Exercise: Modules for a GUI Library

In this exercise, you will reorganize a small GUI Library implementation. This library defines a Widget trait and a few implementations of that trait, as well as a main function.

It is typical to put each type or set of closely-related types into its own module, so each widget type should get its own module.

Cargo Setup

The Rust playground only supports one file, so you will need to make a Cargo project on your local filesystem:

cargo init gui-modules
cd gui-modules
cargo run

Edit the resulting src/main.rs to add mod statements, and add additional files in the src directory.

Source

Here’s the single-module implementation of the GUI library:

pub trait Widget {
    /// Natural width of `self`.
    fn width(&self) -> usize;

    /// Draw the widget into a buffer.
    fn draw_into(&self, buffer: &mut dyn std::fmt::Write);

    /// Draw the widget on standard output.
    fn draw(&self) {
        let mut buffer = String::new();
        self.draw_into(&mut buffer);
        println!("{buffer}");
    }
}

pub struct Label {
    label: String,
}

impl Label {
    fn new(label: &str) -> Label {
        Label { label: label.to_owned() }
    }
}

pub struct Button {
    label: Label,
}

impl Button {
    fn new(label: &str) -> Button {
        Button { label: Label::new(label) }
    }
}

pub struct Window {
    title: String,
    widgets: Vec<Box<dyn Widget>>,
}

impl Window {
    fn new(title: &str) -> Window {
        Window { title: title.to_owned(), widgets: Vec::new() }
    }

    fn add_widget(&mut self, widget: Box<dyn Widget>) {
        self.widgets.push(widget);
    }

    fn inner_width(&self) -> usize {
        std::cmp::max(
            self.title.chars().count(),
            self.widgets.iter().map(|w| w.width()).max().unwrap_or(0),
        )
    }
}

impl Widget for Window {
    fn width(&self) -> usize {
        // Add 4 paddings for borders
        self.inner_width() + 4
    }

    fn draw_into(&self, buffer: &mut dyn std::fmt::Write) {
        let mut inner = String::new();
        for widget in &self.widgets {
            widget.draw_into(&mut inner);
        }

        let inner_width = self.inner_width();

        // TODO: Change draw_into to return Result<(), std::fmt::Error>. Then use the
        // ?-operator here instead of .unwrap().
        writeln!(buffer, "+-{:-<inner_width$}-+", "").unwrap();
        writeln!(buffer, "| {:^inner_width$} |", &self.title).unwrap();
        writeln!(buffer, "+={:=<inner_width$}=+", "").unwrap();
        for line in inner.lines() {
            writeln!(buffer, "| {:inner_width$} |", line).unwrap();
        }
        writeln!(buffer, "+-{:-<inner_width$}-+", "").unwrap();
    }
}

impl Widget for Button {
    fn width(&self) -> usize {
        self.label.width() + 8 // add a bit of padding
    }

    fn draw_into(&self, buffer: &mut dyn std::fmt::Write) {
        let width = self.width();
        let mut label = String::new();
        self.label.draw_into(&mut label);

        writeln!(buffer, "+{:-<width$}+", "").unwrap();
        for line in label.lines() {
            writeln!(buffer, "|{:^width$}|", &line).unwrap();
        }
        writeln!(buffer, "+{:-<width$}+", "").unwrap();
    }
}

impl Widget for Label {
    fn width(&self) -> usize {
        self.label.lines().map(|line| line.chars().count()).max().unwrap_or(0)
    }

    fn draw_into(&self, buffer: &mut dyn std::fmt::Write) {
        writeln!(buffer, "{}", &self.label).unwrap();
    }
}

fn main() {
    let mut window = Window::new("Rust GUI Demo 1.23");
    window.add_widget(Box::new(Label::new("This is a small text GUI demo.")));
    window.add_widget(Box::new(Button::new("Click me!")));
    window.draw();
}