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Cover image for Learning Go by examples: part 7 - Create a cross-platform GUI/Desktop app in Go

Learning Go by examples: part 7 - Create a cross-platform GUI/Desktop app in Go

Aurélie Vache on August 25, 2021

In previous articles we created an HTTP REST API server, a CLI, a Bot for Discord and even a game for Nintendo Game Boy Advance. Golang is used a...
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Ilie Soltanici

Fyne is awesome, I’m building all my GUI projects only with fyne. Andrew Is really very helpful in slack.

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Aurélie Vache

Yess, Andrew Williams is very active and take time to help people on Slack :-).

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Andy Williams

The whole community is excellent! I think in the summer fewer of the core team are around, but the rest of the year people are available to help in Slack or Discord at all hours.

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David Kröll

Very neat artcile - looks awesome at first. Probably trying this framework out soon.

Are there productive apps built with Fyne already out there?

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Andy Williams

As well as the app listings there is also a full desktop built using Fyne which is a pretty good demo :).
fyne.io/fynedesk/

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Aurélie Vache

Oh Andrew, you are here? ^^
Yes of course, the fynedesk demo is a way to see the Fyne possibilities :-).

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Aurélie Vache

Thanks David.
Productive, I don't know, but you can find existing apps done with Fyne here: apps.fyne.io/

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kp52r11

on Windows 10
Getting this error in command terminal window. no image is displayed in the windows client. Go compiled fine w/o error. Ran go mod tidy also.

2021/12/21 17:57:10 Cause: XML syntax error on line 2: unquoted or missing attribute value in element
2021/12/21 17:57:10 At: c:/go-workspace/pkg/mod/fyne.io/fyne/v2@v2.0.4/internal/painter/image.go:55

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𒎏Wii 🏳️‍⚧️

Was about to complain that the stargate was missing earth, but it's right there at the top, just a bit... bent xD

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Aurélie Vache

:-D
Yes don't worry, Gopher can come home ^^

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buphmin

Oh neat! Curious how fyne performs (cpu, ram, etc) compared to electron and similar web based desktop apps 🤔.

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Aurélie Vache

I didn't have compared Fyne with electron, but maybe @andydotxyz already done a benchmark? :-)

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Andy Williams

I have never done a comparison with web tech - it didn't feel fair as native and web are designed to solve different problems.
A while ago I did start a performance comparison, at github.com/fyne-io/fyne/wiki/Perfo..., I will see if I can add electron and react native to round out the table.
In general a Fyne app may be a little larger (around 7MB or 4MB compressed) because it contains the Go interpreter, but it should run faster with much less RAM required.

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buphmin

Thanks for the info this is good to know :)

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energyfish

ran the program but keep getting the following error:
Cause: XML syntax error on line 2: unquoted or missing attribute value in element
At: C:/Users/alanh/go/pkg/mod/fyne.io/fyne/v2@v2.1.2/internal/painter/image.go:78

Any help appreciated

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Aurélie Vache

Hi,
I haven't tested on a Windows OS yet.
Have you tried to contact Fyne team members on their slack? :)

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mJehanno

I'm currently learning Go and I have a side-project where I need to create an API, a mobile App and a discord bot ... and your articles are exactly what I needed ! Many thanks !

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Anit Shrestha Manandhar

Loved the whole series. Thanks.

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Aurélie Vache

Thanks for your comment! :-) :-)

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kp52r11

Here is complete error message.
2021/12/21 18:03:17 Fyne error: SVG Load error:
2021/12/21 18:03:17 Cause: XML syntax error on line 2: unquoted or missing attribute value in element
2021/12/21 18:03:17 At: c:/go-workspace/pkg/mod/fyne.io/fyne/v2@v2.0.4/internal/painter/image.go:55

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nigel447

Thanks for a great resource, covers just about everything

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Aurélie Vache

Thanks @nigel447 :-)

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Burney Hoel

Love the stargate references!

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Aurélie Vache

Ah ah, I love mixing Gophers and movies or TV show; happy you like Stargate reference :-)

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Rahul Raut

Will definitely try this out, great tutorial. Just one question, does it produce a single executable on windows or do we need to provide some dll files?