vog

vog is a batteries-included C++ windowing library built on GLFW and Dear ImGui. It handles window-creation, DPI-aware font scaling, system dark mode detection, native titlebar appearance, and other platform-dependent details. It also bundles Font Awesome 6 icons and a couple of useful ImGui widgets suitable for applications.

This allows you to focus entirely on drawing the contents of your window. Supports Windows, Linux and macOS.

Primarily built for ox, but feel free to use it if you find it useful!

Usage

Fetch the library in CMake, then link against it:

include(FetchContent)

FetchContent_Declare(vog
    GIT_REPOSITORY https://github.com/ox-runtime/vog.git
    GIT_TAG v1.0.0  # Replace with a specific tag or branch if needed
)
FetchContent_MakeAvailable(vog)

target_link_libraries(your_target PRIVATE vog)

Open a window by calling Window::Start with a config and a frame callback. Put all ImGui calls in the callback; do not call NewFrame or Render yourself.

#include "vog.h"

vog::Window window;

vog::WindowConfig cfg;
cfg.title  = "My Window";
cfg.width  = 1280;
cfg.height = 720;

window.Start(cfg, []() {
    const vog::ThemeColors& tc = vog::Window::GetTheme().colors;
    ImGui::TextColored(tc.accent.value(), "Hello vog!");
});

// Block until the window is closed
window.Wait();

Theme

Window::GetTheme() returns a reference to the active Theme, which has two parts:

• colors — a ThemeColors with semantic color tokens (bg, surface, accent, text, etc.)
• vars — a ThemeVars with layout variables (window_padding, font_size)

A dark or light palette is chosen automatically from the OS setting when the window opens. You can override any subset of fields via WindowConfig::theme at startup, or by calling Window::SetTheme() at any time after Start().

Note: Dark mode detection on Linux needs more work. Please feel free to contribute!

Accessing theme values

All ThemeColors and ThemeVars fields are std::optional. After the window is open they are always populated, so .value() is safe:

const vog::ThemeColors& tc = vog::Window::GetTheme().colors;
ImGui::TextColored(tc.accent.value(), "Hello!");

Overriding the theme at startup

Set WindowConfig::theme to a partially or fully populated Theme. Any field left unset falls back to the default system palette — you only need to specify what you want to change:

vog::Theme my_theme;
my_theme.colors.accent   = ImVec4(0.56f, 0.40f, 0.96f, 1.0f);  // custom accent
my_theme.vars.font_size  = 16.0f;                               // larger font
// everything else inherits from the dark/light system defaults

vog::WindowConfig cfg;
cfg.theme = my_theme;

Changing the theme at runtime

Call Window::SetTheme() at any point after Start() has been called. Unset fields again fall back to the system defaults, and the change takes effect on the very next frame:

vog::Theme space_theme;
space_theme.colors.bg      = ImVec4(0.06f, 0.07f, 0.14f, 1.0f);
space_theme.colors.accent  = ImVec4(0.56f, 0.40f, 0.96f, 1.0f);
space_theme.colors.text    = ImVec4(0.92f, 0.93f, 1.00f, 1.0f);
// ... set as many or as few fields as needed ...

vog::Window::SetTheme(space_theme);

Note: Start() will block on Mac, since it runs on the main thread. You can call SetTheme() from inside the Render callback.

Font Awesome icons

Font Awesome 6 Solid is bundled. vog.h includes IconsFontAwesome6.h automatically, so ICON_FA_* macros are available as soon as you include vog.h:

if (ImGui::Button(ICON_FA_COPY " Copy")) { ... }

Custom widgets

vog::widgets contains a small set of controls built on top of ImGui:

Widget	Description
vog::widgets::ToggleButton(label, &value)	iOS-style on/off toggle switch
vog::widgets::Combo(label, &index, items, count)	ImGui::Combo with better popup padding
vog::widgets::ShowItemTooltip(text)	Tooltip anchored below the previous item
vog::widgets::Button(text, textColor, bgColor)	Button with optional text color and background color

Linux dependencies

On Linux, vog uses the X11 backend of GLFW by default. Install the required development packages before configuring:

Ubuntu / Debian:

sudo apt-get install \
    libx11-dev libxrandr-dev libxinerama-dev \
    libxcursor-dev libxi-dev libxext-dev \
    libgl1-mesa-dev

Fedora / RHEL:

sudo dnf install \
    libX11-devel libXrandr-devel libXinerama-devel \
    libXcursor-devel libXi-devel libXext-devel \
    mesa-libGL-devel

Arch Linux:

sudo pacman -S libx11 libxrandr libxinerama libxcursor libxi libxext mesa

Wayland support

Wayland support is opt-in and disabled by default. Enable it by passing -DVOG_WAYLAND=ON to CMake:

cmake -B build -DVOG_WAYLAND=ON

This requires additional packages:

Ubuntu / Debian:

sudo apt-get install libwayland-dev wayland-protocols libxkbcommon-dev

Fedora / RHEL:

sudo dnf install wayland-devel wayland-protocols-devel libxkbcommon-devel

Arch Linux:

sudo pacman -S wayland wayland-protocols libxkbcommon

Note: When VOG_WAYLAND=OFF (the default), vog builds fine on X11-only systems and on Wayland compositors that provide XWayland. Enable VOG_WAYLAND=ON only if you need native Wayland windows.

Building the example

The demo window showcases controls, status indicators, an animated plot, the theme switcher, and platform info. It is off by default; enable it with VOG_BUILD_EXAMPLES:

# Configure
cmake -B build -DVOG_BUILD_EXAMPLES=ON

# Build
cmake --build build --config Release

# Run
./build/bin/vog_demo        # Linux / macOS
build\bin\Release\vog_demo  # Windows

The demo is self-contained and has no dependencies beyond vog itself.