doodle-ui 1.0.9

Hardware-accelerated DOM-based UI & 2D Game Engine

Doodle Engine 🎨🚀

Hardware-Accelerated Hybrid C-Python UI & 2D Game Engine

Doodle is a high-performance, lightweight UI and 2D game engine combining a native C rendering core (powered by Raylib) with a highly reactive Python scripting layer.

By bypassing heavy browser runtimes (like Chromium/Electron), Doodle parses dynamic HTML-like templates and CSS stylesheets in a single pass directly to GPU-accelerated graphics, procedural audio synths, and collision meshes.

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📂 Repository Organization

Doodle/
├── docs/                   # Full reference specifications & requirements
│   ├── cheatsheet.md       # API & layout syntax quick reference
│   ├── requirements.md     # Engine specifications and architecture blueprint
│   └── unused_reference.md  # Unused HTML/CSS/C engine features reference
├── doodle/                 # Python package wrapper
│   ├── __init__.py         # Tween animations, reactive state binding, event emitter
│   └── cli.py              # PyInstaller packager cli
├── examples/               # Game demonstrations
│   └── breakout/           # Breakout game demo
│       ├── layout.html     # Game view DOM nodes & inline handlers
│       ├── styles.css      # Retro arcade UI styles, flexbox, and crt shaders
│       ├── shaders/        # Custom GLSL Fragment shaders
│       └── main.py         # Collision, input, and game state script
├── src/                    # C-Extension Core (complies to _doodle.pyd)
│   ├── setup.py            # Setuptools compilation script
│   ├── expose_raylib.c     # Python-to-C bindings, Raylib window, and particle pool
│   ├── mparser.h / .c      # n-ary DOM parser, CSS registry handler, and layout box solver
│   ├── dutils.h / .c       # Custom color parser, fast unit converter, and math helpers
│   └── daudio.h / .c       # Polyphonic synth, multi-voice ADSR envelope generator
├── third_party/            # Static Raylib binaries & dependencies
└── README.md               # You are here!

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🛠️ Getting Started & Compilation

1. Requirements

• OS: Windows (x64) / linux
• Python: Python 3.11+ (with virtual environment capability)
• C Toolchain: MSYS2/MinGW-w64 (C:\msys64\ucrt64\bin for gcc and compilation libraries) / linux cc compiler

2. Quick Setup & Build

From the repository root directory, run the setuptools compilation with your virtual environment's python. Specify the compiler:

# Add GCC to PATH (if not global)
$env:PATH = "C:\msys64\ucrt64\bin;" + $env:PATH

# Compile the native C extension
cd src
..\.venv\Scripts\python.exe setup.py build_ext --inplace -c mingw32

# Copy the compiled pyd module to the doodle library
cd ..
Copy-Item -Path "src\_doodle.cp311-win_amd64.pyd" -Destination "doodle\_doodle.pyd" -Force

3. Run the Breakout Demo

Launch the breakout game:

cd examples/breakout
..\..\.venv\Scripts\python.exe main.py

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🏗️ XML Markup (layout.html) & CSS (styles.css)

Doodle supports layout-driven layouts with traditional tag structures and inline event bindings.

Core Elements

• <view>: Structural container. Standard flex container or a 2D camera boundary using <view camera="true">.
• <text>: Text layout with reactive state-bound variables like SCORE: {{ score }}.
• <image>: Renders cached bitmaps using src="...".
• <button>: Clickable target with mouse state callbacks.
• <circle>: Renders shapes using radius and color parameters.
• <line>: Renders vectors using x2, y2, thickness, and color.

Event Hooks

Directly attach Python functions inline:

• onclick="python_function_name"
• onhover="python_function_name"

Layout Styles

• Sizing Rules: width / height support pixels (100px), percentages (50%), growth parameters (grow), and content sizing (fit).
• Flexbox Attributes: display: flex, flex-direction (row | column), justify-content (center | space-between | space-around), align-items.
• Cosmetics: background-color, border-radius, border-color, border-width, opacity, font-family, font-size.
• Juice Shaders: Add custom GLSL fragment shaders directly to views using shader-path: "shaders/crt.fs".

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🐍 Python OOP APIs

Initialization

import doodle

# Game state passed for template rendering
state = {"score": 0, "lives": 3}

doodle.run(
    layout="layout.html",
    style="styles.css",
    width=800,
    height=600,
    title="Game Window",
    state=state
)

Node Manipulation

# Fetch reference
paddle = doodle.get_node("paddle")

# Read/Write positions
paddle.position = (350, 500)
paddle.x += 10.0

# Easing animations
doodle.animate("paddle", target_x=350, target_y=500, duration=0.4, ease="quad_out")

Input Polling

# Keys
doodle.is_key_down(263)      # Left arrow key code
doodle.is_key_pressed(82)    # R key code

# Mouse
mx = doodle.get_mouse_x()
doodle.set_mouse_cursor(4)   # Changes mouse pointer style

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🔊 Polyphonic Procedural Sound Synthesizer

Doodle includes an integrated multi-voice synthesizer utilizing ADSR Envelopes to play retro sound waves without lagging the update tick loop.

# Play procedural tone
doodle.play_synth(
    freq=440.0,
    duration=0.15,
    wave_type=doodle.WAVE_TRIANGLE,
    attack=0.01,
    decay=0.05,
    sustain=0.3,
    release=0.05
)

Wave Types: WAVE_SINE (0), WAVE_SQUARE (1), WAVE_TRIANGLE (2), WAVE_SAWTOOTH (3), WAVE_NOISE (4)

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⚡ Performance Optimizations

Doodle is engineered for maximum performance, featuring multiple custom optimizations:

1. Single-Item DOM Lookup Cache: Node lookup (FindNodeById) caches the pointer of the last requested node. Repetitive state checks (like checking click and hover events in the same frame) resolve in $O(1)$ without scanning the DOM tree.
2. Precompiled Format Templating: Template variables {{ score }} are compiled once into native Python {score} string format structures, converting reactive updates from regex replacements to C-speed string builders.
3. Loop Division Elimination: Particle shaders and polyphonic audio generators use cached precalculated inverse values (inv_max_lifetime and phase_increment) to replace expensive division operations with single-clock multiplication instructions.
4. Square Wave Optimization: Square waves skip standard trignometric sinf calculations, computing high-low status directly from phase boundaries.