Writing a Multi-platform GUI App in Rust with Makepad + Robius
summary
A Rust-only stack builds a real Matrix chat client called Rorowicks using Makepad 1.0 for UI and Robius platform crates for system APIs; the app runs on macOS, iOS and Android with adaptive layouts, hits ~120 FPS in demanding views, and required about 18 months of framework work to get feature parity. Demoed features that actually work: infinite scroll timeline, dockable side-by-side rooms, long‑press gesture handling, geolocation lookup and opening Apple Maps.
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chapters (13)
- 0:00Makepad and Robius intro
- 1:06Project goals
- 5:00Framework architecture
- 8:51Roborick Matrix demo
- 13:06Multi-platform challenges
- 15:34Makepad code structure
- 17:18Simple UI views
- 23:39Complex UI composition
- 25:43Widget interactions
- 26:49Native gestures
- 30:19Project status
- 32:44Key takeaways
- 33:53Q&A
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