Heavy!Embedded Linux GUI has a new choice

“With the popularization of portable devices such as mobile phones and smart watches, users have higher and higher requirements for human-computer interaction interfaces (GUI). However, Qt’s shortcomings such as large resource occupancy have caused difficulties in some applications. Now there is a new choice for embedded Linux GUI! This article will introduce you to the powerful charm of AWTK.

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Abstract: With the popularization of portable devices such as mobile phones and smart watches, users have higher and higher requirements for human-computer interaction interfaces (GUI). However, Qt’s shortcomings such as large resource occupancy have caused difficulties in some applications. Now there is a new choice for embedded Linux GUI! This article will introduce you to the powerful charm of AWTK.

1. Existing Embedded Linux GUI

The Linux operating system has never been known for its GUI interface, and the same is true for embedded Linux. Many products and devices running embedded Linux do not even have a GUI interface. In the previous years when the Windows CE operating system was popular, the vast majority of developers who needed GUI interface products chose Windows CE, and embedded Linux was usually regarded as the second or less important alternative system. Nowadays, Windows CE system can be said to be a “tomorrow”, embedded Linux has become the first choice of most developers, but the choice of GUI is very difficult.

The fundamental reason for this phenomenon is that GUI is not a built-in component of the embedded Linux operating system, and there is no GUI system that is lightweight, easy to use, and beautiful in the embedded Linux software ecosystem. Take a look at the common embedded Linux GUI solutions. Qt/Embedded should be the most easily mentioned and selected option. Others include Microwindows, MuniGUI and OpenGUI. These GUI solutions have their own characteristics, but they also have shortcomings. For a brief list, see Table 1.1.

Table 1 Advantages and disadvantages of mainstream embedded Linux GUI solutions

Two, AWTK

In embedded product development, how to implement complex GUI has always been a problem, which has stumped many developers. Since most of the current embedded product developers are Electronic engineers, a large part of them are upgraded from MCU development skills, and it is often difficult to grasp the GUI. The emergence of AWTK is to solve these pain points in the GUI development of embedded products, and has achieved good results at present.

1. What is AWTK?

The AWTK developed by ZLG Zhiyuan Electronics is a cross-platform GUI development framework based on C language, which can be used to develop applications in the Internet of Things, consumer electronics, industrial control, automotive electronics, smart home and other fields. It aims to provide users with a powerful , High-efficiency, reliable, simple and easy-to-use GUI development solutions that can easily make cool effects, so that users can develop GUI applications as simple as serial port applications. Figure 1.1 shows several application examples provided by AWTK. It can be seen that the interface developed by AWTK, whether it is text, icon, or dashboard and waveform drawing, meets the increasing demand for aesthetics of modern GUI.

Figure 1 Power ripple waveform

2. Unique advantages of AWTK

Compared with the common GUI development frameworks currently on the market, such as emWin, Qt, TouchGFX, etc., AWTK has unique advantages as listed.

Table 2 Advantages of AWTK over other GUIs

3. AWTK for Linux

Compared with the common GUI solutions of embedded Linux and other embedded GUI solutions, AWTK also has great advantages on embedded Linux systems, and can also solve most of the pain points of embedded Linux GUI development. One of the main reasons is that most of the current embedded Linux developers are former SCM developers, who have technical inertia. I hope that the GUI of embedded Linux is still simple and easy to use, occupies less resources, and has a beautiful and gorgeous interface.

AWTK has been ported and adapted to the Linux operating system (including embedded Linux). The codes of AWTK and AWTK for Linux are open source on github. The download addresses are as follows:

l AWTK: https://github.com/zlgopen/awtk

l AWTK for Linux: https://github.com/zlgopen/awtk-linux-fb

Next, we will introduce the performance comparison between AWTK and Qt running under Linux from a technical point of view, so stay tuned!