[bestinterest]

I have the exact same feelings.

Is immediate mode GUI's just that much better? Instead of a complex React/Redux style setup, how much easier would state management be if we had a render loop like game dev? Does that even make sense?

I am very envious at the pure programming skills of so many game developers. UI's in indie games are just a side thing in the deep complexity of a game and they end up looking incredible compared to the level of effort required for year long web app projects.

[plorkyeran]

They've drifted away from calling it that, but the whole idea behind React was to bring immediate-mode rendering to the web. It has an event loop where each "frame" you render the current state from scratch, rather than explicitly updating the state of retained controls.

[JoeyJoJoJr]

I use Zui with Kha/Haxe - an immediate mode GUI library. I cannot overstate how immediate mode GUI greatly simplifies ui development. React is massive step up from OOP/scenegraph/display list style gui, but it is still so complex and cumbersome compared to immediate mode. I can’t fathom why there is such little exploration in this space and it seems mostly limited to gamedev.

https://github.com/armory3d/zui

[seba_dos1]

Immediate mode GUI makes perfect sense for applications that repaint themselves all the time 60 (or more) times per second, as they're already doing the work and there's little overhead added by handling such GUI. I can deal with 3D editor working this way, but I don't think I would be very happy if my e-mail client did.