitHub.

The sources for this article include a story from Slint.

Summary