LaVista

LaVista: A modern platform for C++ desktop apps.

LaVista is a C++23 library designed to host single-page application (SPA) bundles within an OS-native webview. It provides robust windowing and display management for Windows and Linux.

Under the hood, LaVista is built on LibAuxid and uses webview for the embedded browser. Other platforms currently use a minimal stub for development; primary support and CI focus on Windows and Linux x64.

!!! note "Module-only API" LaVista has been migrated to a module-only API. Public entry point: import lavista; in namespace LaVista, with LibAuxid types re-exported from au.

Features

Native Webviews — WebView2 on Windows; GTK 4 and WebKitGTK on Linux (API 6.0).
Default Host Title Bar — Native-looking chrome strip above your SPA with title and embedded icon.
Custom HTML Title Bar — set_window_titlebar for a dedicated webview band with drag-to-move.
Native Window Icons — WindowCreateOptions.icon_path (PNG, JPEG, or stb_image-supported formats).
Comprehensive Window API — Create, destroy, resize, move, and optional drag strips.
Event Binding — bind_window_event / bind_window_function connect the SPA to C++.
Display Management — get_displays and WindowCreateOptions.display_index.
SPA Integration — Point spa_bundle_path at your build output; use liblavista in the frontend.
CMake — Static LaVista target with C++23 modules.

See the API Reference for full C++ documentation.

Requirements

CMake 3.28+ (C++ modules; see CMakePresets.json in the repository root)
Git with submodule support (LibAuxid at libauxid/)
C++23 compiler — MSVC, Clang, or GCC 15.2+, matching LibAuxid

Linux (Debian-based)

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y ninja-build clang pkg-config libgtk-4-dev libwebkitgtk-6.0-dev

X11 development libraries are required where CMake resolves X11 (see src/CMakeLists.txt).

Windows

Use Visual Studio 2026 with preset LaVista-x64-windows, or Ninja with LaVista-x64-windows-msvc / LaVista-x64-windows-clang.

Quick start

Clone with submodules:

git clone --recursive https://github.com/I-A-S/LaVista.git
cd LaVista

# If you cloned without --recursive:
# git submodule update --init --recursive

Build with presets:

Linux (Clang, Ninja)

cmake --preset LaVista-x64-linux
cmake --build --preset LaVista-x64-linux --config Release

Windows (Visual Studio 2026)

cmake --preset LaVista-x64-windows
cmake --build --preset LaVista-x64-windows --config Release

Additional ARM64 and Ninja presets are in CMakePresets.json at the repository root.

Hello LaVista example

The HelloLaVista target loads the bundled Astro template in spa-template/.

Build the frontend:

cd spa-template
npm install
npm run build
cd ..

Run HelloLaVista from the repository root so paths like spa-template/dist resolve correctly. The binary is typically under out/build/<preset>/bin/.

Using LaVista in your project

# LibAuxid must be available first (submodule or FetchContent)
add_subdirectory(path/to/LaVista)

add_executable(my_app main.cpp)
target_link_libraries(my_app PRIVATE LaVista)
set_target_properties(my_app PROPERTIES CXX_SCAN_FOR_MODULES ON)

#include <auxid/macros.hpp>

import lavista;

using namespace au;

LaVista::WindowCreateOptions opts;
opts.title = "My App";
opts.spa_bundle_path = "path/to/dist";
opts.icon_path = "path/to/icon.png";
opts.width = 1024;
opts.height = 768;

AU_TRY_VAR(window, LaVista::create_window(opts));

while (LaVista::update_window(window))
{
}

AU_TRY_DISCARD(LaVista::destroy_window(window));

Public API: import lavista; (re-exports LibAuxid), namespace LaVista. Use <auxid/macros.hpp> for AU_TRY_* helpers.

Documentation

Build and serve this site locally:

pip install -r docs/requirements.txt
cd docs && mkdocs serve

Or via CMake: cmake --build --preset <preset> --target docs