Getting Started

In this tutorial, we use C++ as the host programming language. We also support other programming languages like Rust or JavaScript.

You will need a development environment that can compile C++20, CMake 3.21, and we recommend Ninja for -GNinja. We don't provide binaries of Slint yet, so we will use the CMake integration that will automatically build the tools and library from source. Since it's implemented in the Rust programming language, this means that you also need to install a Rust compiler (1.70 or newer). You can easily install a Rust compiler following the instruction from the Rust website. We're going to use cmake's builtin FetchContent module to fetch the source code of Slint.

In a new directory, we create a new CMakeLists.txt file.

# CMakeLists.txt
cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.21)
project(memory LANGUAGES CXX)

include(FetchContent)
FetchContent_Declare(
    Slint
    GIT_REPOSITORY https://github.com/slint-ui/slint.git
    # `release/1` will auto-upgrade to the latest Slint >= 1.0.0 and < 2.0.0
    # `release/1.0` will auto-upgrade to the latest Slint >= 1.0.0 and < 1.1.0
    GIT_TAG release/1
    SOURCE_SUBDIR api/cpp
)
FetchContent_MakeAvailable(Slint)

add_executable(memory_game main.cpp)
target_link_libraries(memory_game PRIVATE Slint::Slint)
slint_target_sources(memory_game memory.slint)
# On Windows, copy the Slint DLL next to the application binary so that it's found.
if (WIN32)
    add_custom_command(TARGET memory_game POST_BUILD COMMAND ${CMAKE_COMMAND} -E copy $<TARGET_RUNTIME_DLLS:memory_game> $<TARGET_FILE_DIR:memory_game> COMMAND_EXPAND_LISTS)
endif()

This should look familiar to people familiar with CMake. We see that this CMakeLists.txt references a main.cpp, which we will add later, and it also has a line slint_target_sources(memory_game memory.slint), which is a Slint function used to add the memory.slint file to the target. We must then create, in the same directory, the memory.slint file. Let's just fill it with a hello world for now:

// memory.slint
export component MainWindow inherits Window {
    Text {
        text: "hello world";
        color: green;
    }
}

What's still missing is the main.cpp:

// main.cpp

#include "memory.h" // generated header from memory.slint

int main()
{
    auto main_window = MainWindow::create();
    main_window->run();
}

To recap, we now have a directory with a CMakeLists.txt, memory.slint and main.cpp.

We can now compile the program in a terminal:

cmake -GNinja .
cmake --build .

If you are on Linux or macOS, you can run the program:

./memory_game

and a window will appear with the green "Hello World" greeting.

If you are stepping through this tutorial on a Windows machine, you can run it with

memory_game

Screenshot of initial tutorial app showing Hello World

Feel free to use your favorite IDE for this purpose, or use out-of-tree build, or Ninja, ... We just keep it simple here for the purpose of this blog.

Note: When configuring with CMake, the FetchContent module will fetch the source code of Slint via git. this may take some time. When building for the first time, the first thing that need to be build is the Slint runtime and compiler, this can take a few minutes.

Slint Memory Game Tutorial (C++)

Getting Started