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Hexa.NET.ImGui

Welcome to Hexa.NET.ImGui! This custom wrapper is designed to be a high-performance, API-compatible alternative to ImGuiNET, offering enhanced speed, additional functionality, and comprehensive access to ImGui's internal structures. With optimizations that bring near C performance and significantly reduced startup times, Hexa.NET.ImGui provides the best of both worlds: the power of C and the productivity of C#.

The code generator in use HexaGen.

Features

  • Comprehensive Wrapper: Integrates the core Dear ImGui library along with essential addons such as ImGuizmo, ImNodes, and ImPlot.
  • Multi Viewport Support: Enables seamless multi-viewport rendering for advanced UI scenarios.
  • Active Development: Regular updates and improvements to ensure compatibility with the latest Dear ImGui features and .NET advancements.
  • Trustworthy Builds: Native libraries are built using GitHub Actions for added trustworthiness and can be found here.
  • Open Source: The source code for the native libraries is public and can be reviewed by anyone.
  • Access to Internals: Allows users to access Dear ImGui internals for advanced customization and functionality.
  • Drop in replacement for ImGuiNET Adapt to the library with minimal effort by simply changing the namespace.
  • High performance Using a static VTable, all API calls are faster and startup time is reduced.
  • Optimized String Handling: Overloads that bypass UTF-8 encoding and avoid allocations.

Packages

Hexa.NET.ImGui is divided into four different packages to provide modularity and flexibility. You can choose to install only the packages you need:

Getting Started

To get started with Hexa.NET.ImGui, follow these steps:

  1. Install the NuGet packages:

    For the core library:

    dotnet add package Hexa.NET.ImGui

    For ImGuizmo addon:

    dotnet add package Hexa.NET.ImGuizmo

    For ImNodes addon:

    dotnet add package Hexa.NET.ImNodes

    For ImPlot addon:

    dotnet add package Hexa.NET.ImPlot
  2. Initialize the library in your project:

    using Hexa.NET.ImGui;
    // Your initialization code here
  3. Explore the demos to see the library in action.

Usage Example

For a comprehensive example of how to use the library, refer to the ExampleD3D11 project.

Setup Guide

For details on how to set up the library, check the ImGuiManager.cs file in the ExampleD3D11 project.

Using the Flexible and Optimized API

Hexa.NET.ImGui supports both safe and unsafe API calls, along with optimized string handling to bypass UTF-8 encoding and avoid allocations. Here are some examples:

  1. Safe API Call:
ImGui.Text("A normal C# string");
  1. Unsafe API Call:
unsafe
{
    byte* pText = (byte*)Marshal.StringToHGlobalAnsi("A string from an unsafe pointer").ToPointer();
    ImGui.Text(pText);
    Marshal.FreeHGlobal((IntPtr)pText);
}
  1. Optimized String Handling:
ImGui.Text("A C# string"u8);

This overload bypasses UTF-8 encoding and avoids allocations, providing a highly optimized way to render text.

Projects Using Hexa.NET.ImGui

HexaEngine

HexaEngine Editor

Screenshots

Main Interface

Screenshot 2023-05-23 163105

Multi Viewport Support

Screenshot 2023-07-07 153108

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! If you have ideas for improvements or new features, feel free to submit a pull request or open an issue.

Credits

ImGui.NET for the JSON parsing of the cimgui metadata.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for more details.