Aprillz.MewUI.MewCharts - A MewUI port of LiveCharts2

[al6uiz]

The port is still in progress, but most of the core functionality has now been completed.

MewCharts is rendered directly through MewUI’s rendering backend, without any SkiaSharp dependency.

It also runs well on Raspberry Pi 4.

[al6uiz]

Aprillz.MewUI.MewCharts

Charting for MewUI, powered by the LiveChartsCore engine compiled into a pure MewUI IGraphicsContext backend.

No SkiaSharp dependency. The LiveChartsCore engine (v2.0.4, MIT) is compiled directly into this assembly and drawn through MewUI's own graphics abstraction, so it renders on every MewUI backend (Direct2D, GDI, MewVG/OpenGL) across Win32, macOS, and X11. The only runtime dependency is Aprillz.MewUI itself.

Install

dotnet add package Aprillz.MewUI.MewCharts

Targets net8.0 and net10.0.

Quick start

using Aprillz.MewUI.MewCharts.Views; // chart controls + series (CartesianChart, LineSeries<T>, ...)

var chart = new CartesianChart
{
    Series =
    [
        new LineSeries<double>(2, 1, 3, 5, 3, 4, 6),
        new LineSeries<double>(4, 2, 5, 2, 4, 5, 3),
    ],
};

// chart is a MewUI FrameworkElement: put it in any layout.
window.Content = chart;

The chart auto-initializes the MewUI engine on first use; no explicit setup call is required. If you want to configure themes or defaults up front, call LiveChartsMewUI.EnsureInitialized() once at startup.

Chart controls

All three live in Aprillz.MewUI.MewCharts.Views and derive from ChartViewBase (a MewUI Control):

Control	Interface	Use
CartesianChart	ICartesianChartView	Line, Area, Column/Bar, Stacked, StepLine, Scatter, Financial, Heat, Box, Error
PieChart	IPieChartView	Pie, Doughnut, Nightingale, Gauges
PolarChart	IPolarChartView	Polar line/area, radial

The convenience series types (LineSeries<T>, ColumnSeries<T>, PieSeries<T>, ...) live in Aprillz.MewUI.MewCharts.Views and wire in MewUI default geometries/paints, mirroring what the official SkiaSharp package provides. Axes, sections, paints, and visual elements come from LiveChartsCore directly (Axis, SolidColorPaint, ...), so the LiveCharts2 docs and samples apply as-is.

Binding

The chart's view properties (Series, axes, title, legend/tooltip paints and positions, zoom mode, animation speed, theme, and more) are bindable like any other MewUI property. Each property X has a XProperty field you can pass to Bind/SetBinding:

chart.Bind(ChartViewBase.SeriesProperty, source, SourceType.SeriesProperty);

Backends

MewCharts only uses IGraphicsContext, so it renders on whichever backend the host app registers. Direct2D and MewVG (OpenGL) give the best curve/text quality; GDI works but anti-aliases curves and text less smoothly.

Building from source

LiveChartsCore is brought in as a git submodule and compiled into this assembly, so initialize submodules before building:

git submodule update --init --recursive
dotnet build extensions/MewUI.MewCharts/MewUI.MewCharts.csproj

The submodule (ThirdParty/LiveCharts2) is pinned to tag 2.0.4 and is kept pristine; all MewUI backend code lives outside it.

Samples

samples/MewUI.MewCharts.Sample is a gallery faithful to the official LiveCharts2 samples (~75 sections), rendered entirely through MewCharts. Run it with --gdi or --vg to switch backends.

Known differences / limits

• GDI backend has lower curve/text anti-aliasing quality than Direct2D/MewVG.
• Arbitrary-shape drop shadows are approximated (box-shadow is rectangle-oriented).
• Text metrics differ slightly from SkiaSharp, so some rotated/multi-line labels can shift a little.
• GeoMap (maps) is not ported.

License

Aprillz.MewUI.MewCharts is MIT. It includes the LiveChartsCore engine (MIT) from beto-rodriguez/LiveCharts2; see THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md.