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Slint Build Guide

This page explains how to build and test Slint.

Prerequisites

Installing Rust

Install Rust by following the Rust Getting Started Guide. If you already have Rust installed, make sure that it's at least version 1.66 or newer. You can check which version you have installed by running rustc --version.

Once this is done, you should have the rustc compiler and the cargo build system installed in your path.

Linux

For Linux a few additional packages beyond the usual build essentials are needed for development and running apps:

  • xcb (libxcb-shape0-dev libxcb-xfixes0-dev on debian based distributions)
  • xkbcommon (libxkbcommon-dev on debian based distributions)
  • fontconfig library (libfontconfig-dev on debian based distributions)
  • (optional) Qt will be used when qmake is found in PATH

xcb and xcbcommon aren't needed if you are only using backend-winit-wayland without backend-winit-x11.

fontconfig can be dlopened at runtime instead of linking it at build time by setting the environment variable RUST_FONTCONFIG_DLOPEN=on. This can be useful for cross-compiling.

macOS

  • Make sure the "Xcode Command Line Tools" are installed: xcode-select --install
  • (optional) Qt will be used when qmake is found in PATH

Windows

  • Make sure the MSVC Build Tools are installed: winget install Microsoft.VisualStudio.2022.BuildTools
  • (optional) make sure Qt is installed and qmake is in the Path

C++ API (optional)

To use Slint from C++, the following extra dependencies are needed:

  • cmake (3.21 or newer)
  • A C++ compiler that supports C++20 (e.g., MSVC 2022 17.3 on Windows, or GCC 10)

Node.js API (optional)

To use Slint from Node.js, the following extra dependencies are needed.

  • Node.js (including npm) At this time you will need to use the version 16.
  • Python

Symlinks in the repository (Windows)

The Slint repository makes use of symbolic links to avoid duplication. On Windows, this require to set a git config before cloning, and have Windows switched in developer mode or do the git clone as Administrator

git clone -c core.symlinks=true https://github.com/slint-ui/slint

More info: https://github.com/git-for-windows/git/wiki/Symbolic-Links

Building and Testing

Most of the project is written in Rust, and compiling and running the test can done with cargo.

cargo build
cargo test

Important: Note that cargo test does not work without first calling cargo build because the the required dynamic library won't be found.

C++ Tests

The C++ tests are contained in the test-driver-cpp crate. It requires the Slint C++ library to be built, which isn't done by default. Build it explicitly before running the tests:

cargo build --lib -p slint-cpp
cargo test -p test-driver-cpp

Node.js Tests

The Node.js tests are contained in the test-driver-nodejs crate. It requires the Slint node library to be built, which isn't done by default. Build it explicitly before running the tests:

cargo build -p slint-node
cargo build -p test-driver-nodejs

More Info About Tests

For more details about the tests and how they are implemented, see testing.md.

C++ API Build

The Slint C++ API is implemented as a normal cmake build:

mkdir cppbuild && cd cppbuild
cmake -GNinja ..
cmake --build .

The build will call cargo to build the Rust libraries, and build the examples. To install the libraries and everything you need, use:

cmake --install .

You can pass -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX in the first cmake command in order to choose the installation location.

Node.js API Build

The Slint Node.js API is implemented as npm build. You can build it locally using the following command line:

cd api/node
npm install

To build your own project against the Git version of the Slint Node.js API, add the path to the api/node folder in the dependencies section of your package.json:

    "dependencies": {
        "slint-ui": "/path/to/api/node"
    },

Cross-Compiling

Slint can be cross-compiled to different target architectures and environments. For the Rust build we have had a good experience using cross. For convenience we're including a Cross.toml configuration file for cross in the source tree along with Docker containers that allow targeting a Debian ARMv7 and ARMv8 based Distribution with X11 or Wayland, out of the box. If you want to use the default Cross containers or your own, make sure the dependencies are in the container.

This includes for example the Raspberry Pi OS. Using the following steps you can run the examples on a pi:

cross build --target armv7-unknown-linux-gnueabihf --workspace --exclude slint-node --release
scp target/armv7-unknown-linux-gnueabihf/release/printerdemo [email protected]:.

Finally on a shell on the Pi:

DISPLAY=:0 ./printerdemo

Examples

See the examples folder for examples to build, run and test.

Running the Viewer

Slint also includes a viewer tool that can load .slint files dynamically at run-time. It's a cargo-integrated binary and can be run directly on the .slint files, for example:

cargo run --release --bin slint-viewer -- examples/printerdemo/ui/printerdemo.slint

Generating the Documentation

Rust

The documentation for the different crates is built using rustdoc.

The language documentation has snippets in the .slint language which can be previewed by injecting html to the documentation with the --html-in-header rustdoc flag.

Use the following command line to build the documentation to include preview of the .slint files.

RUSTDOCFLAGS="--html-in-header=$PWD/docs/resources/slint-docs-preview.html --html-in-header=$PWD/docs/resources/slint-docs-highlight.html" cargo doc --no-deps --features slint/document-features,slint/log

The documentation will be located in the target/doc sub-folder.

C++

The C++ documentation requires Python and doxygen to be installed on your system.

Run the following command to invoke doxygen and related tools and generate the documentation in the target/cppdocs sub-folder:

cargo xtask cppdocs