Overview

Welcome to the backends section, as stated multiple times in this docs page, CoshUI is backend-aagnostic which lets users render the same UI code in different game frameworks. In the current version 0.3.0, there are 4 backends for us to use. PygameBackend, RaylibBackend, ModernGLBackend (with GLFW and MGLW support), and PyOpenGLBackend (with GLFW support).

Pygame

For the PygameBackend, it takes in a pygame.Surface object as the parameter as pygame draws using surfaces. To invoke a PygameBackend, set this in your CoshUIRenderer:

# screen is the pygame.Surface
with CoshUIRenderer(PygameBackend(screen)):
    pass

To learn more about how Nodes are rendered in pygame or just want to learn deeply about how CoshUI wraps its draw calls, click here.

Raylib

For the RaylibBackend — unlike pygame — it draws on the active display, thus not needing to input a parameter. Which in more ways than one is much more helpful for migration. To invoke a RaylibBackend, set this in your CoshUIRenderer:

with CoshUIRenderer(RaylibBackend()):
    pass

To learn more about how Nodes are rendered in raylibpy or just want to learn deeply about how CoshUI wraps its draw calls, click here.

ModernGL

For the ModernGLBackend, it takes in a moderngl.Context object and a cui.Windower, since it is basically the raw graphics renderer, it becomes a little different from the backends before it that are frameworks. CoshUI supports 2 windowers for ModernGL, GLFW and moderngl-window. To create a ModernGLBackend, set this in CoshUIRenderer:

# This is set outside the loop so shader compiling is initialized only once
backend = cui.ModernGLBackend(context, cui.GLFW) 
# or 
self.backend = cui.ModernGLBackend(self.ctx, cui.MGLW) 

# Within the main render loop
with CoshUIRenderer(backend): # or self.backend
    pass

To learn more about how ModernGL deals with rendering Nodes and how different windowers works, click here.

PyOpenGL

For PyOpenGLBackend — similar to ModernGLBackend — it is a graphics renderer, which means it similarly takes in a windower, but differently, it doesn't need the current context since PyOpenGL automatically uses the active context. CoshUI supports only GLFW for PyOpenGL. To create a PyOpenGLBackend, set this in CoshUIRenderer:

# Again set outside the loop so shader compiling is initialized only once
backend = cui.PyOpenGLBackend(cui.GLFW) 

# Within the main render loop
with CoshUIRenderer(backend):
    pass

To lear more deeply about how PyOpenGL renders Nodes or how the windowers work, click here.