{"slug": "fltk", "name": "FLTK", "category": "dev-libs", "category_name": "Libraries and frameworks", "description": "", "recommenders": 6, "commenters": 10, "warners": 1, "score": 4.47, "rising": -1.96, "first": "2025-11-05", "latest": "2026-10-01", "why": "FLTK was a pleasure to use (for uncomplicated software)", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 6, "neutral": 3, "compare": 1, "warn": 1}, "spark": [2, 0, 1, 0, 3, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "FLTK was a pleasure to use (for uncomplicated software)", "kind": "", "icon": true, "domain": "fltk.org", "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://www.fltk.org", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["FLTK"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 759641312, "item_id": 47477582, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47477582", "by": "hliyan", "date": "2026-03-22", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "at first glance, seems simpler", "excerpt": "I've recently discovered FLTK: https://www.fltk.org/doc-1.4/intro.html Haven't used Qt in a while, but at first glance, seems simpler: https://github.com/fltk/fltk/blob/master/examples/menubar-add.cxx", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Windows native app development is a mess"}, {"id": 755391666, "item_id": 47211979, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47211979", "by": "irq-1", "date": "2026-03-01", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Not native, but small, dependable and cross-platform.", "excerpt": "Some other options. https://github.com/andlabs/libui > Simple and portable (but not inflexible) GUI library in C that uses the native GUI technologies of each platform it supports. Missing a lot of desktop features and abandoned. https://wxwidgets.org/ > wxWidgets is a C++ library that lets developers create applications for Windows, macOS, Linux and other platforms with a single code base. https://github.com/fltk/fl", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "PureBasic: The Quiet Survivor"}, {"id": 748868498, "item_id": 46804281, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46804281", "by": "simoncion", "date": "2026-01-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "QT, GTK, FLTK, and friends handle scaling correctly", "excerpt": "> The problem is as soon as you run something new and it doesn't scale properly in X11... QT, GTK, FLTK, and friends handle scaling correctly. Perhaps in the future there will be a Wayland-only GUI library, but I'm not sure why anyone would bother when there exist Wayland backends for the major existing ones. > Pipewire I don't use it. I use JACK2 with a PulseAudio fallback for Steam games and other programs that don", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux"}, {"id": 733846961, "item_id": 45865435, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45865435", "by": "lproven", "date": "2025-11-09", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "FLTK dropped a new version last year after a gap of 13 years", "excerpt": "SGI's Forms programming toolkit led to both XForms: http://xforms-toolkit.org/doc/xforms_1.html#Preface (The original basis of the Xfce desktop -- \"XF\" stood for XForms.) And the FLTK toolkit: https://www.fltk.org/doc-1.1/intro.html FLTK dropped a new version last year after a gap of 13 years, which I wrote about: https://www.theregister.com/2024/11/26/fltk_14_released/", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "IRIX Introduction"}, {"id": 733232896, "item_id": 45827056, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45827056", "by": "axus", "date": "2025-11-05", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "FLTK was a pleasure to use (for uncomplicated software)", "excerpt": "FLTK was a pleasure to use (for uncomplicated software). They also put the latest code on Github: https://github.com/fltk/fltk", "context": "", "use_case": "Simple GUI apps", "switched_from": "", "story": "Dillo, a multi-platform graphical web browser"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 733413713, "item_id": 45838357, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45838357", "by": "rodarima", "date": "2025-11-06", "stance": "warn", "quote": "The change from FLTK 1.3.X to 1.4.X breaks many things in Dillo.", "excerpt": "> I wrote about 3.1, 18 months ago Thanks for the article and for including all the references. We now adhere to https://semver.org/ as much as we can, where each of the three version numbers has a meaning, so it would be nice to include them all. I'll mention it in the next release (and probably add it to the changelog as well). > I wondered if you were in communication with any of those developers, and if you have ", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Dillo, a multi-platform graphical web browser"}]}], "who": [], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["custom note editor", "gui toolkit", "simple gui apps"], "compared": [{"slug": "qt", "name": "Qt", "co": 5, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45826266", "title": "Dillo, a multi-platform graphical web browser", "mentions": 3}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47475938", "title": "Windows native app development is a mess", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49913192", "title": "EDG C++ front-end goes public", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47646363", "title": "Modern Generic SVGA driver for Windows 3.1", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47210232", "title": "PureBasic: The Quiet Survivor", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46795864", "title": "Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {"neutral": 1, "recommend": 2, "warn": 1}, "2025-12": {"compare": 1}, "2026-01": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-02": {}, "2026-03": {"recommend": 3}, "2026-04": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {}, "2026-07": {}, "2026-08": {}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {"neutral": 1}}, "quotes": [{"id": 798662418, "item_id": 49916401, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49916401", "by": "badsectoracula", "date": "2026-10-01", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I did manage to get FLTK statically linked", "excerpt": "Well, Borland had the benefit of being in control of both compilers :-). C++ Builder even had Object Pascal compatible extensions to link against VCL (which was written in Pascal). You can already mix Free Pascal with C/C++ code if you use the same linker and libraries - i did manage to get FLTK statically linked with an initial backend for Lazarus in fact - this shot[0] shows a form and a few buttons from a self-con", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "EDG C++ front-end goes public"}, {"id": 762363121, "item_id": 47647695, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47647695", "by": "canpan", "date": "2026-04-05", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "a homemade FLTK based editor with just basic syntax coloring", "excerpt": "Things are slow, aren't they? I feel there was a lot of less lag in old operating systems and software. I use two editors now. VS Code as full IDE when I want to code heavily. And a homemade FLTK based editor with just basic syntax coloring for writing notes and doing quick things.", "context": "", "use_case": "Custom note editor", "switched_from": "", "story": "Modern Generic SVGA driver for Windows 3.1"}, {"id": 759672080, "item_id": 47479505, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47479505", "by": "lazypenguin", "date": "2026-03-22", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "", "excerpt": "FLTK is great at being fast and light, that\u2019s about it. It\u2019s kind of cumbersome to use but honestly does what it says on the tin. Highly recommend for smaller use cases but can\u2019t imagine using on a large project. I used the rust bindings which are well maintained.", "context": "", "use_case": "GUI toolkit", "switched_from": "", "story": "Windows native app development is a mess"}, {"id": 759641312, "item_id": 47477582, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47477582", "by": "hliyan", "date": "2026-03-22", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "at first glance, seems simpler", "excerpt": "I've recently discovered FLTK: https://www.fltk.org/doc-1.4/intro.html Haven't used Qt in a while, but at first glance, seems simpler: https://github.com/fltk/fltk/blob/master/examples/menubar-add.cxx", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Windows native app development is a mess"}, {"id": 755391666, "item_id": 47211979, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47211979", "by": "irq-1", "date": "2026-03-01", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Not native, but small, dependable and cross-platform.", "excerpt": "Some other options. https://github.com/andlabs/libui > Simple and portable (but not inflexible) GUI library in C that uses the native GUI technologies of each platform it supports. Missing a lot of desktop features and abandoned. https://wxwidgets.org/ > wxWidgets is a C++ library that lets developers create applications for Windows, macOS, Linux and other platforms with a single code base. https://github.com/fltk/fl", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "PureBasic: The Quiet Survivor"}, {"id": 748868498, "item_id": 46804281, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46804281", "by": "simoncion", "date": "2026-01-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "QT, GTK, FLTK, and friends handle scaling correctly", "excerpt": "> The problem is as soon as you run something new and it doesn't scale properly in X11... QT, GTK, FLTK, and friends handle scaling correctly. Perhaps in the future there will be a Wayland-only GUI library, but I'm not sure why anyone would bother when there exist Wayland backends for the major existing ones. > Pipewire I don't use it. I use JACK2 with a PulseAudio fallback for Steam games and other programs that don", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux"}, {"id": 741764849, "item_id": 46360303, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46360303", "by": "badsectoracula", "date": "2025-12-22", "stance": "compare", "quote": "FLTK's base widget class[0] is much smaller at around 500 lines of code", "excerpt": "FWIW it doesn't need to become 500k lines of code... or 13k in QWidget's case :-P. The file is large because it contains the full documentation in addition to the code but also in Qt is a QWidget can also be a (toplevel) window so it needs to support everything a window may want to support, including stuff like setting/getting title, maximize/minimize/etc events, etc. You can avoid this complexity in the base widget ", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Let's write a toy UI library"}, {"id": 734855377, "item_id": 45928461, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45928461", "by": "lproven", "date": "2025-11-14", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Since then it's got up to 1.4.4, and they're working on FLTK 1.5.", "excerpt": "Oh nice. I occasionally mention EDE in desktop roundups on El Reg. Glad it is not forgotten. It's based on FLTK, and although the effort to create FLTK 2.0 faltered and died a few years ago, last year there was a new point release, FLTK 1.4, the first in 13 years. I wrote about it almost exactly a year ago: https://www.theregister.com/2024/11/26/fltk_14_released/ (In researching that I discovered that apparently it's", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "EDE: Small and Fast Desktop Environment (2014)"}, {"id": 733846961, "item_id": 45865435, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45865435", "by": "lproven", "date": "2025-11-09", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "FLTK dropped a new version last year after a gap of 13 years", "excerpt": "SGI's Forms programming toolkit led to both XForms: http://xforms-toolkit.org/doc/xforms_1.html#Preface (The original basis of the Xfce desktop -- \"XF\" stood for XForms.) And the FLTK toolkit: https://www.fltk.org/doc-1.1/intro.html FLTK dropped a new version last year after a gap of 13 years, which I wrote about: https://www.theregister.com/2024/11/26/fltk_14_released/", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "IRIX Introduction"}, {"id": 733413713, "item_id": 45838357, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45838357", "by": "rodarima", "date": "2025-11-06", "stance": "warn", "quote": "The change from FLTK 1.3.X to 1.4.X breaks many things in Dillo.", "excerpt": "> I wrote about 3.1, 18 months ago Thanks for the article and for including all the references. We now adhere to https://semver.org/ as much as we can, where each of the three version numbers has a meaning, so it would be nice to include them all. I'll mention it in the next release (and probably add it to the changelog as well). > I wondered if you were in communication with any of those developers, and if you have ", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Dillo, a multi-platform graphical web browser"}, {"id": 733232896, "item_id": 45827056, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45827056", "by": "axus", "date": "2025-11-05", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "FLTK was a pleasure to use (for uncomplicated software)", "excerpt": "FLTK was a pleasure to use (for uncomplicated software). They also put the latest code on Github: https://github.com/fltk/fltk", "context": "", "use_case": "Simple GUI apps", "switched_from": "", "story": "Dillo, a multi-platform graphical web browser"}, {"id": 733232032, "item_id": 45827002, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45827002", "by": "gtk40", "date": "2025-11-05", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Nope, it uses https://www.fltk.org/", "excerpt": "Nope, it uses https://www.fltk.org/", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Dillo, a multi-platform graphical web browser"}]}