Pax

Pax is a cross-platform rendering engine & Rust framework for interactive graphics, animations, and GUIs.

Pax extends the Rust programming language with a syntax for declarative component-based graphical content and behavior. Pax programs compile through Rust into lightweight native app executables or WebAssembly-powered Web apps with a <100kB base footprint and up to 120FPS rendering.

As of September 2022, Pax is being developed in the open, in alpha preview.

Example

Following is a simple Pax component called IncrementMe:

//increment-me.rs

use pax::*;
use pax_std::{Text};
use pax_std::forms::{Button, ArgsButtonSubmit};
use pax_std::layout::{Stacker};

#[pax(
  <Stacker cells=2>
    <Text>{"I have been clicked " + self.num_clicks + " times."}</Text>
    <Button @submit=self.increment>"Increment me!"</Button>
  </Stacker>
)] 
pub struct IncrementMe {
  pub num_clicks: Property<i64>
}
impl IncrementMe {
  pub async fn increment(&self, args: ArgsButtonSubmit) {
    let old_num_clicks = self.num_clicks.get();
    self.num_clicks.set(old_num_clicks + 1);
  }
}

Any Pax component like the example above may be included inside other Pax components, or may be mounted as the root of a stand-alone app.

See a more thorough and running example in the docs.

Docs

Read more in The Pax Docs

Getting Started

Refer to the guide for getting started in the Pax docs.

Current status & support

Pax is in alpha-preview and is not yet viable for building apps — read the latest status.

End-to-end:

• Syntax design ✅
• Parser ✅
• Compiler front-end ❌ WIP
• Compiler back-end ✅
• Rendering engine ✅
• Cross-platform chassis ✅
• Browser runtime ✅
• macOS runtime ✅

Support matrix:

License

© 2022 The Pax Foundation [[email protected]].

This project is licensed under either of:

• MIT license
• Apache 2.0 License

at your option.

Development

Architectural Reference

Optional environment setup, web chassis

• Install wasm-opt via binaryen:

  brew install binaryen

• Install 'wasm-pack' via:

   curl https://rustwasm.github.io/wasm-pack/installer/init.sh -sSf | sh 

• Install node: https://nodejs.org/en/download/

• Install yarn:

  # if necessary: sudo chown -R yourusername /usr/local/lib/node_modules 
  npm i --global yarn

Optional environment setup, macOS chassis

• Install xcode, command line utils

Running Development Environment

First, refer to the latest project status

The current leading edge of development is in the compiler —

cd pax-compiler
./run-example.sh

To run pax-example's parser binary and print its output to stdout:

cd pax-example
cargo build --bin=parser --features=parser

To run a full, compiled Pax example you must check out an older branch and run the demo there.

git checkout jabberwocky-demo
./run.sh # or ./run-web.sh

To initialize the docs submodule, for super-grep powers:

git submodule update --init --recursive

As needed, review the git submodule docs.