Is this project still active?

[thefotolander]

I'm very interested on a Blender-like UI toolkit as a library for future app development, A lot of people could benefit from the awesome Blender UI paradigm.

Just wanting to know if this project is still under development.

[kilon]

Hi , yes Ephestos is in development but because I do it in my free time as you can imagine it moves rather slowly. Ephestos utilises its own GUI API called "Morpheas" which is a very diffirent structure from Blender GUI. My emphasis is simplicity and customisability. In order to achieve that I create an interface that is based on the composition of simple elements together to form more complex GUI elements. Ephestos already work as a blender addon and inside blender but because all I do is use OpenGL it could as easily operate outside Blender. Curently I fight with some bad performance , my code is slow and I have not figured why yet. If I can solve this problem and design a few widget it should have a release in the next year or so library wise (because you could use Ephestos as a python library ). But yeah the project is ambitious and in no means planed to be finished in a few months. It will probably take years if not centuries :D

The GUI API is already ready at foundation level the only thing left is to design more complex widgets and of course solve the performance problems.

[thefotolander]

Excellent! thanks for the thorough response. I'm currently learning C++ and I'm interested in a Blender-esque UI framework for some projects I have planed (kinda far into the future as well), so something that can render an OpenGL UI like blender's, fast, light and easy to use would be ideal to me. I also researched the Blender UI but it seems it's pretty tied up to the core functionality, which is a bummer if you want to use it for other projects.

I'll keep watching your project and start using it when I get some time off studying, thanks a lot! :)

[kilon]

The problem with Blender GUI is that is monolithic , which means it does not really allow you to customise anything. The GUI is basically C/C++ that is then wrapped for python. You can use the GUI elements and design your own GUI with them, but you cannot modify those elements in anyway hence why I bother creating my own GUI API.

Ephestos also is all about minimalism , I truly try to create something that is very easy to learn and only offers a limited set of features instead of gazillion things. I want to make the experience of making code very pleasant and easy for a beginner coder. Thats the central goal of my project.

I do believe in the power of using very simple elements to design more complex ones. The same way a painter uses just a extremely simple tool , a pencil to create awesome art. That approach is something that I am very interested in exploring and I think the code so far accomplishes that.

I am also interested when I am happy with my code to attrackt more developers to the project. I hope that users of Ephestos will become its developers so that Ephestos become a self feeding tool.

Yes all I am really using is Opengl. Also I see you are a web developer so you may be interested to know that I am exploring the idea of bring Ephestos to the web as well. Webgl looks very promising and certainly javascript is the future , so I am still trying to figure out a proper way to bring blender to the browser.So there is a lot of potential here. Learning C++ is definetly a wise move if you really want to dive into Blender source.

The idea of Ephestos is also to bring diffirent projects together, I dont care just to bring developers to my project I also care to utilise existing projects for Ephestos. That means one does not have to code for Ephestos to be useful for it. External libraries play a crucial role , so if you have any project that makes coding fun and easy I more than welcome it. Its afterall just python that I am using, nothing special.

I believe that nothing should go to waste.

[thefotolander]

Awesome!

I will indeed take a look at your toolkit as soon as I can. very interesting concepts there, I'm also a UI designer, so if you want me I can contribute with UX advice and even actual designs for base widgets and the like. You can get to me at jonathan aT poifox [dot] com :)

I also work at p3d where we use WebGL to show in-browser live 3D model previews, so I'm sure we could also greatly benefit from Ephestos!

Cheers!

[kilon]

We definetly have common interest , I do believe sites like p3d are extremely important. As I said , I am not looking into ways to lure people into my project what I am looking for is for people already coding projects similar to mine how we can unite our code so we minimize reinvention of the wheel. This is why I try to depend as much as possible on third party code, I think there is execellent effort out there towards similar direction. The problem I see is that it does not get the attention it deserves because its scattered.

So yes I think we need to keep in contact and cooperate as much as we can towards our command goals. I love to hear your ideas about the direction you want to go when you have more time and what you aim for with your coding.