rust-windowing/winit

★ 5,957RustAudience · developerComplexity · 3/5Setup · moderate

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((winit))
    What it does
      Window creation
      Input event delivery
      Cross-platform support
    Platforms
      Windows and macOS
      Linux Wayland X11
      iOS and Android
      WebAssembly
    Design
      Low-level only
      No rendering included
      Rust crate Cargo
    Use cases
      Desktop apps
      Game input loop
      WebAssembly apps

mindmap root((winit)) What it does Window creation Input event delivery Cross-platform support Platforms Windows and macOS Linux Wayland X11 iOS and Android WebAssembly Design Low-level only No rendering included Rust crate Cargo Use cases Desktop apps Game input loop WebAssembly apps

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Things people build with this

USE CASE 1

Open a native window in a Rust application and receive keyboard and mouse events on any major operating system with one crate.

USE CASE 2

Build a cross-platform Rust game or graphics app that handles input events without writing platform-specific window code.

USE CASE 3

Port a Rust graphics project to WebAssembly by using winit's browser backend for window and event handling.

USE CASE 4

Combine winit with a Rust rendering library like wgpu to display graphics in a native window across desktop and web.

Tech stack

RustCargoWaylandWebAssembly

Getting it running

Difficulty · moderate Time to first run · 30min

Requires Rust 1.85 or later, Android builds have additional SDK and NDK requirements beyond the standard desktop setup.

In plain English

winit is a Rust library for creating and managing windows at the operating system level. It handles window creation and event delivery across multiple platforms: Windows, macOS, Linux with Wayland and other compositors, iOS, Android, and WebAssembly. A program using winit can open a window and receive input events such as key presses, mouse movements, scroll actions, and window resize or close requests. The library is intentionally low-level. It handles opening windows and delivering events but does not draw anything to the screen itself. To display graphics, a developer uses a separate rendering library or graphics API that reads the platform-specific window handles winit exposes. The README links to community-maintained pages that track the state of Rust libraries for GUI applications and game development, for those looking for higher-level options that build on this foundation. Adding winit to a Rust project requires one line in the Cargo.toml dependency file. Full API documentation is hosted on docs.rs. A separate FEATURES.md file in the repository lists what the library covers and what is explicitly out of scope. Platform-specific behavior is documented in the winit::platform module of the API docs. The project is maintained by the rust-windowing organization, which holds weekly meetings and publishes notes online. Community discussion takes place in a Matrix chat room. The minimum supported Rust version is 1.85, and the project follows a documented policy for how that minimum changes over time. Android and Redox OS have separate version requirements noted in the README.

Copy-paste prompts

Prompt 1

Show me a minimal Rust winit program that opens an 800x600 window, prints every keyboard key press to the console, and exits when the user presses Escape.

Prompt 2

I want to build a cross-platform game loop in Rust using winit. Show me how to handle the event loop, track frame time between redraws, and call a render function each frame.

Prompt 3

How do I use winit on Android to receive touch events? Show me the Cargo.toml target config and the event types I need to match in the event loop.

Prompt 4

My winit app should redraw only when the window is resized. Show me how to listen for the resize event and call request_redraw at the right time.

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