V bindings for Dear ImGui and ImPlot

Project portfolio

For a fresh-clone setup and a one-command GLFW/Vulkan demo, see QUICKSTART.md. For Android Vulkan and Apple Metal/iOS build and lifecycle details, see docs/mobile.md.

The cross-platform setup entry point installs prerequisites and builds the native library without regenerating bindings:

v run setup.vsh

Use v run setup.vsh --check for read-only diagnostics.

The V bindings are already generated and committed. Installing the module does not require the binding generators; see Maintaining if you are updating the upstream API.

Upstream variants

This repository supports both official Dear ImGui lines:

• master is the default docking build. It includes docking and multi-viewport support while retaining the normal Dear ImGui API.
• The standard branch tracks Dear ImGui's smaller standard line.

Both currently track Dear ImGui 1.92.9b. The b is an upstream patch-level suffix shared by the release; it does not identify the docking variant. Check UPSTREAM_VARIANT in a checkout to see which line its generated bindings and native sources use. Do not mix a generated binding from one line with a native library built from the other.

Applications can identify and configure the selected line without referring to docking-only generated symbols:

println('Dear ImGui variant: ${imgui.upstream_variant}')
if imgui.configure_docking(true) {
	imgui.create_main_dockspace()
}
imgui.configure_platform_viewports(true)
// After rendering the main viewport:
imgui.render_platform_viewports()

The configuration functions return false on the standard branch. Dockspace and secondary-viewport rendering helpers become safe no-ops there.

Dependencies

v install antono2.vulkan@v3.2.0
v install antono2.glfw@v2.0.0

Install

v install antono2.imgui
# Build libvimgui for this machine (without regenerating V bindings)
cd ~/.vmodules/antono2/imgui
v run build_vimgui.vsh

Native-library choices

The default uses a shared libvimgui and the system GLFW development package:

v run build_vimgui.vsh --linkage shared --glfw system

To build a static archive and select it from V:

v run build_vimgui.vsh --linkage static --glfw system
v -d imgui_static run your_app.v

GLFW can instead be downloaded at a chosen release tag. This is useful for a reproducible application bundle:

v run build_vimgui.vsh --linkage shared --glfw bundled --glfw-version 3.4

VIMGUI_LINKAGE, VIMGUI_GLFW_PROVIDER, and VIMGUI_GLFW_VERSION provide the same choices as environment variables. System GLFW is preferable for distro packages. Bundled GLFW is preferable when shipping a matching libglfw.so.3 beside libvimgui.so; use an $ORIGIN runtime path in the application package.

Vulkan loader ownership

libvimgui is built with IMGUI_IMPL_VULKAN_NO_PROTOTYPES and intentionally does not link directly to libvulkan. A Volk-based application must initialize in this order:

1. Call volkInitialize() before GLFW performs Vulkan discovery.
2. Create the Vulkan instance and call volkLoadInstance(instance).
3. Immediately call imgui.impl_vulkan.load_functions(...) with a callback backed by vkGetInstanceProcAddr.
4. Only then call helpers such as select_physical_device, select_queue_family_index, or vkinit.

Calling an ImGui Vulkan helper before step 3 can produce an early segmentation fault with little or no stack trace. Do not combine the directly linked Vulkan prototype path with Volk's global dispatch table in the same application.

Examples

Using GLFW and Dear ImGui antono2/v_imgui_examples

Release archives containing the already compiled demo and its runtime libraries provide a low-friction validation path. The archive name identifies the upstream line: v-imgui-demo-docking-ubuntu24-amd64.zip supports docking and platform viewports, while v-imgui-demo-standard-ubuntu24-amd64.zip retains normal independent floating windows. Each archive also contains VARIANT.txt.

Compiling the generated ImGui and ImPlot V bindings can currently require about 11 GiB of memory. Use scripts/run_demo.sh to build and run the demo from source.

Release binaries are built for Ubuntu 24.04 x86_64 and Windows 10/11 x64. Native-library linkage and the GLFW provider remain build-time choices for developers; they do not need to multiply the end-user demo downloads.

For binding regeneration, upstream updates, and CI/release procedures, see Maintaining. To rebuild only the native library after a system upgrade, run v run build_vimgui.vsh.

Thanks

Thank you @ryoskzypu from #regex on libera.chat for helping with the original cleanup rules that the current V-native generator preserves.