draft: Migrate Dissent to UI files by DodoLeDev · Pull Request #372 · diamondburned/dissent

DodoLeDev · 2025-11-16T15:50:28Z

Hi everyone!
It's been a long time, but I resumed my work on porting the app to Gtk.Builder

This would bring various advantages, especially for design: The static interface organization (pieces of the UI that will not be dynamically generated) can be crafted and edited through a UI designer app: Cambalache

But what it means, technically?

It means that the code has been severely simplified! Just look at the login component file

The way to use UI elements has changed, too:

Instead of manually creating elements:

// ...
item := gtk.NewLabel("Label")
item.SetXAlign(0)
// ...
revealer := gtk.NewRevealer()
revealer.SetTransitionType(gtk.RevealerTransitionTypeSlideDown)
revealer.SetRevealChild(false)
// ...
button = gtk.NewButtonWithLabel("Button")
button.AddCSSClass("suggested-action")
button.AddCSSClass("css-button")
button.SetHExpand(true)

You'll do this instead:

You design the architecture with Cambalache

Tip

If you've just created the file, you'd need to add it to the gresource index (/uifiles/uifiles.gresource.xml):

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
<gresources>
 <gresource prefix="/so/libdb/dissent">
   ...
   <file preprocess="xml-stripblanks">your_new_file.ui</file>
 </gresource>
</gresources>

You assign names to objects that need to be accessed through the program logic

Tip

Conventionnally, the root object is named rootContent

You create the UiFile object, and access its objects:

import (
    ...
    // Import the required module
    "libdb.so/dissent/internal/gresources"
)

// Create the UiFile object
uiFile := gresources.New("your_new_file.ui")

// Get the root object (you'll need to cast it to the expected gtk.Widget)
rootObject := uiFile.GetRoot().(*adw.ToolbarView)

// Get a specific object by its name
namedObject := uiFile.GetComponent("ProfilePicture").(*gtk.Image)

// Edit it
namedObject.SetFile("/another/custom/path.jpg")

What's also included in this PR

As a PoC, I have migrated and redesigned the login page, to make it more GNOME-ish (opinionated choice, I know... 😬)

Capture.video.du.2025-11-16.16-10-16.mp4

What do you think?

+ Revamped login page

DodoLeDev · 2025-11-16T15:56:07Z

Some notes

The adw.ToggleGroup, used in the login page has landed in Libadwaita 1.7, which is not usable through the gotk4-adwaita go package (yet).

For now, the compilation is failing because I compile the 1.7 branch of this package locally during build

network

DodoLeDev · 2025-11-16T23:46:12Z

+
+func LoadStyles(cssFile string) error {
+	display := gdk.DisplayGetDefault()
+	if display == nil {
+		return errors.New("Unable to apply " + cssFile + " : Could not get default display")
+	}
+	provider := gtk.NewCSSProvider()
+	provider.LoadFromResource(resourcePath + "/" + cssFile)
+
+	gtk.StyleContextAddProviderForDisplay(display, provider, uint(gtk.STYLE_PROVIDER_PRIORITY_APPLICATION))
+	return nil
+}


This part of the gresources package could be moved to your CSSUtil subpackage, with the help of GoTKit!3 (for the GResource support)

DodoLeDev · 2025-11-16T23:46:41Z

+/* dimensions.go */
+/* Use of CSS Variables makes migration impossible */


This CSS fragment cannot be moved to styles.css because of CSS Templating (from cssutil), until GoTKit!3 (for the CSS Template support that you provide) got merged

diamondburned · 2025-11-17T17:50:11Z

This so far looks great to me; thank you for the work!

Dissent utilizes onlineimage a lot which has a lot of helpers for fetching images from HTTPS URLs asynchronously with graceful error handling. Do you know how well this will play with the XML UI files? Since we can't use subclassing, this may complicate the Builder logic quite a bit.

This goes for the embed viewer too, especially when GTK's video player is broken for streaming files (and therefore downloading in general) and doesn't implement GIF rendering at all. Could we maybe look to migrate some of these to #356 or some other component libraries as well?

diamondburned · 2025-11-17T17:52:33Z

Also the new UI designs for the login page and the profile viewer look awesome! I've been meaning to do exactly that myself, so this is perfect.

DodoLeDev · 2025-11-17T21:41:56Z

Dissent utilizes onlineimage a lot which has a lot of helpers for fetching images from HTTPS URLs asynchronously with graceful error handling. Do you know how well this will play with the XML UI files?

The UI files are used to simplify the UI building where it can be simplified. If it adds up complexity, you can just leave a blank space, assign an id to the parent element and add the missing part from the code 😃

DodoLeDev · 2025-11-17T22:00:03Z

Also the new UI designs for the login page and the profile viewer look awesome! I've been meaning to do exactly that myself, so this is perfect.

More screens 🙃

When there is a Network problem (commit)	Using the integrated encryption method (commit)

diamondburned · 2025-11-17T22:07:22Z

Dissent utilizes onlineimage a lot which has a lot of helpers for fetching images from HTTPS URLs asynchronously with graceful error handling. Do you know how well this will play with the XML UI files?

The UI files are used to simplify the UI building where it can be simplified. If it adds up complexity, you can just leave a blank space, assign an id to the parent element and add the missing part from the code 😃

Right, this is mostly about this PR and how it's going to handle onlineimage components, since I noticed it primarily uses gtk.Images.

If the PR keeps the onlineimage and embed components as it is right now, then I'm happy with it.

DodoLeDev · 2025-11-18T18:04:10Z

Okay the Quick Switcher has been revamped!

It now features the guilds in an horizontal line!

Search with servers	Idle screen	Direct messages

⚠️ Note that this guild array is more difficult to reach with keyboard than the channels/DM list

75% of the time I've spent on this work was about keeping the keyboard accessibility as it was, so it should be as easy to use as before.

However I had a hard time trying to understand the quickswitcher code, so this commit is still a bit messy...

DodoLeDev · 2025-11-18T18:06:15Z

+// TODO : ABSOLUTE MESS TO REFACTOR
+type channelIndexItem interface {
+	String() string
+	ChannelID() discord.ChannelID
 	Row(context.Context) *gtk.ListBoxRow
+}
+type guildIndexItem interface {
 	String() string
+	GuildID() discord.GuildID
+	QSItem(context.Context) *gtk.Button
 }

-type indexItems []indexItem
+type guildIndexItems []guildIndexItem
+type channelIndexItems []channelIndexItem
+
+func (its guildIndexItems) String(i int) string { return its[i].String() }
+func (its guildIndexItems) Len() int            { return len(its) }
+
+func (its channelIndexItems) String(i int) string { return its[i].String() }
+func (its channelIndexItems) Len() int            { return len(its) }

-func (its indexItems) String(i int) string { return its[i].String() }
-func (its indexItems) Len() int            { return len(its) }
+// ========================


This part of the code can be improved I guess...

we may want to fill it with cool things, right?)

DodoLeDev · 2025-11-18T18:41:58Z

For the craziest of you, guys, here's a nightly build:
dissent_nighly_202511182.zip

It has been compressed twice in order to contains more than 100Mb in only 25Mb (the actual limit of GitHub)

DodoLeDev · 2026-01-03T21:46:47Z

New feature coming in this MR: Tabs overview

Useful for mobile navigation and streamlines with what have been seen in other libadwaita apps

Some adjustments for mobile users:

No tab bar
Only tab icon
Creating a new tab from the overview automatically toggles the sidebar (= 1 click saved)

@diamondburned I've seen that you wanted to use the AdwTabOverview by merging the sidebar into the AdwTabPage [1]

Well, my implementation does not requires that (for now at least).

DodoLeDev · 2026-07-03T14:00:47Z

Some news about this port: I have revamped the sidebar! It removes the buttons in the header bar and make everything more mobile-friendly! The description of the channel is also partially visible in the header, and the message summaries are more readable thanks to all the space available in the sidebar:

diamondburned · 2026-07-05T22:56:02Z

This looks really good!

DodoLeDev · 2026-07-06T08:21:41Z

The changes are now too big for an easy merge, so there will be a phase where I will resolve all the various conflicts, fix the translations, add comments,...

And first of all, I think I will need your help to know if the coding style is compliant with what you expect, because once merged, I will be less active in this project I guess

DodoLeDev · 2026-07-06T08:24:01Z

New sidebar feature: recipients list for DM and GroupDM

draft: Attempting to migrate Dissent to UI files

1b550ee

+ Revamped login page

DodoLeDev added 4 commits November 16, 2025 18:14

feat: Redesigned the unlock workflow

892f488

feat: Added a clearer greeter screen when the error is caused by the

02e7895

network

hotfix: GreetNetworkError() called with invalid params

a575b42

feat: Global CSS is now loaded from a file

4dc16a2

DodoLeDev commented Nov 16, 2025

View reviewed changes

DodoLeDev mentioned this pull request Nov 16, 2025

feat: Add public gtk.CSSProvider capabilities + GResource support diamondburned/gotkit#3

Merged

DodoLeDev added 3 commits November 18, 2025 11:45

feat: Using the (unpublished) new ApplyResourceCSS function from cssutil

ace88a5

feat: Migrated the sidebar to UI files

3eef0b4

feat: Migrated (+ revamped) QuickSwitcher to UI files

52beb4f

DodoLeDev commented Nov 18, 2025

View reviewed changes

feat: Added keyboard shortcuts (cuz now that we have a Shortcuts window,

0185d95

we may want to fill it with cool things, right?)

		/* dimensions.go */
		/* Use of CSS Variables makes migration impossible */

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DodoLeDev commented Nov 16, 2025

But what it means, technically?

The way to use UI elements has changed, too:

What's also included in this PR

Uh oh!

DodoLeDev commented Nov 16, 2025

Some notes

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diamondburned commented Nov 17, 2025

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DodoLeDev commented Nov 17, 2025

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diamondburned commented Nov 17, 2025

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DodoLeDev commented Nov 18, 2025

Okay the Quick Switcher has been revamped!

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DodoLeDev commented Nov 18, 2025

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DodoLeDev commented Jan 3, 2026 • edited Loading Uh oh! There was an error while loading. Please reload this page.

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New feature coming in this MR: Tabs overview

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DodoLeDev commented Jul 3, 2026

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diamondburned commented Jul 5, 2026

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DodoLeDev commented Jul 6, 2026

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