NativeDesktop

NativeDesktop (nd) is a Rust toolkit for desktop apps. You describe a window as one tree of views and elements, and each platform's backend turns it into what that OS draws. Your app never names a backend. Desktop only: phones are left to React Native.

Target	Backend
macOS	AppKit: a real NSToolbar, NSButton, NSTableView
Linux	GPUI with a libadwaita look and live matugen colors
Windows	GPUI with a Fluent skin (parts of the skin are still missing)
Web	GPUI compiled to WebAssembly

Web pages show in a window through webview(), on WKWebView or, opt-in, CEF. Apps built on it: messages, formalmusic (YouTube Music on Kopuz) and nativebrowser.

Docs: https://native.formalsnake.dev (the sources are in docs/content).

macOS	Linux	Windows

The gallery example (examples/gallery) on each OS. scripts/shots all regenerates these.

Getting started

Releases are git tags, not crates.io versions, because nd builds on a patched GPUI. You need rustup, git and, on macOS, Xcode or the Command Line Tools. Install the CLI from a tag:

cargo install cargo-nextest --locked
cargo install --git https://github.com/FormalStudio/NativeDesktop --tag v0.6.1 --locked nd-cli

Create an app, run it, check it and test it:

nd new demo
cd demo
just dev          # runs cargo run
nd check          # fmt, clippy, framework lints, appearance audit
nd test           # tiers 1 and 2, no window
nd serve --target web

nd serve --target web builds the app to WebAssembly and serves it on http://127.0.0.1:8080/. nd package builds installers and nd upgrade moves an app to a newer tag. docs/content/tooling/cli.md lists every subcommand, and docs/content/getting-started.md has the Windows setup.

Hello world

This is the counter from examples/hello, the same view nd new scaffolds:

use nd::prelude::*;

pub struct Counter {
    count: u32,
}

impl Render for Counter {
    fn render(&mut self, _window: &mut Window, cx: &mut Context<Self>) -> impl IntoElement {
        let theme = cx.theme();
        scaffold()
            .toolbar(toolbar().item(button("add", "Add one").on_click(cx.listener(
                |this, _: &ClickEvent, _window, cx| {
                    this.count += 1;
                    cx.notify();
                },
            ))))
            .content(
                v_flex()
                    .size_full()
                    .items_center()
                    .justify_center()
                    .gap_2()
                    .child(text(self.count.to_string()).text_size(px(48.)).tabular_nums())
                    .child(text("clicks").text_color(theme.text.secondary)),
            )
    }
}

Repo layout

• crates/: the framework. nd is the facade, nd-backend-appkit and nd-backend-gpui are the backends, nd-cli is the nd binary.
• examples/: runnable apps such as hello, gallery and browser. CI builds every one for every target.
• docs/: the docs site (docs/app, itself an nd app), its pages in docs/content, and the plan in docs/plan.

Contributing

Dev setup for macOS and Linux, the test tiers and CI are in docs/dev/setup.md. Doc style is in docs/WRITING.md. Release notes are in CHANGELOG.md.

License

MIT OR Apache-2.0, as declared in Cargo.toml.