V binding generator for Dear ImGui

Project portfolio

For a fresh-clone setup and a one-command GLFW/Vulkan demo, see QUICKSTART.md.

This is an automated process to generate imgui.v and implot.v

• generate C for imgui using cimgui
• generate C for implot using cimplot
• v translate C to V
• cleanup_imgui.perl and cleanup_implot.perl to fix some errors

Upstream variants

This repository supports both official Dear ImGui lines:

• master is the default docking build, generated from cimgui's docking_inter branch. It includes docking and multi-viewport support while retaining the normal Dear ImGui API.
• The standard branch is generated from cimgui's master branch for users who want to track Dear ImGui's smaller standard line exactly.

Both currently track Dear ImGui 1.92.9b. The b is an upstream patch-level suffix shared by the release; it does not identify the docking variant. Check UPSTREAM_VARIANT in a checkout to see which line its generated bindings and native sources use. Do not mix a generated binding from one line with a native library built from the other.

Applications can identify and configure the selected line without referring to docking-only generated symbols:

println('Dear ImGui variant: ${imgui.upstream_variant}')
if imgui.configure_docking(true) {
	imgui.create_main_dockspace()
}
imgui.configure_platform_viewports(true)
// After rendering the main viewport:
imgui.render_platform_viewports()

The configuration functions return false on the standard branch. Dockspace and secondary-viewport rendering helpers become safe no-ops there.

Dependencies

v install antono2.vulkan
v install antono2.glfw

Install

v install antono2.imgui
# Build libvimgui for this machine (without regenerating V bindings)
cd ~/.vmodules/antono2/imgui
v run build_vimgui.vsh

Native-library choices

The default uses a shared libvimgui and the system GLFW development package:

v run build_vimgui.vsh --linkage shared --glfw system

To build a static archive and select it from V:

v run build_vimgui.vsh --linkage static --glfw system
v -d imgui_static run your_app.v

GLFW can instead be downloaded at a chosen release tag. This is useful for a reproducible application bundle:

v run build_vimgui.vsh --linkage shared --glfw bundled --glfw-version 3.4

VIMGUI_LINKAGE, VIMGUI_GLFW_PROVIDER, and VIMGUI_GLFW_VERSION provide the same choices as environment variables. System GLFW is preferable for distro packages. Bundled GLFW is preferable when shipping a matching libglfw.so.3 beside libvimgui.so; use an $ORIGIN runtime path in the application package.

Vulkan loader ownership

libvimgui is built with IMGUI_IMPL_VULKAN_NO_PROTOTYPES and intentionally does not link directly to libvulkan. A Volk-based application must initialize in this order:

1. Call volkInitialize() before GLFW performs Vulkan discovery.
2. Create the Vulkan instance and call volkLoadInstance(instance).
3. Immediately call imgui.impl_vulkan.load_functions(...) with a callback backed by vkGetInstanceProcAddr.
4. Only then call helpers such as select_physical_device, select_queue_family_index, or vkinit.

Calling an ImGui Vulkan helper before step 3 can produce an early segmentation fault with little or no stack trace. Do not combine the directly linked Vulkan prototype path with Volk's global dispatch table in the same application.

Examples

Using GLFW and Dear ImGui antono2/v_imgui_examples

Release archives containing the already compiled demo and its runtime libraries provide a low-friction validation path. The archive name identifies the upstream line: v-imgui-demo-docking-ubuntu24-amd64.zip supports docking and platform viewports, while v-imgui-demo-standard-ubuntu24-amd64.zip retains normal independent floating windows. Each archive also contains VARIANT.txt.

Compiling the generated ImGui and ImPlot V bindings can currently require about 11 GiB of memory and therefore uses V's -no-memory-limit option. scripts/run_demo.sh remains the normal source/developer path; prebuilding the demo is not a requirement for every later release.

Release binaries are built for Ubuntu 24.04 x86_64 and Windows 10/11 x64. Native-library linkage and the GLFW provider remain build-time choices for developers; they do not need to multiply the end-user demo downloads.

Generate

# Go to the installed antono2/imgui module
./generate_v.sh

generate_v.sh regenerates both V bindings from the generated C API committed by the pinned cimgui/cimplot revisions, then builds libvimgui. It therefore does not require LuaJIT for a normal upstream refresh. Pass --regenerate-c only when intentionally rerunning the upstream Lua generators; that advanced mode requires LuaJIT. v generate.vsh is retained as a compatibility entry point and delegates to the same canonical script.

Maintainers can update either line reproducibly with:

./scripts/update_upstream.sh docking
# On the standard branch:
./scripts/update_upstream.sh standard

To only rebuild the native library after a system upgrade or on an older Linux distribution, run v run build_vimgui.vsh. The Bash build_vimgui.sh helper remains available as a bootstrap fallback on Unix-like machines where V is not yet in PATH.

Thanks

Thank you @ryoskzypu - from #regex on libera.chat - for loving perl and helping people out.