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Three changes that came out of making the shell's back button work across Eydos the way it does on Android. The first is the feature; the other two are gaps it exposed. Back is no longer Escape. forge turns its back gesture and button into the `XF86Back` key for the focused client, and ltk treated that key as an alias of `Escape`: close transient UI, else drop the focus and reach `on_key_with_modifiers`. That is "cancel", and it is all an app could get: nothing navigated, and nothing ever left the app. `XF86Back` is now a back request with its own order, one layer per request, top-most first: transient UI the runtime owns (open xdg-popup overlays, the built-in context menu, a text selection, the top-most pressable carrying an `on_escape`, i.e. a dialog's cancel), then text-input focus, then the new `App::on_back`, then `on_key_with_modifiers( XF86_Back )` so an app that bound the key itself keeps receiving it (crustace does, for its launcher), then `App::back_at_root`. The first step is what Escape already did; it moves out of `handle_key_escape` into `AppData::dismiss_transient` in the new `input/keyboard/back.rs`, which both paths call, so Escape behaves exactly as before. Text focus comes before the app on purpose: with a keyboard covering half the screen, back means "put the keyboard away", and navigating instead would discard what the user was typing. A compositor that folds its keyboard itself, as forge now does, only lets the next request through, which makes this step the fallback for the ones that do not. `App::on_back` returns a `BackResponse`: `Message( msg )` with the message that undoes the top-most piece of navigation state, `Unhandled` at the root, or `Consumed` for a host whose back stack lives elsewhere and cannot be inspected ahead of time. `Consumed` exists for rustdroid: an Android app keeps its activities, fragments and back callbacks in its own code, so the host can only hand the request over. `App::back_at_root` then picks `Minimize` (the default), `Close` (through `on_close_requested`, which can still veto) or `Ignore`. Minimising is what a root activity does on Android since version 12 and what suits an app the user comes back to: a browser keeps its tabs, a call goes on. It is also the single point where the two stacks meet: the navigation stack belongs to the app's model, the task stack to the compositor, and `xdg_toplevel.set_minimized` is the one standard request between them, so no custom protocol carries navigation state out of the process and clients that are not ltk apps keep working. Only `ShellMode::Window` surfaces react at the root; a panel or a lock screen that minimised itself would be a bug. Three consequences of back being a navigation request rather than input: the key leaves the default `App::key_repeats` set, since a held button would empty the whole stack; it is no longer reported through `App::on_raw_key`, so a host forwarding raw keys into an embedded web view or guest toolkit stops leaking it as a keystroke; and the mouse's back button (`BTN_SIDE` / `BTN_BACK`) enters through the same `handle_back`. `focused_text_input` becomes `pub( crate )` for the new module. The answer is derived, not recorded, and that is the design decision worth writing down. The runtime keeps no navigation stack of its own. Its entries would have to be messages, which are not serialisable (the trait puts no serde bound on `Message`, by design), so it could not survive a relaunch; and a list of "things to undo" drifts the first time the user leaves a screen some other way, through its own close button or a link, leaving a back press that does nothing visible. An answer computed from the model cannot disagree with it. This is also what ties back to the session persistence added earlier: navigation state is both what `on_back` reads and what `save_state` should persist, and keeping the two the same is what makes back retrace the same places after a session restore or a crash, with nothing extra to serialise. Persist less and a restored app opens on the right screen with nothing behind it; persist more and it restores a menu the user had closed. `NavStack<R>` packages that rule for the common case, an app made of screens. It is a plain value the app keeps in its model, never seen by the runtime: `push`, `pop`, `replace` (the sideways move back should not retrace), `pop_to_root`, `reset`, `current`, `current_mut`, `iter`, `depth`, `can_pop`, and `back( msg )`, which answers `on_back` directly. It is stored as a root plus the routes above it rather than as a `Vec`, so "never empty" holds by construction, including after deserialising an old or damaged state file, and it derives serde whenever `R` does. Six unit tests cover it, a serde round trip among them, and its rustdoc example is a complete `App` where one object answers `on_back`, `save_state` and `restore_state`. Documentation, since the point is for app authors to take navigation state into account. The new `docs/navigation.md` is the reference: transient UI versus navigation state and the test that separates them, the back order and the reason for each step, why the answer is derived, how it lines up with session state, `NavStack`, apps that embed a web view (whose page history is navigation state too, to be persisted with ltk-webkit's `session_state`), hosts with a foreign back stack, the root, who owns which stack, and an author's checklist. `architecture.md` gains a group in the trait surface and a paragraph in the state patterns, `onboarding.md` and the README index link to it, and in the cookbook the multi-screen recipe now uses `NavStack` with `on_back` and persists the stack without serde, which keeps it compiled by the Markdown doctest harness (that harness links `ltk` alone, so the serde example in `navigation.md` is marked `ignore` and compiled as `NavStack`'s own doctest instead). `BackResponse`, `BackAtRoot` and `NavStack` are exported at the crate root and in the `ltk::window` facade. Behaviour change for existing apps, also recorded under Changed: a window app that implements neither `on_back` nor the key is now minimised on back at its root, where nothing happened before; `BackAtRoot::Ignore` restores that. With a text input focused, back only drops the focus and the app sees the next request, where it used to get the key in the same press. Renew the text-input enable on a press. Moving the focus between two text fields, or pressing the one already focused, only committed the refreshed content type on the existing `zwp_text_input_v3`. `activate_text_input` now sends `enable` first, as GTK does when a focused entry is clicked. A compositor that folded its on-screen keyboard while the field kept the focus, which is what back now does, has no other way to learn that the user wants it again: the text-input never stopped being active, so there was nothing for it to observe. ltk sends neither surrounding text nor a cursor rectangle, so the only state `enable` resets is the content type set right after it. Fit an oversized `window_size_hint` to the screen. The hint is pinned as `min_size == max_size` before the first commit, when no output is known yet, so an app asking for a phone-shaped 720x1440 window on a 1080p desktop got a toplevel taller than the screen; rustdroid carried a dead branch that tried to avoid this from a screen size nothing could give it. The first configure is the earliest point the hint can be checked, and the protocol has the right input for it: `xdg_toplevel.configure_bounds`, exposed by sctk as `WindowConfigure::suggested_bounds` and ignored until now. The new `event_loop/window_fit.rs` holds `fit_within`, which scales a size down keeping its aspect ratio until it fits and leaves one that fits untouched (four unit tests), and `AppData::fit_size_hint`, run once behind the new `pending_size_hint_fit` latch: it uses the compositor's bounds when sent and otherwise 90 % of the first output's logical size, since panels and decorations are unknown from the client side. When the hint has to shrink, `min_size` (and `max_size` for a non-resizable window) is re-pinned to the fitted size, which is kept in `fitted_size_hint` and replaces the app's hint as the fallback for later configures that carry no size; without that the window would grow back on the next one. On that one configure the fitted size wins over the compositor's `new_size`, which was derived from the oversized pin. `App::window_size_hint` documents the rule with the worked example (720x1440 opens as 486x972 on a 1080p output). The back order needs a live Wayland connection to exercise and has no test; the unit tests cover `NavStack` and `fit_within`.
345 lines
38 KiB
Markdown
345 lines
38 KiB
Markdown
# ltk architecture
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If you are new to the library, start with [`docs/onboarding.md`](./onboarding.md)
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first. This document assumes you already know how to run an example and what
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kind of application surface you are trying to build.
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This document covers the patterns that the small `examples/` files cannot show: how a real application is structured on top of the `App` trait, how multiple surfaces coordinate, how theming is consumed, how to build animations, and where the cost of a frame actually lives.
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For copy-pasteable patterns the canonical references are the two downstream consumers in the Eydos workspace:
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- **crustace** (`crustace/src/`) — the Eydos shell. Layer-shell background surface + 8 overlays, system polling, MPRIS, notifications, animated OSD.
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- **loginmanager** (`loginmanager/crates/lockscreen/src/`) — greeter / lock screen. `keyboard_exclusive`, focus management, a subsurface-driven reveal animation, async PAM on a worker thread drained in `poll_external`.
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The rest of this document explains *why* those repos look the way they do.
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If you are coming from `cargo doc`, keep the public API split in mind:
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- `ltk::window` — normal application windows
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- `ltk::shell` — layer-shell and overlays
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- `ltk::runtime` — advanced runtime hooks and runtime-free embedding
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This document mostly lives in the overlap between `ltk::shell` and
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`ltk::runtime`. If you only want to build a plain app window, stay with
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`docs/onboarding.md` and the `ltk::window` surface first.
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## Module map
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Where things live under `src/`, one line each:
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- `a11y/` — AccessKit tree building and the AT-SPI2 bridge.
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- `app.rs` — the `App` trait, `OverlaySpec`, `SubsurfaceSpec`, `run` / `try_run`.
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- `chassis.rs` — scaffolding for full-screen ambient surfaces (greeter, lock screen, kiosk): theme bring-up, branding/wallpaper loading, the wallpaper-backed view stack.
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- `core.rs` — `UiSurface`, runtime-free embedding.
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- `draw/` — the per-frame drawing pipeline shared by both backends.
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- `egl_context.rs` — EGL bootstrap for the GPU path.
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- `event_loop/` — the Wayland run loop: frame scheduling, invalidation, clipboard / data device, text editing and IME, tooltips, focus, subsurfaces, session management, perf guardrails.
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- `gles_render/` — GPU backend (EGL + GLES2 / GLES3).
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- `input/` — pointer, keyboard and touch handling, the gesture machine, dispatch.
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- `layout/` — composable arrangers for `Element` trees.
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- `protocol/` — in-tree `wayland-scanner` bindings for protocols `wayland-protocols` does not generate yet (`xdg-session-management-v1`).
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- `render/` — software rendering surface used by every widget.
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- `secure_mem.rs` — volatile wipe of secret buffers behind `TextEdit`'s secure mode.
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- `session_state.rs` — `$XDG_STATE_HOME/<app_id>/` session id + app-state files (atomic writes, clean-exit marker).
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- `system_fonts.rs` — primary-font resolution and the per-glyph fallback chain.
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- `text_shaping.rs` — BiDi reordering and rustybuzz (HarfBuzz) shaping.
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- `theme/` — theme documents, slot stores, the embedded fallback.
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- `tree.rs` — element-tree traversal helpers.
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- `types.rs` — geometry and primitive value types (`Length`, `Color`, `Rect`, …).
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- `wallpaper.rs` — orientation-aware wallpaper helper.
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- `widget/` — the widget set.
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## Mental model
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ltk is Elm-shaped. The application is a value implementing `App`; ltk drives the loop and the application reacts.
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Every frame: ltk calls `view()` and `overlays()`, lays out the returned tree(s), draws them, and dispatches input events back as `Message` values which are fed to `update()`. There are no retained widgets. `Element<Msg>` is rebuilt from scratch every frame from the application's own state.
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This sounds expensive and is actually fine. The widget tree is plain enums, the layout pass is a single recursive walk that already has to happen anyway, and as of the `WidgetHandlers` snapshot work the input dispatch path no longer rebuilds the tree per event. The only thing the app must avoid in `view()` is *I/O* (reading files, scanning directories, walking icon caches) — keep those in `poll_external` or behind a `RefCell` cache.
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In practice, that model is easiest to adopt in three steps:
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1. Start with the `ltk::window` mental model: one app state, one `view()`, one `update()`, one normal window.
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2. Add `ltk::shell` concepts only if you need layer-shell or overlays.
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3. Reach for `ltk::runtime` hooks only when you need async wakeups, invalidation narrowing, or embedding outside `ltk::run()`.
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## The trait surface, by purpose
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`App` looks intimidating — most of it is opt-in. Group the methods by what you actually need:
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**Always implement**
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- `type Message` — your message enum.
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- `app_id(&self) -> &str` — reverse-DNS id shared by the toplevel `app_id`, the a11y tree and the `$XDG_STATE_HOME/<app_id>/` session directory.
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- `view(&self) -> Element<Msg>` — main surface contents.
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- `update(&mut self, msg: Msg)` — state transitions.
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- `save_state(&self) -> Option<Vec<u8>>` / `restore_state(&mut self, Vec<u8>)` — opaque bytes the runtime persists (every 30 s when changed, on close, on `SIGTERM`/`SIGINT`) and hands back before the first frame on a session restore or after an unclean exit — never on a plain launch. `None` / no-op for shell components and stateless tools.
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**Implement when your app is multi-surface**
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- `overlays(&self) -> Vec<OverlaySpec<Msg>>` — see *Surface composition* below.
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**Implement when your app is a shell component, not a window**
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- `shell_mode()` → `ShellMode::Layer( Layer::Background | Bottom | Top | Overlay )`.
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- `layer_anchor()`, `layer_size()`, `exclusive_zone()`, `keyboard_exclusive()` — the layer-shell knobs.
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- `background_color()` → `Color::rgba( 0, 0, 0, 0 )` for transparent surfaces (panels, OSDs). An opaque colour also declares the whole surface opaque to the compositor, which then neither blends it nor repaints what lies underneath — return one whenever the view covers the surface (a wallpaper-backed homescreen).
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- `overlay_opaque_region( id )` → the physical rects of an overlay that are fully opaque this frame (a panel column painted over an opaque wallpaper), for the same compositor savings on a surface whose background is transparent. `None` (default) declares nothing.
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**Implement when external state matters**
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- `set_channel_sender(sender)` — saved once at startup; clone into background threads to push messages into the loop without polling.
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- `poll_external() -> Vec<Msg>` — called after every Wayland event *and* every `poll_interval()` tick. Drain receivers here.
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- `poll_interval()` — `None` (event-driven only) or `Some( Duration )` (timer wakeups for clocks, expiry, etc.).
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**Implement when input gestures matter**
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- `on_swipe_up`, `on_swipe_down`, `on_swipe_progress`, `on_swipe_down_progress` (follow-the-finger).
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- `on_tap` — taps that miss every widget.
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- `on_key` / `on_key_with_modifiers` — global hotkeys. Characters, Backspace and Delete stay in a focused text input and reach the app otherwise, a focused button or pressable included; Return and Space go to the focused widget's submit or press message when it has one; arrows are offered to the app first and fall back to the text cursor or list navigation.
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- `swipe_threshold`, `swipe_down_threshold` — gesture sensitivity.
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**Implement when the app has more than one place to be**
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- `on_back()` → `BackResponse` — the system back button or gesture (`XF86Back`) and the mouse's back button. Return the message that undoes the top-most piece of *navigation state*, derived from the model; `Unhandled` at the root. The runtime closes its own transient UI and drops text focus before asking. `Escape` is a separate request that never navigates.
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- `back_at_root()` → `BackAtRoot::Minimize` (default) / `Close` / `Ignore` — what back does once nothing is left.
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- `NavStack<R>` — the ready-made navigation state for an app made of screens; the same value answers `on_back` and is what `save_state` persists. See [`docs/navigation.md`](./navigation.md).
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**Implement for animations and focus**
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- `is_animating()` — return `true` while a tween is running; the loop redraws on every compositor frame callback (~60 Hz on a typical display, capped at ~30 Hz on the software backend — see *Performance*).
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- `take_focus_request()` → `Option<WidgetId>` — pull-once focus retargeting.
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- `on_text_input_focused(active)` — surface IME state.
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**Implement for window / toplevel lifecycle**
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- `app_id()` — also the key of the compositor-side `xdg-session-management-v1` session; ltk issues `restore_toplevel` before the first commit so size/position come back on every launch.
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- `window_config()` — deprecated forced-window escape hatch; prefer `shell_mode()`.
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- `on_close_requested()` — return `false` to veto a close (compositor request, titlebar button, layer-shell closed event).
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- `on_toplevel_event(event)` — open / close notifications from `ext-foreign-toplevel-list-v1`, keyed by a stable handle id.
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- `requested_exit()` — polled after every batch of `update`s; return `true` to tear the surface down and exit the loop (a `SessionLock` surface is unlocked first).
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Relatedly, `ltk::try_run( app )` is the fallible variant of `ltk::run` — it returns a `RunError` (no Wayland connection, missing protocol) instead of aborting, for apps that want a CLI fallback or a clean diagnostic.
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The defaults for everything else are sensible enough that a minimal app overrides only the items in the first group.
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Another way to read the trait is by API layer:
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- `ltk::window`: `view`, `update`, plus the widgets/layouts you use to build the tree.
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- `ltk::shell`: `shell_mode`, `layer_anchor`, `layer_size`, `exclusive_zone`, `keyboard_exclusive`, `overlays`.
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- `ltk::runtime`: the module's actual re-exports — `ChannelSender`, `InvalidationScope`, `SurfaceTarget`, the runtime theme state (`active_document`, `set_active_mode` and the `theme_*` accessors) and the embedding surface `core::UiSurface`. The trait hooks that pair with them (`set_channel_sender`, `poll_external`, `poll_interval`, `invalidate_after`, `take_focus_request`, `is_animating`) live on `App` itself.
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That is the intended order of adoption for third-party users.
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## Surface composition
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The main surface is what `view()` paints. `overlays()` returns a `Vec<OverlaySpec<Msg>>` describing additional layer-shell surfaces that should exist this frame. The runtime diffs that list against the previous frame using `OverlayId`:
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- Same id present last frame and this frame → keep the surface alive, only re-render its `view`.
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- New id → create a new layer-shell surface.
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- Id missing → destroy the surface.
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This is why crustace declares stable `const OVERLAY_LAUNCHER: OverlayId = OverlayId(1)` etc. at the top of `app.rs`. Don't allocate ids dynamically — diffing relies on stability.
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Each overlay carries its own `view`, `anchor`, `anchor_widget_id`, `size`, `layer`, `exclusive_zone`, `keyboard_exclusive`, `input_region`, and `on_dismiss`. The `Message` type is shared with the main app: a button inside an overlay produces the same `Msg` that a button on the main surface would, and `update()` handles both. There is no per-overlay state machine — overlays are pure projections of `App` state.
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`on_dismiss` is fired by three independent paths: a `popup_done` event from the compositor (xdg-popup mode); a pointer / touch press on the main surface that does not land on the trigger pointed at by `anchor_widget_id` while the overlay is mapped (covers compositors that route the button to the parent surface instead of breaking the popup grab); and Escape pressed while at least one xdg-popup overlay is open. The application only has to flip its `is_open` flag to `false` in `update()`; the runtime tolerates the message arriving more than once for the same open / close cycle.
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Common patterns:
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- *Modal panel*: `layer: Overlay`, `anchor: ALL`, `keyboard_exclusive: false`, `on_dismiss: Some( CloseMsg )`. Tap-outside dismisses; the panel itself centers via `column().push(spacer()).push(panel).push(spacer())`.
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- *Pass-through OSD*: same as above but `input_region: Some(Vec::new())` so pointer events fall through to whatever is below.
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- *Top bar / dock*: `layer: Top` or `Bottom`, `anchor: TOP`/`BOTTOM`, fixed `size`, non-zero `exclusive_zone` so app windows reflow around it. Usually returned from `view()` (single-purpose shell), not from `overlays()`.
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- *Greeter / lock screen*: `shell_mode: Layer(Overlay)`, `keyboard_exclusive: true`. Loginmanager is the reference.
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Overlays do not nest. A "submenu inside the quick settings panel" is just a second overlay with a different id whose `view()` builds the submenu. Crustace uses this for the WiFi and Bluetooth pickers.
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Separate from overlays, `subsurfaces()` returns `SubsurfaceSpec` entries: input-transparent `wl_subsurface` children composited over the main surface and diffed by id, like overlays. They are the cheap way to move a pre-rendered element around every frame — the compositor repositions the subsurface instead of the app repainting the whole tree. Loginmanager's slide-to-unlock reveal is the reference.
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If your application does not need overlays or layer-shell, you can ignore this
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entire section and stay in the `ltk::window` subset.
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## Theming
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`ltk::theme` exposes a process-wide active theme. Three layers:
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1. **Document** — a `ThemeDocument` loaded from disk (`/usr/share/ltk/themes/<id>/theme.json`). Each document carries a `light` and `dark` `Mode` with a typed `SlotStore` (colors, paints, shadows, surfaces, text styles), wallpaper/lockscreen/launcher specs and a shared `fonts` block. When the `default` document cannot be located ltk falls back to an embedded B/W theme + embedded Sora Regular font, logs a stderr warning, and stamps every frame with a red banner pointing at the `ltk-theme-default` Debian package so the missing-theme signal is visible without the process aborting. `ltk::is_fallback_active()` exposes the state for apps that want to react programmatically.
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2. **Mode** — `ThemeMode::Light` or `Dark`; flips which mode of the document is active.
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3. **Active state** — `ltk::active_document()` / `ltk::active_mode()` return the current pair. Per-slot shorthands (`ltk::theme_color`, `theme_paint`, `theme_shadows`, `theme_surface`, `theme_text_style`, `theme_palette`, `theme_window_controls`, `theme_wallpaper`, `theme_lockscreen`) cover the common patterns.
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Inside a widget tree, read the palette through the per-slot helper:
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```rust,no_run
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# fn _ex() {
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let _label = ltk::text( "Hello" )
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.color( ltk::theme_palette().text_primary );
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# }
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```
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To switch theme at runtime, dispatch a message that calls `ltk::set_active_mode( ThemeMode::Dark )` from `update()` and let the next frame re-resolve. There is no manual invalidation step.
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Loading a different document:
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```rust
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let doc = ltk::ThemeDocument::find( "default" )
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.expect( "default theme not installed (ltk-theme-default)" );
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ltk::set_active_document( doc );
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```
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For dev iteration set `LTK_THEMES_DIR=/path/to/ltk/themes` so the lookup picks files in the working tree before the system path. The full search order is:
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1. `LTK_THEMES_DIR/<id>/` when the env var is set
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2. `$XDG_DATA_HOME/ltk/themes/<id>/` (defaults to `~/.local/share/ltk/themes/<id>/`)
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3. `/usr/share/ltk/themes/<id>/`
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Wallpapers ship as a single landscape PNG per variant. `ltk::WallpaperBundle::from_path_or_bytes( path, bundled_fallback )` handles the disk-or-builtin fallback, and `bundle.for_size( sw, sh )` returns the right crop for landscape *or* portrait surfaces — no need to ship two PNGs.
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For many third-party apps, theming is optional at first. It is reasonable to
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start with the default theme and come back to the runtime theme APIs later as
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part of the `ltk::runtime` layer.
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## Responsive sizing
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Every size in a widget tree is a `Length`, resolved to concrete pixels at layout time against the surface. Two coordinate spaces matter. **Geometry** (widths, heights, paddings, gaps, box sizes) is computed in *physical* pixels — the layout root rect is `pw × ph` — so geometry `Length` values resolve against `Canvas::viewport_layout()` (physical). **Font sizes** are the exception: they resolve against `Canvas::viewport_logical()` (physical ÷ `dpi_scale`) and are multiplied by `dpi_scale` again at raster time, so a `vmin` font ends up as a fraction of the *physical* short side regardless of `dpi_scale`. Keep this split in mind when adding a widget: resolve a geometry constant with `Canvas::geom_px(n)` and a font constant with `Canvas::font_px(n)` — the two helpers hide the difference. Font resolution additionally multiplies by the global accessibility `text_scale()` — the run loop keeps it synced to the desktop's `org.gnome.desktop.interface text-scaling-factor` GSettings key (initial `gsettings get` plus a `gsettings monitor` watcher thread) and repaints on change, so every ltk app follows the "large text" setting live; geometry never scales with it.
|
||
|
||
`ltk` offers two adaptation strategies, and both live in the same `Length` type so an app can mix them per value:
|
||
|
||
- **Fluid** (`Length::fluid(n)`, and the raw `vmin` / `vmax` / `vw` / `vh` / `orient` units): surface-proportional. `fluid(n)` reads a single design pixel `n` as `vmin(n / fluid_reference() * 100).clamp(n * FLUID_MIN, n * FLUID_MAX)` — at a surface whose short side equals the reference (412 px by default) it is exactly `n`, and it scales with the short side elsewhere, auto-clamped to `[0.7n, 1.5n]`. This tracks the width in portrait and the height in landscape, because the short side *is* the width in portrait and the height in landscape. `orient(portrait, landscape)` is the escape hatch for a different percentage per orientation.
|
||
- **Physical** (`Length::dp(n)`): constant physical size. `dp(n)` resolves to `n ×` the pixel density (default `1.0`, typically set from the output DPI via `set_density`). It does not scale with the surface, only with pixel density — the mainstream HiDPI `dp`. The multiplication happens at **resolution time**, not when the `Length` is constructed: a `dp` value carries its design pixels, so a density change takes effect on the next paint without rebuilding the view's lengths.
|
||
|
||
Stock widgets do not hard-code either strategy. Each carries a design pixel per dimension (e.g. `button` height 48, font 16) and resolves it through the process-wide `WidgetScaling` mode: `Length::widget(n)` returns `fluid(n)` under `WidgetScaling::Fluid` (the default) or `dp(n)` under `WidgetScaling::Physical`. `set_widget_scaling(mode)` flips it once for the whole app. An explicit `Length` on an individual widget (`button.height(...)`, `text_edit.height(...)`, `font_size(...)`) bypasses the mode entirely — the mode only decides the meaning of the *default* design pixels, never an override the app wrote on purpose.
|
||
|
||
Both `density()` and `widget_scaling()` are process globals read during layout; set them at startup (or, for density, whenever the surface moves to an output with a different DPI). Because they are global, ltk's own test suite serialises the tests that touch them. Density is also overridable **per canvas**: `Canvas::set_density` pins a canvas (and every sub-canvas derived from it) to its own factor, and all canvas-routed resolution — `geom_px` / `font_px` for stock-widget design pixels, `Canvas::resolve_geom` / `resolve_font` for explicit `Length` values — uses the local density when one is pinned and the process global otherwise. This is the hook for a surface sitting on an output whose DPI differs from the one the global was derived from (an overlay on a second monitor, an embedder with several `UiSurface`s). The layout viewport follows the same inheritance model: sub-canvases (scroll and viewport clips, GLES clip layers) inherit the root surface's layout viewport so fluid and viewport-relative values resolve identically inside and outside a clip, and `Viewport::local_viewport()` opts a clip out of it — its child then resolves against the clip's own rect, for fixed-size floating mini-UIs whose content must not scale with the host surface.
|
||
|
||
`Length` adapts *sizes* to the orientation; to adapt the *structure* of a layout (a row of panels in landscape, the same panels stacked in portrait), branch the view on `ltk::orientation()`. The runtime records the main surface's physical dimensions on every configure (also readable as `ltk::viewport_size()`) and rebuilds the view after each resize, so a `match ltk::orientation() { Landscape => row()…, Portrait => column()… }` follows the window live. The portrait/landscape rule matches `Length::orient` (a square surface counts as portrait). `examples/clip_path.rs` shows the pattern.
|
||
|
||
## Animations
|
||
|
||
The render loop is event-driven by default: it sleeps until input arrives, a `poll_interval` ticks, or `set_channel_sender` is woken from a thread. To run a tween, override `is_animating()`:
|
||
|
||
```rust,no_run
|
||
# struct App { toast: Option<()>, nav_progress: f32 }
|
||
# impl App {
|
||
fn is_animating( &self ) -> bool
|
||
{
|
||
self.toast.is_some() // an OSD is fading
|
||
|| self.nav_progress < 1.0 // a screen is sliding
|
||
}
|
||
# }
|
||
```
|
||
|
||
While `is_animating()` returns `true`, ltk redraws on every compositor frame callback — ~60 Hz on a typical display with the GLES backend, capped at ~30 Hz on the software backend by default (see *Performance*). Do *not* mutate state in `view()`; instead read `Instant::now()` against a stored start time and compute the tween value:
|
||
|
||
```rust,no_run
|
||
# use std::time::Instant;
|
||
# use ltk::Element;
|
||
# const TOAST_DURATION: f32 = 3.0;
|
||
# #[ derive( Clone ) ] enum Msg {}
|
||
# struct App { toast_started: Option<Instant> }
|
||
# impl App {
|
||
fn view( &self ) -> Element<Msg>
|
||
{
|
||
let progress = match self.toast_started
|
||
{
|
||
Some( t ) => ( t.elapsed().as_secs_f32() / TOAST_DURATION ).min( 1.0 ),
|
||
None => 0.0,
|
||
};
|
||
// … fade alpha = 1.0 - progress
|
||
# ltk::text( "" ).into()
|
||
}
|
||
# }
|
||
```
|
||
|
||
The end-of-animation cleanup belongs in `poll_external()`: when `progress >= 1.0` clear `self.toast_started` so `is_animating()` returns `false` and the loop sleeps again.
|
||
|
||
For follow-the-finger gestures use `on_swipe_progress(progress)` / `on_swipe_down_progress(progress)`. Those fire continuously during the drag with a `0.0..=1.0` value and don't require `is_animating` — the gesture itself drives the redraw.
|
||
|
||
For a basic application window, defer this whole area until the rest of the UI
|
||
is already working. Animation is part of the advanced runtime surface, not the
|
||
core onboarding path.
|
||
|
||
## Larger state patterns
|
||
|
||
A four-button demo can keep all state in one struct and one flat `Msg` enum. Anything bigger needs structure. Conventions used by crustace and loginmanager:
|
||
|
||
**One module per screen / panel.** Each module owns its sub-state struct and its sub-message enum, and exposes `fn view(...) -> Element<AppMsg>` and `fn update(&mut self, msg: SubMsg)` (or the parent inlines those calls). See `crustace/src/homescreen/`, `launcher/`, `quicksettings/`, `powermenu.rs`.
|
||
|
||
**Wrap sub-messages in the top-level enum.** `enum AppMsg { Home(HomeMsg), Settings(SettingsMsg), Nav(Route), Tick }`. `update()` matches the outer variant, then forwards to the right sub-module. This avoids one-giant-message-enum bloat once the app passes ~30 variants.
|
||
|
||
**Ephemeral caches behind `RefCell` (single-threaded).** `view(&self)` is `&self`; if you need a mutable icon cache, scaled-image cache, layout cache, etc., wrap it in `RefCell<...>` on the app struct and `borrow_mut()` inside `view()`. Crustace's `IconCache` does exactly this. Don't reach for `Mutex` — the event loop is single-threaded.
|
||
|
||
**External state via channel + poll.** Anything that blocks (D-Bus, files, network, IPC) lives on a background thread. At startup save the `ChannelSender<Msg>` from `set_channel_sender`, hand a clone to the worker, and have the worker push messages back. `poll_external()` is the place for non-blocking `try_recv()` against in-process receivers (e.g. `mpsc`/`crossbeam` channels) or for expiry checks like "is this notification past its TTL".
|
||
|
||
**Navigation state is one value.** The part of the model that says where the user is — current screen, open panel, position in a history — is what the back button walks (`App::on_back`) and what a relaunch restores (`App::save_state`). Keep it as one value (a `NavStack<Route>`, an enum, a small struct) rather than booleans scattered across screens, derive the back answer from it instead of recording things to undo, and persist that same value. Transient UI — menus, popups, dialogs, text focus — stays out of both: the runtime closes it on back and on `Escape`, and nobody expects it after a relaunch. [`docs/navigation.md`](./navigation.md) is the full treatment.
|
||
|
||
**Stable widget ids only when you need to programmatically focus them.** `WidgetId` is an opt-in tag on a widget that pairs with `App::take_focus_request()`. Don't decorate every widget; tag the one input you want to autofocus on screen entry.
|
||
|
||
Again, the simplest progression is:
|
||
|
||
1. one flat app state in `ltk::window`
|
||
2. sub-state and overlays once the app becomes shell-like
|
||
3. caches, channels, focus retargeting, and cross-surface invalidation only when scale requires them
|
||
|
||
## Performance
|
||
|
||
The cheap things and the expensive things, in rough order:
|
||
|
||
- *Cheap*: building the `Element<Msg>` tree. It's plain enums and `Vec`s. crustace rebuilds the entire shell every frame and stays idle when nothing changes.
|
||
- *Cheap*: input dispatch. Per-leaf handler snapshots are captured during the layout pass; pointer/key events are O(N_focusable_leaves) lookups, not tree walks.
|
||
- *Cheap*: `active_document()` / `theme_palette()`. The first returns a clone of an `Arc<ThemeDocument>` from a `RwLock`-protected cell; the second projects the active mode's slot table onto the ten canonical palette fields.
|
||
- *Avoid in `view()`*: filesystem walks, image decoding, `serde` parsing, regex compilation. Cache the result on the app struct (behind `RefCell` if needed) and look it up.
|
||
- *Avoid in `view()`*: cloning large `Vec<u8>` image buffers. `img_widget` takes an `Arc<Vec<u8>>`; build the `Arc` once at load time and clone *the Arc*, not the bytes.
|
||
- *Avoid `is_animating() = true` when nothing is moving.* It pegs the loop at the full animation rate and burns battery on the mobile target.
|
||
- *Lower `poll_interval()` is not free.* Crustace polls every 30 s because the clock only shows HH:MM. If your UI shows seconds, `Some(Duration::from_secs(1))` is fine; if it shows nothing time-sensitive, leave it `None`.
|
||
- *Scroll viewports own a sub-canvas.* They're slightly more expensive to draw than a plain column. Use them when you need clipping or actual scrolling, not as a wrapper. A plain `viewport` without `fade_bottom` is cheaper: it clips with a scissor on the parent canvas and adds no offscreen pass, so it is the right wrapper for a panel whose visible height animates.
|
||
- *Themed surfaces with shadows are pre-rendered on GLES.* A `container.surface(...)` whose slot carries outer or inset shadows (all with `Normal` blend) is drawn once per (size, corners, style) into a texture held by the context's cache and blitted afterwards, so a panel of a dozen glass cards costs a dozen textured quads per frame instead of six shader passes per card. Sliders and surfaces with `PlusLighter` / `Overlay` insets keep the direct path.
|
||
- *Image textures are cached per GL context, not per canvas.* On the GLES backend every canvas and sub-canvas of a process shares one content-keyed texture cache (32 MiB, LRU), so an overlay or subsurface that is destroyed and recreated finds its icons and wallpaper resident; destroyed overlay canvases are pooled and reused too, shaders and glyph atlas included. Keep image buffers stable (`Arc` clones) so the fingerprint hits.
|
||
- *GPU vs software*: the GLES path is selected automatically when EGL is available, with no API-level difference for the application. The two backends are not yet pixel-identical — gradients and the shadow / backdrop pipeline degrade under software; the authoritative list of gaps is the README's *Backend Differences* section.
|
||
|
||
When a redraw feels sluggish: add a one-line print at the top of `view()` and confirm it's not being called more often than expected. The single most common mistake is leaving `is_animating()` returning `true` after the animation finished.
|
||
|
||
**Runtime guardrails.** The rules above are the app's responsibility, but the runtime also helps catch and blunt the common footguns. Set `LTK_PERF_WARN=1` to get one-shot stderr diagnostics during development when `is_animating()` stays true for 10 s (a settled animation that forgot to return `false`), when `poll_interval()` is under 100 ms (defeats the idle model), or when the software backend animates continuously for seconds (mobile CPU sink). Independently, animation on the **software** renderer is capped to ~30 Hz by default — GLES is never capped — since 60 fps software rasterization is a battery drain with no GPU offload; override `App::cap_software_animation` to keep the full rate. These live in `event_loop/perf.rs`. For layout problems rather than performance ones, `LTK_DEBUG_LAYOUT=1` outlines every laid-out widget rect in red so misplaced or zero-sized boxes are visible at a glance.
|
||
|
||
## Where to look in the consumer repos
|
||
|
||
| Pattern | File |
|
||
| --- | --- |
|
||
| Multi-overlay coordination, overlay id constants | `crustace/src/app.rs` (`overlays()`, line ~126) |
|
||
| Background poller + channel sender | `crustace/src/app.rs` (`set_channel_sender`, `poll_external`) |
|
||
| Sub-module per screen | `crustace/src/{homescreen/, launcher/, quicksettings/, powermenu.rs}` |
|
||
| Cached icon loading via `RefCell` | `crustace/src/launcher/icon_cache.rs` and use sites in `app.rs` |
|
||
| OSD overlay with auto-expiry | `crustace/src/osd.rs` (`Osd::show` / `tick` / `view`) |
|
||
| `keyboard_exclusive` + `take_focus_request` | `loginmanager/crates/lockscreen/src/app.rs` |
|
||
| Theme on disk (slot-typed JSON) | `ltk/themes/default/theme.json`, `ltk::ThemeDocument::find` |
|
||
|
||
For a self-contained example that exercises overlays, theme switching, and animation in one ~630-line file, see `examples/mini_shell.rs`.
|
||
|
||
## Known gaps and non-goals
|
||
|
||
A short, honest list of what ltk does not currently provide. None of these are accidental — each is either deferred work or a deliberate non-goal. The list is here so that downstream consumers and audit reviewers know what to plan around without reading the source.
|
||
|
||
**AT-SPI2 / assistive technology bridge — wired through AccessKit, with composite widgets still flat.** Combo, Notebook tabs, DatePicker and TimePicker render as collections of inner widgets and currently expose those leaves individually (a combo trigger reads as "Button" + its caption, the popup items as `ListItem`s inside an overlay). Promoting them to their semantic roles (`ComboBoxMenuButton` with `Expanded` state, `TabList`/`Tab`/`TabPanel`, `Date`) needs each compound widget to declare an "outer role hint" the layout pass can attach to the `LaidOutWidget` it pushes. Tracked separately.
|
||
|
||
ltk delegates the AT-SPI2 D-Bus protocol to `accesskit_unix`. After every layout pass, the runtime hands the platform adapter a fresh `accesskit::TreeUpdate` built from `widget_rects`: a `Window` root whose children are the main surface's widgets, with each overlay grouped under its own `Dialog` node and rich-text runs nested as `TextRun` children. Buttons / toggles / checkboxes / radios / list items map to `Role::Button` / `Role::Switch` / `Role::CheckBox` / `Role::RadioButton` / `Role::ListItem`; sliders to `Role::Slider`; pattern grids to `Role::GenericContainer` (a drawn gesture has no assistive equivalent, so the app must offer another unlock method); single- and multi-line text edits to `Role::TextInput` / `Role::MultilineTextInput`; non-interactive labels, images, separators and progress bars surface as `Label` / `Image` / `Splitter` / `ProgressIndicator` nodes. Inbound action requests are translated into the matching widget message on the next iteration of the run loop: `Click` and `Focus` on every interactive node, `SetValue` on sliders and text edits, `Increment` / `Decrement` on sliders, and the scroll actions on scroll viewports. Live regions are wired too — `Container::live_region( true )` marks a subtree `Live::Polite` so status messages and OSDs announce themselves on appearance.
|
||
|
||
The adapter is constructed unconditionally — `accesskit_unix::Adapter::new` is infallible and simply stays inactive when no AT client is attached — and the tree is only built when AT-SPI2 is actually observing the application, so the pipeline costs nothing on headless runners. The current cut covers the common cases — buttons, lists, form fields, dialogs — and intentionally leaves room for follow-up:
|
||
|
||
- **Generic container nesting**: dialogs, text runs and the root do nest, but `Column` / `Row` / `Container` parents inside a surface are not represented — a surface's widgets are siblings. Adding that requires either recording the nesting on `LaidOutWidget` or walking `Element` again from the a11y side.
|
||
- **Per-widget accessible label / description / `LabelledBy` relations**: the internal `accessible_label` plumbing exists (labels are derived from the widget's own content, with the tooltip as last fallback), but the public builders to override them (`Button::accessible_name(...)`, etc.) are not exposed yet. Adding them is mechanical but touches every widget module.
|
||
|
||
Downstream consumers shipping into regulated environments (EN 301 549, WCAG 2.1 AA, EAA) should still treat the integration as a starting point that needs a real audit with assistive technology users — the foundation is in place but the per-widget metadata work is what determines whether Orca actually reads a useful announcement.
|
||
|
||
**Cross-application drag-and-drop — deferred.** The clipboard now bridges to the Wayland selection via `wl_data_device_manager` (see `event_loop/data_device.rs`), so Ctrl+C / Ctrl+V crosses application boundaries when the compositor advertises the global. Middle-click primary selection (`zwp_primary_selection_v1`) and inter-app drag-and-drop targets (drop-zone widgets that accept text / URI lists from outside the process) are still pending — they share most of the offer / source plumbing but need widget-level drop-target wiring on top.
|
||
|
||
**Multi-touch — primary slot plus raw auxiliary fingers.** The first finger to land on a surface becomes its primary slot and drives the built-in gesture machine (swipe, scroll, long-press, drag). Additional fingers bypass the gesture machine and surface directly through `App::on_touch_down` / `on_touch_move` / `on_touch_up`, so apps can implement pinch-zoom or two-finger pan without losing the built-in gestures. One exception keeps fast two-thumb typing whole: a finger landing while the primary is still a plain press (no drag, scroll, swipe or slider in flight) commits that press as a tap at its last position and takes the primary slot itself, so alternating taps whose touches overlap all register; the earlier finger's release then reports through `on_touch_up`. A press on a widget that fires on tap also stays a tap for as long as the finger is inside that widget, however far it rolls; the swipe machinery only engages, from the original press point, once the finger leaves it. Presses inside a scroll viewport keep the 8 logical px slop, since a list of full-width rows is scrolled by dragging on them. Apps that want the whole stream raw — an embedded web view, a drawing canvas — return `true` from `App::claims_raw_touch`: every finger, primary included, then reports through `on_touch_*` and widget presses, taps and swipes never fire. What ltk itself does not provide is *recognition* of multi-finger gestures — pinch and rotate detection is the app's job on top of the raw stream.
|
||
|
||
**HarfBuzz shaping — wired in.** `src/text_shaping.rs::shape_line` now drives both renderers: the line is BiDi-reordered, split into per-font sub-runs and shaped through rustybuzz. The glyph cache is keyed on `(glyph_id, size_bits, font_id)` and each glyph is rasterised by index via `fontdue::Font::rasterize_indexed`, so Arabic connected forms, Devanagari clusters and CJK shaped glyphs render correctly.
|
||
|
||
**xdg-activation-v1 — wired in.** Both directions work: a token found in `$XDG_ACTIVATION_TOKEN` at startup is used to activate the app's own window once it maps (so an external launcher can raise an ltk window with focus), and an app that spawns children requests fresh tokens through `App::take_activation_requests` and receives them via `App::on_activation_token` to place in the child's environment.
|
||
|
||
**xdg-session-management-v1 — wired in (client side).** Before the first commit of a `ShellMode::Window` toplevel the runtime binds `xdg_session_manager_v1`, calls `get_session( reason, stored_id )` and `restore_toplevel( toplevel, "main" )`, so the compositor restores geometry on every launch. The session id from `created` is persisted to `$XDG_STATE_HOME/<app_id>/session.json` next to `state.bin`, the app's own `App::save_state` bytes (saved every 30 s when changed, on close and on `SIGTERM`/`SIGINT`, which the runtime now turns into a clean exit). App state is handed back through `App::restore_state` only for reason `session_restore` (`LTK_SESSION_RESTORE=1` in the environment, set by the shell) or `recover` (previous run left `clean_exit: false`) — a plain launch starts fresh, Android-style. Layer-shell and session-lock surfaces have no toplevel and skip all of it. Compositors without the global lose only the geometry half; the file-based state and reason detection still work. Multi-toplevel sessions and the compositor implementation in forge are tracked separately.
|
||
|
||
**Fractional scale — deferred.** `wp_fractional_scale_v1` (so 125 % / 150 % outputs render natively instead of via compositor downscale) remains tracked as upcoming protocol work.
|
||
|
||
**Software/GLES parity gaps — see [`docs/backends.md`](./backends.md).** The software backend renders gradients as a flat fill from the first stop, skips outer and inset shadows and backdrop blur, and hard-cuts the bottom-edge fade; `oklab` gradient interpolation falls back to linear-light on both backends. The capability matrix is the canonical per-feature table and must be updated in the same patch that closes any of these gaps.
|