I have a question about Doodle. What is the main d...

# doodle

[ShellWen 颉文]

I have a question about Doodle. What is the main difference between it and Compose?

Sorry for my poor English.

[Nick]

The main difference is that Compose is more declarative and relies on a compiler plugin to make recomposition work when properties change.

Doodle currently only targets web and desktop; but it allows you to share more code between them. Compose has plans for a canvas based web version that would make reuse work. But that is expected to have a larger bundle size and render the entire app to canvas, so accessibility and SEO would be compromised.

Doodle’s web version renders to the DOM, so these are not issues.

Beyond that, Doodle makes vector rendering really easy. And it actually uses the same underlying library for desktop (skiko) that Compose does.

Check out the docs and tutorials to get a better understanding .

[ShellWen 颉文]

I prefer Doodle to Compose, but Compose is an official project and the community support is far worse. Thanks for your answer.

[Nick]

Thanks for sharing this. Compose definitely has more support. But I’m committed to Doodle support and would love to get contributors as well to ensure that going forward.

Are you using Doodle or just thinking about it? What do you prefer about it? And would your decision to use it be easier if it were official?

[ayodele]

Me and my team prefer Doodle, we tried every Kotlin based web frameworks before making that decision. Because Doodle abstracts every Dom APIs including css, and it's HIGHLY customizable.

So we decided to write a compose like API (though we didn't use the compose lib from Google) on top of Doodle to demonstrate that to the company.
So far we've implemented Row Column Box and some Modifiers.

[ayodele]

My question is since doodle on desktop uses Skiko, do you plan to support iOS??
We've had this crazy idea to run a simple UI on iOS to see if it'll work.

[Nick]

Yes; I’d love to support iOS as well.

[Nick]

@ayodele is any of your work going to be open sourced?

[ayodele]

@Nick 💯 . We plan on that.

[Nick]

@ayodele curious how your team’s project is going. and whether you’ve made progress towards open sourcing any of it.

[ayodele]

Hey @Nick, sorry for replying late.
Well, our company was bought, so some of my teammates were laid off. That puts the project on hold for now, but hoping to pick it up January after the new structure has been finalized.

Hope to discuss with the new management, either to continue or I just take it over as a private project.

[ayodele]

Is there a roadmap for Doodle? And what's your plan with WASM?

[Nick]

hey @ayodele, sorry to hear about your team. i hope everyone lands on their feet with new gigs.

i shared a rough idea of focus areas for 0.10.0. but one area i’m also considering is improvements to desktop. support for things like OS menu bars or multiple windows etc. this is still pretty early thinking though. the plan is to support wasmJS first.

are there specific things you’d like to see in the next (or future) versions?