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Zed editor switching graphics lib from blade to wgpu

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Re: Zed editor switching graphics lib from blade to wgpu

#91

Post by swiftcoder »

MindSpunk wrote: post #76
swiftcoder wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they felt their native renderer on those platforms was better and less memory intensive This definitely would be worth some profiling. I don't think it's a given that their custom stacks are going to beat wgpu in a meaningful way.

WGPU is just a layer over the top of the native APIs on any given platform so unless Zed's DirectX/Metal renderers were particularly bad it's unlikely WGPU will be better here.

I'm not saying it would be better, I'm saying it may not be particularly much worse. Which still might make it worth simplifying everything by settling on one rendering abstraction

Re: Zed editor switching graphics lib from blade to wgpu

#92

Post by tuzemec »

nu11ptr wrote: post #72
badhorseman wrote: post #50

The Zed editor seems kind of silly to me. I would rather my editor works in many possible environments maybe even one that only has a tty interface. What advantages are people finding with this editor other then high fidelity scrolling.

Does Zed have cursor-like tab completion yet?

Yes: https://zed.dev/docs/ai/edit-prediction

Re: Zed editor switching graphics lib from blade to wgpu

#93

Post by the__alchemist »

I am confused by this without context. I have not heard of blade, but am aware that Zed built its own GUI library called GPUI. Having used Zed, this is a vote of confidence: The crate ecosystem is historically filled with libaries which try to be The future of X in rust but are disconnected from practical applications. GPUI by nature is not that; it's a UI lib built to a practical and non-trivial purpose. It sounds like Blade is a cross-API graphics engine, by one of the original gfx-HAL (former QGPU name) creators?

I have not used GPUI beyond a simple test case, but had (prior to this news?) considered it for future projects. I am proficient with, and love EGUI and WGPU. (The latter for 3D). I have written a library (`graphics` crate) which integrates the two, and I use for my own scientific applications which have both 2D and 3D applications. Overall, I'm confused by this, as I was looking forward to using GPUI in future applications and comparing it to EGUI. I have asked online in several places for someone to compare who's used both, but I believe this to be a small pool.

I was not sure of the integration between GPUI and WGPU, which can confirm EGUI and WGPU have great integration. But I only care about this because I do 3D stuff; if I were not, I would be using eframe instead of WGPU as the backend.

Unrelated, off-topic, but I'm also not sure where to ask this: Am I missing something about Zed? I have tried and failed to get into it. I really want to like it because it's so fast [responsive], but it seems to lack basic IDE functionality in Python and Rust, like moving structs/functions, catching errors dynamically, introspection and refactoring in general etc. I thought I might be missing some config, but now lean that it's more of a project-oriented text editor than true IDE in the fashion of JetBrains. But I have been unable to get a confirmation, and people discuss it as if it's an IDE or JB alternative.

Re: Zed editor switching graphics lib from blade to wgpu

#94

Post by nmilo »

I find it odd the rust community feels the need to reimplement tried and tested APIs in "pure safe Rust". Like no other language has better C integration, and we have had cross-platform windowing libraries since like the 90's, why does everyone reach for a brand new unstable libraries with less maintainer support?

Edit: replying to https://tritium.legal/blog/desktop, not the OP

Re: Zed editor switching graphics lib from blade to wgpu

#95

Post by gigatexal »

the__alchemist wrote: post #93

I am confused by this without context. I have not heard of blade, but am aware that Zed built its own GUI library called GPUI. Having used Zed, this is a vote of confidence: The crate ecosystem is historically filled with libaries which try to be The future of X in rust but are disconnected from practical applications. GPUI by nature is not that; it's a UI lib built to a practical and non-trivial purpose. It sounds l…

I am one plugin away from moving to it directly instead of vscode. I really like it. It’s fast. It gets updates seemingly daily. I’ve never had it crash. It integrates LLMs well. It’s everything I wish vscode was if it were native.

Re: Zed editor switching graphics lib from blade to wgpu

#96

Post by kllrnohj »

pjmlp wrote: post #21
piker wrote: post #4

Rust GUI is in a tough spot right now with critical dependencies under-staffed and lots of projects half implemented. I think the advent of LLMs has been timed perfectly to set the ecosystem back for a few more years. I wrote about it, and how it affected our development yesterday: https://tritium.legal/blog/desktop

Interesting read, however as someone from the same age group as Casey Muratori, this does not make much sense. > The "immediate mode" GUI was conceived by Casey Muratori in a talk over 20 years ago. Maybe he might have made it known to people not old enough to have lived through the old days, however this is how we used to program GUIs in 8 and 16 bit home computers, and has always been a thing in game consoles.

There's also good reasons that immediate mode GUIs are largely only ever used by games, they are absolutely terrible for regular UI needs. Since Rust gaming is still largely non-existent, it's hardly surprising that things like 'egui' are similarly struggling. That doesn't (or shouldn't) be any reflection on whether or not Rust GUIs as a whole are struggling.

Unless the Rust ecosystem made the easily predicted terrible choice of rallying behind immediate mode GUIs for generic UIs...

Re: Zed editor switching graphics lib from blade to wgpu

#97

Post by fishgoesblub »

TingPing wrote: post #81
fishgoesblub wrote: post #41

I hope this can somehow improve the font situation. Even on a 1440p monitor, the fonts in Zed are much blurrier than any other editor I've used. I Can't even use bitmap fonts like VSCode.

From what I see wgpu isn’t using the same font stack as chromium. I think the Rust community would be against those dependencies. You can just convert bitmap fonts, supporting them doesn’t make sense in 2026.

bitmap fonts are the only fonts where I can get crisp, sharp, and not blurry text. I don't have an expensive "Retina" style display.

Re: Zed editor switching graphics lib from blade to wgpu

#98

Post by jauntywundrkind »

nmilo wrote: post #94

I find it odd the rust community feels the need to reimplement tried and tested APIs in "pure safe Rust". Like no other language has better C integration, and we have had cross-platform windowing libraries since like the 90's, why does everyone reach for a brand new unstable libraries with less maintainer support? Edit: replying to https://tritium.legal/blog/desktop , not the OP

Aside from Rust being better (impl is such a great decoupling, fearless type safety), there is afaik nothing one tenth as useful and good as cargo & is crate ecosystem (docs rs, crates.io, and all the packages).

I find it odd the broader hacker community feels the need to requestion and cross-examine every choice for using rust. Like, no other language has such great just works ergonomics, with a solid language, fantastic tooling, excellent packages that gives it a just works the first time cross-platform joy. Why does every thread have to spawn a brand new unsupported whinge throwing dirt at what seems like such an obvious enjoyable choice?

Re: Zed editor switching graphics lib from blade to wgpu

#99

Post by the__alchemist »

gigatexal wrote: post #95
the__alchemist wrote: post #93

I am confused by this without context. I have not heard of blade, but am aware that Zed built its own GUI library called GPUI. Having used Zed, this is a vote of confidence: The crate ecosystem is historically filled with libaries which try to be The future of X in rust but are disconnected from practical applications. GPUI by nature is not that; it's a UI lib built to a practical and non-trivial purpose. It sounds l…

I am one plugin away from moving to it directly instead of vscode. I really like it. It’s fast. It gets updates seemingly daily. I’ve never had it crash. It integrates LLMs well. It’s everything I wish vscode was if it were native.

I appreciate the info! Are you able to talk me through how to move a struct[class]?

Re: Zed editor switching graphics lib from blade to wgpu

#100

Post by [deleted] »

the__alchemist wrote: post #99
gigatexal wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am one plugin away from moving to it directly instead of vscode. I really like it. It’s fast. It gets updates seemingly daily. I’ve never had it crash. It integrates LLMs well. It’s everything I wish vscode was if it were native.

I appreciate the info! Are you able to talk me through how to move a struct[class]?

[deleted]
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