PHP Gui

Extensionless PHP Graphic User Interface library

#Table of Contents

• Why
• Requirements
• Usage
• Documentation
• How it works
• Contributors Guide
• TO-DO
• Credits
• License

#Why

PHP can be more than a "Web Language", it's a fast language, with a cross platform interpreter and a good CLI. GUI is a natural step for completing this ecosystem.

For many years, GUI projects are being developed for PHP, like PHP-GTK, PHP-QT, wxPHP and so many others, but none of them became popular.

This project aims to solve the most common problems of existing "GUI Projects":

• The need for installing an extension
• Cross platform
• No external dependencies
• Easy to install (composer require php-gui) / Easy to use ($button = new Button)

#Requirements

The following PHP versions are supported:

• PHP 5.6
• PHP 7
• HHVM

And OS:

• Linux x64
• Windows x64
• Mac OSX (tested on 10.10.x and 10.11.x)

#Usage

Download the library using composer:

#Stable version

$ composer require gabrielrcouto/php-gui

#Latest version (development)

$ composer require gabrielrcouto/php-gui:dev-master

Now, you can build a GUI application. Let's do a Hello World!

Create the file 'myapp.php':

<?php
require 'vendor/autoload.php';

use Gui\Application;
use Gui\Components\Button;

$application = new Application();

$application->on('start', function() use ($application) {
    $button = (new Button())
        ->setLeft(40)
        ->setTop(100)
        ->setWidth(200)
        ->setValue('Look, I\'m a button!');

    $button->on('click', function() use ($button) {
        $button->setValue('Look, I\'m a clicked button!');
    });
});

$application->run();

Now, run it:

php myapp.php

Simple? :clap: You don't need to compile anything, just download the library via composer and use it! :smile:

#Documentation

We have a Documentation Page

But, if you want to see some examples, just follow the instructions below.

# clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/gabrielrcouto/php-gui.git
cd php-gui

# install dependencies
composer install

# run examples
php examples/01-basic/example.php
php examples/02-animation/example.php
php examples/03-window/example.php
php examples/04-multiple-windows/example.php
php examples/05-canvas/example.php
php examples/06-ping/example.php
php examples/07-php-internals/example.php
php examples/08-alert/example.php   
php examples/09-3d-perspective/example.php 

#How it works

To create a GUI without the need for an extension, PHP executes a binary with proc_open and communicates with it using Stdin/Stdout Pipes--it's a fast and cross platform solution.

PHP <=> Stdin/Stdout Pipes <=> Lazarus Application <=> GUI

The binary is created using Lazarus (Free Pascal). After much research, I found a large advantage by using Lazarus over other desktop languages (like C#, Java...):

It doesn't have any dependencies (except for Linux, which needs GTK), has a good component library, is compiled, open source and has a nice slogan (Write Once, Compile Anywhere).

The communication (IPC) between PHP and Lazarus is performed using a protocol based on JSON RPC. You can view the specification here.

#Contributors Guide

#Components names

To be an easy to use library, this project will use HTML friendly names for the components, as PHP developers are more familiar with it.

Examples:

• On Lazarus, the property "caption" is for the text of a button. On php-gui, the property name is "value".
• On Lazarus, "Edit" is the component for text input, on php-gui, it's "InputText".

#Compiling Lazarus App

#On your Local Machine

First, you need to install Lazarus.

For compiling the lazarus binary:

lazbuild phpgui.lpr

#Using Docker

If you are generating the Linux binary, you can use Docker:

lazarus/linux-docker.sh
cd lazarus/
lazbuild phpgui.lpr

#Test

First install the dependencies, and after you can run:

bin/phing

#TO-DO

The "Issues" page from this repository is being used for TO-DO management, just search for the "to-do" tag.

#Credits

@gabrielrcouto

@reisraff

#License

MIT License