Comment by piker
7 hours ago
Both approaches have their downsides and, in my view, retained mode and immediate mode tend to converge as the UI complexity increases. So far, no problems with implementing any UI I want in my experience with egui on a somewhat complicated application (Desktop word processor). Immediate mode is a breath of fresh air from React.
[Edit: although the standard accessibility criticisms apply to my application; although that's more of an issue with my implementation than an indictment of immediate mode generally.]
Accessibility problems are something both retained-mode and immediate-mode UIs have generally. I've found that you can kind-of hack it together but the best route is to incorporate the actual accessibility frameworks of the operating system(s) your targeting. Egui was doing this at one point I think but I'm pretty sure it's either broken now or just doesn't work all that well.
From what I've seen immediate mode seems suitable for less fancy UI requirements. If you want to start having a framework solve things like animations and such then you'll probably end up with some form of retained mode.
Over my years making UIs I've found most of the bugs you get is due to incorrect state handling in applications. Having a framework you use which is opinionated and helps you solve that is pretty nice. (If your UI requirements are such that you need it.)
I'm curious too. I currently have both a plasmid editor, and protein/molecule viewer using EGUI. Both have complex UIs, and I haven't hit roadblocks. I think the protein viewer might be more of a canonical immediate-mode case, because most of the window is a 3D render, but it still has a GUI above it.
I'm also thinking of building a word processor so I'd be interested to see what you're working on if you fancy sharing?