Visual Studio Code is one of the best editors for Haxe and OpenFL development today. Obviously, that makes it one of the best editors for Feathers UI development too. Today, Feathers UI is getting two new VSCode extensions to elevate the experience even more. Not only will you be able to create a new Feathers UI project with a single command, you can also set up everything you need for Haxe, OpenFL, and Feathers UI in just one click.
Feathers UI Extension
When you install the official Feathers UI extension for Visual Studio Code, you'll be able to create a new Feathers UI project in your workspace folder by running a simple command.
Open an empty folder in Visual Studio Code.
Go to the View menu and choose Command Palette….
Search for the Feathers UI: Create new project command.
This will create an OpenFL project.xml file, a main class file that extends the Application class, and VSCode's editor configuration files to create a default build task and a Lime/OpenFL launch configuration.
Today, Feathers UI alpha.2 is now officially available on Haxelib. This is the second of multiple preview builds that are planned for 2020. These preview builds are intended to give the community an opportunity to see how development of Feathers UI is progressing — and to give everyone a chance to start prototyping some cool, new projects!
Feathers UI is an open source framework of user interface components for creative, cross-platform projects. Using the Haxe programming language, Feathers UI is built on OpenFL — a user-friendly library for rendering, input, networking, and more. Deploy native apps to iOS, Android, Windows, macOS, Linux (and even publish your project to the web!) using the same Haxe codebase.
🚨 Please note that this version of Feathers UI is considered to be alpha quality. Many of the planned UI components and features are still missing, and some APIs are likely to change in future builds. Use in production is not yet recommended.
Feathers UI has reached this milestone thanks the very generous support of all of the backers from the Feathers UI Kickstarter campaign, which completed successfully in the summer of 2019. A big, enthusastic thank you to everyone who has supported the project, whether you are a backer, shared the Kickstarter with your friends on social media, or simply encouraged me (Josh) to keep up the good work!
What's new in alpha.2?
Let's take a look at some of the new UI components and features that are included with Feathers UI alpha.2.
TextArea displays editable text wrapped over multiple lines — and it supports scrolling vertically. (Live Demo)
CLI new-project
The new CLI interface makes it possible to create a new Feathers UI project from your terminal in a single command.
haxelib run feathersui new-project HelloWorld
The command above creates a new project in a folder named HelloWorld using a simple template that includes an OpenFL project.xml file, a main class that extends Application, and a default icon.
Additionally, if you add the --vscode flag, it will create supporting configuration files for Visual Studio Code, and you can easily open your project from the command line.
haxelib run feathersui new-project HelloWorld --vscode
code ./HelloWorld
A proper list view UI component needs to be able to display thousands or millions of items without requiring a ridiculous amount of memory or maxing out the CPU.
Typically, this means that a small subset of the items from its data provider are rendered at any given time, and as the list view scrolls, some items are no longer rendered and new ones take their place. This is known as layout virtualization.
In the alpha.2 build, the ListView component can display larger data providers by using three new layouts:
HorizontalListLayout optimizes for items positioned from left to right, in a single row. Each item may have a different width.
VerticalListLayout optimizes lists with items positioned from top to bottom, in a single column. Each item may have a different height. This layout is the default used by ListView.
VerticalListFixedRowLayout is similar to VerticalListLayout — except all items must have the exact same height. This layout offers better performance by reducing the height lookups associated with variable item heights.
Keyboard focus management
Many people navigate through user interfaces without a mouse or touchscreen. They might be power users, they may have limited motor function, or maybe they're using a game controller or a TV remote control. It's important for many apps to have the option available to navigate between UI controls without using some kind of pointer.
The alpha.2 build includes a new focus manager that supports navigation with Tab and Shift+Tab. In a future update, the default focus manager will also support directional pads (D-pads) on game controllers and TV remote controls.
Loading up the new Login Form sample is an easy way to try out using the tab key to navigate between UI components in a simple form.
Additionally, it's worth mentioning that I also made several commits upstream to OpenFL to improve keyboard focus management for all OpenFL projects — not just those that use the Feathers UI focus manager. Those enhancements will be available in an upcoming update to OpenFL.
Install Feathers UI alpha.2
Feathers UI may be installed using the haxelib command in your terminal.
haxelib install feathersui
Be sure to take a look at the complete installation instructions for details about installing required dependencies, along with links to step-by-step tutorials for setting up supported editors and IDEs.
Documentation
The Feathers UI Manual teaches you how to use all of the components in Feathers UI.
The v1.0.0-alpha.2 API Reference includes descriptions of all APIs available on Feathers UI components, layouts, utility functions, and more.
Everyone, I just want to say thank you again for your support. I'm looking forward to hearing what you think of the new Feathers UI so far. If you create anything with this build — even a simple prototype — I'd love it if you could share your experiences (and maybe even a screenshot 🖼!).
Every three to four weeks, I've been posting updates on Kickstarter that summarize what I've been adding to the Haxe/OpenFL version of Feathers UI recently. To be sure that no one has missed any of these updates, I'm going to occasionally post a quick roundup here on the Feathers UI blog. Let's jump right in…
Today, for very the first time, Feathers UI may be installed from Haxelib. This is the first of multiple preview builds that are planned for 2020. These preview builds are intended to give the community an opportunity to see how development of Feathers UI is progressing — and to give everyone a chance to start prototyping!
Feathers UI is an open source framework of user interface components for creative, cross-platform projects. Using the Haxe programming language, Feathers UI is built on OpenFL — a user-friendly library for rendering, input, networking, and more. Deploy native apps to iOS, Android, Windows, macOS, Linux (and even publish your project to the web!) using the same Haxe codebase.
🚨 Please note that this version of Feathers UI is considered to be alpha quality. Many of the planned UI components and features are still missing, and some APIs are likely to change in future builds. It is not ready for production yet.
Feathers UI has reached this first big milestone thanks the very generous support of all of the backers from the Feathers UI Kickstarter campaign, which completed successfully in the summer of 2019. A big, enthusastic thank you to everyone who has supported the project, whether you are a backer, shared the Kickstarter with your friends on social media, or simply encouraged me (Josh) to keep it up!
Let's take a look at a few of the samples that are included with Feathers UI. Each one includes a live web demo that you can try out in your browser.
The calculator sample demonstrates how to build a simple app, which uses the Application, LayoutGroup, Button and Label components. This sample also includes a simple custom theme that changes the appearance of the app's components to look different from the default styles.
The components-explorer sample includes a basic demo of every component currently supported by Feathers UI.
It also shows how Feathers UI may be used to build single-page apps with deep linking. This sample uses the RouterNavigator component, which integrates with the HTML History API so that each view has its own custom URL. As you navigate through the app, watch as your browser's current location updates automatically.
Finally, as you can see in the screenshot below, this sample shows how the default styles in Feathers UI support both light and dark modes.
Feathers UI may be installed using the haxelib command in your terminal.
haxelib install feathersui
Be sure to take a look at the complete installation instructions for details about installing required dependencies, along with links to step-by-step tutorials for setting up your editor or IDE.
Documentation
The Feathers UI Manual teaches you how to use all of the components in Feathers UI.
The v1.0.0-alpha.1 API Reference includes descriptions of all APIs available on Feathers UI components, layouts, utility functions, and more.
Everyone, I just want to say thank you again for your support. I'm looking forward to hearing what you think of the new Feathers UI so far. If you create anything with this build — even a simple prototype — I'd love it if you could share your experiences (and maybe a screenshot!).
Every three to four weeks, I've been posting updates on Kickstarter that summarize what I've been adding to the Haxe/OpenFL version of Feathers UI recently. To be sure that no one has missed any of these updates, I'm going to occasionally post a quick roundup here on the Feathers UI blog. Let's jump right in…
Every three to four weeks, I've been posting updates on Kickstarter that summarize what I've been adding to the Haxe/OpenFL version of Feathers UI recently. To be sure that no one has missed any of these updates, I'm going to occasionally post a quick roundup here on the Feathers UI blog. Let's jump right in…
Today, I'm launching a new blog for the latest announcements about Feathers UI. Let's start with a link roundup of the various new things that have been introduced since the Kickstarter for the Haxe/OpenFL version began.
