XenGui: a retained-mode GUI library in pure Rust

Live web demo

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XenGui (pronounced /ˈzɛn.ɡuː.aɪ/) is a retained-mode rendering GUI implementation in pure Rust, built on the wgpu graphics API and winit window management. It combines a hooks-based retained-mode model with a Flexbox/Grid layout engine (powered by taffy) and a batched wgpu rendering pipeline, running natively on Windows, macOS, and Linux, as well as in the browser via WebAssembly.

Important

XenGui is currently an early development release. APIs are still evolving and may change without notice between versions. Use with caution in production projects and expect breaking changes until a stable 1.0.0 release.

Example

View::new()
    .display(Display::Flex)
    .flex_direction(FlexDirection::Column)
    .align_items(Align::Center)
    .justify_content(JustifyContent::Center)
    .width(Length::Percent(100.0))
    .height(Length::Percent(100.0))
    .background(Color::WHITE)
    .child(
        Label::new()
            .label(format!("Count: {counter}"))
            .font_size(20)
            .color(Color::NEUTRAL_700)
        )
    .child(
        Button::new()
            .label("Increment")
            .padding(Edges::symmetric(12, 8))
            .background(Color::NEUTRAL_200)
            .on_click(move |_ctx| set_counter.update(|v| *v += 1))
    );

Features

• Retained-mode state - React-style hooks (use_state, component) drive re-renders without a virtual DOM diffing framework bolted on top.
• Flexbox & Grid layout - Layout system via taffy, including flex direction, wrapping, alignment, gaps, and grid tracks.
• GPU-accelerated rendering - Rects, text, and images are batched and drawn through dedicated wgpu pipelines.
• Declarative styling - Style/StyleBuilder API covering colors (including OKLCH), borders, typography, spacing, and more.
• Built-in widgets - View, Label, Button, Link, TextBox, Image, Svg, and ContextMenu, each with hover/pressed/focus/disabled style variants.
• Interaction system - Unified handling of hover, click, focus, and keyboard events across widgets.
• Cross-platform - Native targets (Windows, macOS, Linux) and WebAssembly from a single codebase.

Crates

XenGui is split across several focused crates:

Crate	Description
xengui	The core retained-mode GUI library: widget tree, hooks, layout, styling, and reconciler.
xenframe	Platform runtime: window creation, event loop, and input integration via winit.
xengui-wgpu	The wgpu render backend implementing xengui's RenderBackend trait.
xen-animation	Framework-agnostic animation and transition library.
xen-clipboard	Cross-platform clipboard library.
xen-svg	Platform-agnostic SVG parser and triangle tessellator.
xengui-icons	Prebuilt Lucide icon widgets for XenGui.

Installation

Cargo.toml

[dependencies]
xengui = "0.2.7"
xenframe = "0.1.1"
xengui-wgpu = "0.1.1"

Quick Start

use xengui::*;
use xenframe::{App, AppConfig, WindowPosition};

fn main() -> Result<(), Box<dyn std::error::Error>> {
    let config = AppConfig {
        title: "My XenGui App".into(),
        width: 640,
        height: 480,
        position: WindowPosition::Center,
        ..Default::default()
    };

    let mut app = App::new(config);

    app.render(|| {
        let (counter, set_counter) = use_state::<i32>(0);

        Box::new(
            View::new()
                .display(Display::Flex)
                .flex_direction(FlexDirection::Column)
                .align_items(Align::Center)
                .justify_content(JustifyContent::Center)
                .width(Length::Percent(100.0))
                .height(Length::Percent(100.0))
                .background(Color::WHITE)
                .child(
                    Label::new()
                        .label(format!("Count: {counter}"))
                        .font_size(20)
                        .color(Color::NEUTRAL_700)
                )
                .child(
                    Button::new()
                        .label("Increment")
                        .padding(Edges::symmetric(12, 8))
                        .background(Color::NEUTRAL_200)
                        .on_click(move |_ctx| set_counter.update(|v| *v += 1))
                )
        )
    });

    if let Err(e) = app.run() {
        eprintln!("Error running app: {:?}", e);
    }

    Ok(())
}

Run it with:

cargo run

For WebAssembly targets, build and serve with Trunk:

trunk serve

Documentation

Docs are available at: https://xengui.vercel.app/docs

License

Apache License 2.0 © 2026 randseas. See LICENSE for details.