imgui/docs/EXAMPLES.md

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Dear ImGui: Examples

The examples/ folder example applications (standalone, ready-to-build) for variety of platforms and graphics APIs. They all use standard backends from the backends/ folder (see BACKENDS.md).

The purpose of Examples is to showcase integration with backends, let you try Dear ImGui, and guide you toward integrating Dear ImGui in your own application/game/engine. Once Dear ImGui is setup and running, run and refer to ImGui::ShowDemoWindow() in imgui_demo.cpp for usage of the end-user API.

You can find Windows binaries for some of those example applications at: http://www.dearimgui.org/binaries

Getting Started

Integration in a typical existing application, should take <20 lines when using standard backends.

At initialization:
  call ImGui::CreateContext()
  call ImGui_ImplXXXX_Init() for each backend.

At the beginning of your frame:
  call ImGui_ImplXXXX_NewFrame() for each backend.
  call ImGui::NewFrame()

At the end of your frame:
  call ImGui::Render()
  call ImGui_ImplXXXX_RenderDrawData() for your Renderer backend.

At shutdown:
  call ImGui_ImplXXXX_Shutdown() for each backend.
  call ImGui::DestroyContext()

Example (using backends/imgui_impl_win32.cpp + backends/imgui_impl_dx11.cpp):

// Create a Dear ImGui context, setup some options
ImGui::CreateContext();
ImGuiIO& io = ImGui::GetIO();
io.ConfigFlags |= ImGuiConfigFlags_NavEnableKeyboard; // Enable some options

// Initialize Platform + Renderer backends (here: using imgui_impl_win32.cpp + imgui_impl_dx11.cpp)
ImGui_ImplWin32_Init(my_hwnd);
ImGui_ImplDX11_Init(my_d3d_device, my_d3d_device_context);

// Application main loop
while (true)
{
    // Beginning of frame: update Renderer + Platform backend, start Dear ImGui frame
    ImGui_ImplDX11_NewFrame();
    ImGui_ImplWin32_NewFrame();
    ImGui::NewFrame();

    // Any application code here
    ImGui::Text("Hello, world!");

    // End of frame: render Dear ImGui
    ImGui::Render();
    ImGui_ImplDX11_RenderDrawData(ImGui::GetDrawData());

    // Swap
    g_pSwapChain->Present(1, 0);
}

// Shutdown
ImGui_ImplDX11_Shutdown();
ImGui_ImplWin32_Shutdown();
ImGui::DestroyContext();

Please read 'PROGRAMMER GUIDE' in imgui.cpp for notes on how to setup Dear ImGui in your codebase. Please read the comments and instruction at the top of each file. Please read FAQ at http://www.dearimgui.org/faq

If you are using any of the backends provided here, you can add the backends/imgui_impl_xxxx(.cpp,.h) files to your project and use as-in. Each imgui_impl_xxxx.cpp file comes with its own individual Changelog, so if you want to update them later it will be easier to catch up with what changed.

Examples Applications

example_allegro5/
Allegro 5 example.
= main.cpp + imgui_impl_allegro5.cpp

example_android_opengl3/
Android + OpenGL3 (ES) example.
= main.cpp + imgui_impl_android.cpp + imgui_impl_opengl3.cpp

example_apple_metal/
OSX & iOS + Metal example.
= main.m + imgui_impl_osx.mm + imgui_impl_metal.mm
It is based on the "cross-platform" game template provided with Xcode as of Xcode 9. (NB: imgui_impl_osx.mm is currently not as feature complete as other platforms backends. You may prefer to use the GLFW Or SDL backends, which will also support Windows and Linux.)

example_apple_opengl2/
OSX + OpenGL2 example.
= main.mm + imgui_impl_osx.mm + imgui_impl_opengl2.cpp
(NB: imgui_impl_osx.mm is currently not as feature complete as other platforms backends. You may prefer to use the GLFW Or SDL backends, which will also support Windows and Linux.)

example_emscripten_wgpu/
Emcripten + GLFW + WebGPU example.
= main.cpp + imgui_impl_glfw.cpp + imgui_impl_wgpu.cpp Note that the 'example_glfw_opengl3' and 'example_sdl2_opengl3' examples also supports Emscripten!

example_glfw_metal/
GLFW (Mac) + Metal example.
= main.mm + imgui_impl_glfw.cpp + imgui_impl_metal.mm

example_glfw_opengl2/
GLFW + OpenGL2 example (legacy, fixed pipeline).
= main.cpp + imgui_impl_glfw.cpp + imgui_impl_opengl2.cpp
DO NOT USE THIS IF YOUR CODE/ENGINE IS USING MODERN GL or WEBGL (SHADERS, VBO, VAO, etc.)
This code is mostly provided as a reference to learn about Dear ImGui integration, because it is shorter. If your code is using GL3+ context or any semi modern GL calls, using this renderer is likely to make things more complicated, will require your code to reset many GL attributes to their initial state, and might confuse your GPU driver. One star, not recommended.

example_glfw_opengl3/
GLFW (Win32, Mac, Linux) + OpenGL3+/ES2/ES3 example (modern, programmable pipeline).
= main.cpp + imgui_impl_glfw.cpp + imgui_impl_opengl3.cpp
This uses more modern GL calls and custom shaders.
This support building with Emscripten and targetting WebGL.
Prefer using that if you are using modern GL or WebGL in your application.

example_glfw_vulkan/
GLFW (Win32, Mac, Linux) + Vulkan example.
= main.cpp + imgui_impl_glfw.cpp + imgui_impl_vulkan.cpp
This is quite long and tedious, because: Vulkan. For this example, the main.cpp file exceptionally use helpers function from imgui_impl_vulkan.h/cpp.

example_glut_opengl2/
GLUT (e.g., FreeGLUT on Linux/Windows, GLUT framework on OSX) + OpenGL2 example.
= main.cpp + imgui_impl_glut.cpp + imgui_impl_opengl2.cpp
Note that GLUT/FreeGLUT is largely obsolete software, prefer using GLFW or SDL.

example_null/
Null example, compile and link imgui, create context, run headless with no inputs and no graphics output.
= main.cpp
This is used to quickly test compilation of core imgui files in as many setups as possible. Because this application doesn't create a window nor a graphic context, there's no graphics output.

example_sdl2_directx11/
SDL2 + DirectX11 example, Windows only.
= main.cpp + imgui_impl_sdl2.cpp + imgui_impl_dx11.cpp
This to demonstrate usage of DirectX with SDL2.

example_sdl2_metal/
SDL2 + Metal example, Mac only.
= main.mm + imgui_impl_sdl2.cpp + imgui_impl_metal.mm

example_sdl2_opengl2/
SDL2 (Win32, Mac, Linux etc.) + OpenGL example (legacy, fixed pipeline).
= main.cpp + imgui_impl_sdl2.cpp + imgui_impl_opengl2.cpp
DO NOT USE OPENGL2 CODE IF YOUR CODE/ENGINE IS USING GL OR WEBGL (SHADERS, VBO, VAO, etc.)
This code is mostly provided as a reference to learn about Dear ImGui integration, because it is shorter. If your code is using GL3+ context or any semi modern GL calls, using this renderer is likely to make things more complicated, will require your code to reset many GL attributes to their initial state, and might confuse your GPU driver. One star, not recommended.

example_sdl2_opengl3/
SDL2 (Win32, Mac, Linux, etc.) + OpenGL3+/ES2/ES3 example.
= main.cpp + imgui_impl_sdl2.cpp + imgui_impl_opengl3.cpp
This uses more modern GL calls and custom shaders.
This support building with Emscripten and targetting WebGL.
Prefer using that if you are using modern GL or WebGL in your application.

example_sdl2_sdlrenderer/
SDL2 (Win32, Mac, Linux, etc.) + SDL_Renderer (most graphics backends are supported underneath)
= main.cpp + imgui_impl_sdl2.cpp + imgui_impl_sdlrenderer.cpp
This requires SDL 2.0.18+ (released November 2021)
We do not really recommend using SDL_Renderer as it is a rather primitive API.

example_sdl2_vulkan/
SDL2 (Win32, Mac, Linux, etc.) + Vulkan example.
= main.cpp + imgui_impl_sdl2.cpp + imgui_impl_vulkan.cpp
This is quite long and tedious, because: Vulkan.
For this example, the main.cpp file exceptionally use helpers function from imgui_impl_vulkan.h/cpp.

example_win32_directx9/
DirectX9 example, Windows only.
= main.cpp + imgui_impl_win32.cpp + imgui_impl_dx9.cpp

example_win32_directx10/
DirectX10 example, Windows only.
= main.cpp + imgui_impl_win32.cpp + imgui_impl_dx10.cpp

example_win32_directx11/
DirectX11 example, Windows only.
= main.cpp + imgui_impl_win32.cpp + imgui_impl_dx11.cpp

example_win32_directx12/
DirectX12 example, Windows only.
= main.cpp + imgui_impl_win32.cpp + imgui_impl_dx12.cpp
This is quite long and tedious, because: DirectX12.

Miscellaneous

Building

Unfortunately nowadays it is still tedious to create and maintain portable build files using external libraries (the kind we're using here to create a window and render 3D triangles) without relying on third party software and build systems. For most examples here we choose to provide:

• Makefiles for Linux/OSX
• Batch files for Visual Studio 2008+
• A .sln project file for Visual Studio 2012+
• Xcode project files for the Apple examples Please let us know if they don't work with your setup! You can probably just import the imgui_impl_xxx.cpp/.h files into your own codebase or compile those directly with a command-line compiler.

If you are interested in using Cmake to build and links examples, see: https://github.com/ocornut/imgui/pull/1713 and https://github.com/ocornut/imgui/pull/3027

About mouse cursor latency

Dear ImGui has no particular extra lag for most behaviors, e.g. the last value passed to 'io.AddMousePosEvent()' before NewFrame() will result in windows being moved to the right spot at the time of EndFrame()/Render(). At 60 FPS your experience should be pleasant.

However, consider that OS mouse cursors are typically drawn through a very specific hardware accelerated path and will feel smoother than the majority of contents rendered via regular graphics API (including, but not limited to Dear ImGui windows). Because UI rendering and interaction happens on the same plane as the mouse, that disconnect may be jarring to particularly sensitive users. You may experiment with enabling the io.MouseDrawCursor flag to request Dear ImGui to draw a mouse cursor using the regular graphics API, to help you visualize the difference between a "hardware" cursor and a regularly rendered software cursor. However, rendering a mouse cursor at 60 FPS will feel sluggish so you likely won't want to enable that at all times. It might be beneficial for the user experience to switch to a software rendered cursor only when an interactive drag is in progress.

Note that some setup or GPU drivers are likely to be causing extra display lag depending on their settings. If you feel that dragging windows feels laggy and you are not sure what the cause is: try to build a simple drawing a flat 2D shape directly under the mouse cursor!