greetings, i want to build a daw (digital audio workstation), but i have no idea where to even start. here are my needs and the options i’ve found:
my needs:
- load and keep things (audio, midi) in memory
- cross-platform compatibility is not a requirement
the options i’ve found:
fluttergtk/qt- raylib (with zig)
webassembly (with zig)
[rejected] flutter: the first option that came to my mind was flutter. i thought it would give me a quick start in laying down the ui, but i don’t think it has the capability to fulfill my needs (please correct me if i’m wrong)
gtk/qt (with zig): i wonder if qt provide bindings for zig
raylib (with zig): it’s cool (my choice as of now)
[rejected] webassembly (with zig): it would be an ultimate comfort to build this way ig, but is it possible to make that web app into desktop one (like tauri or something)?
id really appreciate your opinions and advice
ps: i hope i’m clear. i got a headache searching about these. i’ll update this post for more clarity later
final note
Thank you guys for all your opinions and advises. Thanks for explaining the limitations with gtk, things with qt and flutter. That kotlin compose thing was cool too. Thanks for mentioning yabridge thats gonna be helpful. It might not seem like it, but I did listen to your thoughts, and stuck with zig and raylib. Thanks a lot
i recommend gtk’s libadwaita. it saves alot of time. It has JS Python rust and C bindings.
Bad idea. Very bad idea, especially for more complex projects.
Well, it is a bad idea if you are building anything not intended to be exclusively a GNOME app.
It’s also a bad idea if you want to build anything that’s more complex than GNOME’s single-purpose apps that lack all kinds of features. Building something as complex as a DAW would be a nightmare with libadwaita.
Why? It is solid for me
Libadwaita has been specifically designed for simple GNOME-style applications that only have one purpose and don’t include many features. I wouldn’t recommend it for complex project like a DAW.
It is made to be simple but libadwaita apps being single purpose is not true. It is a good design choice but some apps are naturally complex such as gnome settings.
Not libadwaita, but GNOME. GNOME apps are meant to be simple, and only do one single thing.
https://developer.gnome.org/hig/principles.html
You do not need to follow the gnome standards. Its good practice if you do but not required.
You don’t need to, but the entire framework has been specifically designed around this GNOME development philosophy, making it basically unusable for anything else. There are much better frameworks like Qt (C++/QML, but has bindings for almost every language), Iced (Rust), Avalonia (if you use C#) and many others