Understand how to use the Fyne toolkit to build exciting apps for a range of devices and deploy them effectively

Key Features

• Learn how to use standard widgets, dialogs, and layouts as well as how to build your own
• Understand how to develop an app and package and distribute it to different operating systems and app stores
• Explore the design principles and vision of the Fyne toolkit and how that may align with your project

Book Description

The history of graphical application development is long and complicated, with various development challenges that persist to this day. The mix of technologies involved and the need to use different programming languages led to a very steep learning curve for developers looking to build applications across multiple platforms.

In Building Cross-Platform GUI Applications with Fyne, you'll understand how the Go language, when paired with a modern graphical toolkit such as Fyne, can overcome these issues and make application development much easier. To provide an easy-to-use framework for cross-platform app development, the Fyne project offers many graphical concepts and design principles that are outlined throughout this book.

By working through five example projects, you'll learn how to build apps effectively, focusing on each of the main areas, including the canvas, layouts, file handling, widgets, data binding, and themes. The book will also show you how the completed applications can then be run on your desktop computer, laptop, and smartphone. After completing these projects, you will discover how to prepare applications for release and distribute them to platform marketplaces and app stores.

By the end of this book, you'll be able to create cross-platform graphical applications with visually appealing user interfaces and concise code.

What you will learn

• Become well-versed with the history of GUI development and how Fyne and the Golang programming language make it easier
• Explore how the Fyne toolkit is architected and the various modules are provided
• Discover how Fyne apps can be tested and constructed using best practices
• Construct five complete applications and deploy them to your devices
• Customize the design of your apps by extending widgets and themes
• Understand the separation and presentation of data and how to test and build applications that present dynamic data

Who this book is for

This Fyne-Golang GUI book is for developers from any background who are looking to build cross-platform applications with a modern toolkit. It will also be useful for Go developers who are looking to explore graphical apps and GUI developers looking for a new toolkit for cross-platform development. Basic knowledge of Graphical User Interface (GUI) development is assumed (although a brief history is also included in the book). The book also features a short introduction to the Go language as a quick refresher.

Table of Contents

1. A Brief History of GUI Toolkits and Cross-Platform Development
2. The Future According to Fyne
3. Window, Canvas, and Drawing
4. Layout and File handling
5. Widget Library and Themes
6. Data Binding and Storage
7. Building Custom Widgets and Themes
8. Project Structure and Best Practices
9. Bundling Resources and Preparing for Release
10. Distribution - App Stores and Beyond
11. Appendix A: Developer Tool Installation
12. Appendix B: Installation of Mobile Build Tools
13. Appendix C: Cross-Compiling

About the Author

Andrew Williams graduated from the University of Edinburgh in 2003 with a bachelor's degree, with honors, in computer science. After university, he went to work as a software engineer and has gained over 15 years of commercial software development experience across a variety of programming languages, including Java, C, Objective-C, and Go.

Andrew has spent many years working as a CTO with many early-stage and growing software start-ups. He has been a core developer in large open source projects, including Enlightenment, EFL, and Maven, as well as involved in maintaining various community websites and tutorials. Andrew's passion for building tools and services that make software development simpler led him to start authoring books on the subject.