OpenKit

A cross-platform CSS-styled UI framework for Rust.

OpenKit provides a consistent, beautiful desktop application experience across Windows, macOS, Linux, and FreeBSD with CSS-powered styling and a Tailwind-inspired design system.

Supported Platforms

Features

• Cross-Platform: Native look and feel on Windows, macOS, Linux, and FreeBSD
• CSS Styling: Style your UI with familiar CSS syntax
• GPU Accelerated: High-performance rendering with wgpu (with CPU fallback)
• Rich Widget Set: 30+ widgets for building complete desktop applications
• Tailwind-Inspired: Built-in design system with dark/light themes
• Declarative Macros: Ergonomic UI building with col!, row!, button!, etc.
• Angular-Like Components: Component system with props, state, and lifecycle hooks

Quick Start

Add OpenKit to your Cargo.toml:

[dependencies]
openkit = "0.1"

Create a simple application:

use openkit::prelude::*;

fn main() {
    App::new()
        .title("My App")
        .theme(Theme::Auto)
        .run(|| {
            col![16;
                label!("Hello, OpenKit!"),
                button!("Click me", { println!("Clicked!"); }),
            ]
        });
}

Widgets

OpenKit includes a comprehensive widget set:

Layout

• Column, Row - Flex containers
• Card - Content container with styling
• ScrollView - Scrollable container
• Tabs - Tabbed interface
• Spacer, Separator - Layout helpers

Input

• Button, IconButton - Clickable buttons
• TextField, PasswordField - Text input
• Checkbox, ToggleSwitch - Boolean input
• Dropdown, Slider - Selection controls

Display

• Label - Text display
• Avatar - User profile images
• Progress, Spinner - Loading indicators
• Notification, Tooltip - Information display

Desktop Shell

• Window - Decorated windows with OS-native controls
• Bar - Taskbar/panel container
• Desktop - Desktop with wallpaper and icons
• ContextMenu - Right-click menus
• SystemTray, Clock - System indicators
• WorkspaceSwitcher - Virtual desktop switching

Styling

Style widgets with CSS:

use openkit::prelude::*;

fn main() {
    App::new()
        .load_css(r#"
            .my-button {
                background: linear-gradient(to-right, #667eea, #764ba2);
                border-radius: 8px;
                padding: 12px 24px;
            }
            .my-button:hover {
                transform: scale(1.05);
            }
        "#)
        .run(|| {
            button!("Styled Button").class("my-button")
        });
}

Theming

OpenKit includes a Tailwind-inspired theme system:

use openkit::prelude::*;

fn main() {
    App::new()
        .theme(Theme::Dark)  // or Theme::Light, Theme::Auto
        .run(|| {
            // Widgets automatically use theme colors
            col![16;
                label!("Themed UI"),
                button!("Primary", Primary),
                button!("Secondary", Secondary),
                button!("Destructive", Destructive),
            ]
        });
}

Desktop Wallpapers

Create desktop environments with customizable backgrounds:

use openkit::prelude::*;

let desktop = Desktop::new()
    .background(Wallpaper::image("/path/to/wallpaper.jpg")
        .with_mode(WallpaperMode::Fill))
    .icon(DesktopIcon::new("home", "Home", "🏠").at(0, 0))
    .icon(DesktopIcon::new("files", "Files", "📁").at(0, 1));

Rendering Model

OpenKit renders its own chrome - all window decorations, widgets, and UI elements are rendered by OpenKit itself using GPU acceleration. This ensures:

• Pixel-perfect consistency across all platforms
• Full CSS control over every visual element
• No platform UI dependencies - just winit for windowing and wgpu for rendering

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                    Your Application                      │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│                     OpenKit Widgets                      │
│  (Button, Label, TextField, Window, Desktop, etc.)      │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│                    OpenKit Renderer                      │
│           wgpu (GPU) │ tiny-skia (CPU fallback)         │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│                        winit                             │
│              (Platform window creation)                  │
├────────────┬────────────┬─────────────┬─────────────────┤
│  Windows   │   macOS    │    Linux    │    FreeBSD      │
│  (Win32)   │  (Cocoa)   │ (X11/Wayland)│     (X11)      │
└────────────┴────────────┴─────────────┴─────────────────┘

Platform Detection

Each platform has detection utilities (no external UI libraries required):

• Windows: Version detection, theme preference
• macOS: Version detection, theme preference
• Linux: Display server (X11/Wayland), desktop environment (GNOME, KDE, etc.)
• FreeBSD: Desktop environment detection

Feature Flags

[dependencies]
openkit = { version = "0.1", features = ["gpu", "macros"] }

License

Licensed under either of:

• Apache License, Version 2.0 (LICENSE-APACHE or http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0)
• MIT license (LICENSE-MIT or http://opensource.org/licenses/MIT)

at your option.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.