PicoGUI -- an open source portable and flexible GUI project

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(Last updated: Aug. 15, 2000)

PicoGUI is a small, portable client/server GUI designed to work on many types of hardware including handheld computers. Like the X Window System, it has a flexible client-server architecture. Unlike X, however, fonts, bitmaps, widgets, and anything else the application needs are built directly into the server. This sacrifices a small decrease in flexibility for an increase in speed and a large decrease in size.

Overview of the PicoGUI architecture

Widgets and layout engine are built in to the server, reducing the size of the libraries and executables
Client/server -- the connection between application and server, and even between server and input device can be established through TCP/IP for network-transparency
Modular -- video, input, and network subsystems can be exchanged at compile-time
The goal is to combine the flexibility of X-Windows with the simplicity and speed of Palm OS.

Architecture

Like the X Window System, it has a flexible client-server architecture. But, unlike X, fonts, bitmaps, widgets, and anything else the application would need are built in to the server. This sacrifices a small decrease in flexibility for an increase in speed and a large decrease in size. Because of things like its standard client interface, powerful themes, and modular drivers it can be more flexible than other other small GUIs.

Size

Stripped ELF binaries of PicoGUI are usually around 100KB. This includes the server, fonts, and all other vital data. Many things can be enabled or disabled at compile-time, affecting the size. Themes' size are mainly dependent on any bitmaps they contain. They usually range from about 300 bytes to hundreds of kilobytes. A typical theme like the Aqua theme featured some of the screenshots is about 20KB. This is expected to decrease when compressed bitmaps are implemented. The client library used by PicoGUI applications) is about 1000 lines of code, and compiles to about 6K.

Memory footprint

Like PicoGUI's CPU usage, much of its memory usage is dependant on the video driver in use. The memory usage of the PicoGUI server itself is easy to measure, however. Immediately after starting it up, with no theme loaded, it uses 5K of memory (much of this is the buffer for the mouse cursor). With no theme, and a demo application it uses almost 13K of memory. With the demo app and the Aqua theme loaded, it uses 42K of memory. Much of this memory is allocated in very small (12 to 50 byte) chunks, so actual mileage may vary until I implement a heap for the small reusable structures. As always, more optimization is planned.

Screen real-estate

PicoGUI's themes are more than an afterthought to make the screen pretty, they are an integral part of PicoGUI that can be used to customize the size, shape, and appearance of objects to the application or screen geometry. PicoGUI has no overlapping windows, instead each application occupies a resizable "panel" that sticks to the edge of the screen and to other applications. This part of PicoGUI isn't finished yet, but hopefully it will conserve screen space while still allowing full multitasking with ease. For dialog boxes, messages, and menus, PicoGUI supports layered modal popup boxes.

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