What does HackerNews think of fidget?

For me it was the text issues that dulled my desire to keep working it. I was updating a Nim based immediate mode GUI called Fidget (https://github.com/treeform/fidget) and fixed a number of issues. It was fun getting 9-patch rectangles with corners working, etc.

I even implemented a fair subset of CSS grid:

    parseGridTemplateRows gt, ["row1-start"] 25'pp \
        ["row1-end"] 100'ux \
        ["third-line"] auto ["last-line"]

( https://github.com/elcritch/cssgrid )

However, text input is hard and tedious! Then you ideally would need to handle the different keybindings for each OS. You also loose any plugins the OS'es provide. Not to mention the lack of accessibility.

I recall reading that browsers shim out to native OS text fields and wonder how that's done. It really seems like the best approach for small GUI libraries to enabled first class text input.

I have written a lot of metaprogramming myself, like 5/10 of my repos are macro libraries. And I share your concern. Even the manual advices people to use the least "powerful" tool for the job. These are proc/funcMacros are prefered for creating dsl like https://github.com/treeform/fidget or https://github.com/pragmagic/karax

Otherwise the advice is to use them when they "pull their weight". The reason is they're a lot harder to write and even "design" them right (how they function, what code they write, etc) takes a lot of effort. And in most cases the simpler "tools" will fit your needs.