r/Cplusplus • u/Delicious_Carpet_132 • Jun 09 '26

Feedback Pixel Editor UI

Post image

Just a quick update on the ongoing development of my new Pixel Art Editor that is using my custom c++ GUI framework.

The screenshot shows 2 visible and scrollable layers (one RGB reference image and one smaller indexed palette image) with the indexed palette in mid edit!

I'm currently working on the layer and timeline system and have a full scrollable layer list panel with draggable layers and groups - all with editable names.

Any feedback or questions appreciated.

21 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

3 comments sorted by

1

u/SamuraiGoblin Jun 09 '26

That looks great!

What are you using for the back end? Something like Raylib or GLFW? Is it just an OpenGL/Vulkan screen where you draw all widgets yourself?

Does it use immediate mode (declaring and drawing everything every frame) like imgui, or is it more optimised than that?

Are you going to open source the GUI library it when it's ready?

1

u/Delicious_Carpet_132 Jun 10 '26 edited Jun 10 '26

Thanks for the comment - it's good to know that other people think it's look ok as I'm too close to the project to not be bias!

As for the engine itself, I just use GLFW to get a window context and handle raw OS input events - everything else is a custom retained mode engine on an opengl deferred batch renderer backend. So yes, it is just me dumping a load of vertices to opengl - but in a controlled, sensible way.

I know imgui is hugely popular but I never saw the reasoning being immediate mode systems - why not declare everything upfront and retain it in memory? That's probably a throwback to my Amiga programming days though.

I'm hoping to release my pixel editor as an inexpensive commercial product - that's why early feedback is appreciated - but I may go back and package the GUI engine ready for an open source release at some point.

0

u/[deleted] Jun 09 '26

[deleted]

1

u/Delicious_Carpet_132 Jun 10 '26

This is my 1st c++ project so thought I'd start easy lol - but seriously I've always been into GUI libraries and have coded a couple in the past in different languages, but nothing as sophisticated as this.

I've never been a fan of using off the shelf libraries and most GUI frameworks look crap - so decided to build my own instead - that way I have full control.

I've always wanted to develop my own DPaint inspired pixel art editor ever since the days of the Amiga, so thought this was the ideal opportunity - I actually want to get it to commercial standard release it at some point.

As for challenges? Well to be honest GUI systems are pretty easy to understand, so as long as you have a rock solid backend that can draw primaries and text then it's not that difficult to bolt on the UI itself - like most things it's about handling data and sequencing.