Carboxyl is a set of utility libraries for QML/Qt Quick, designed through years of aggregated UI research from a multitude of professional firms and hobbyists. Carboxyl contains four major components:

• Base: Carboxyl's native code interface
• Clover: Carboxyl's theming engine, which extends Qt Quick's paletting system
• Contour: Carboxyl's custom components
• Chroma: Carboxyl's custom styles

Currently, Carboxyl is in a WIP state with no ETA for release.

Licensing

Carboxyl is licensed under the LGPLv3. *GPL libraries can use this without any issue; however, other libraries can ONLY use Carboxyl if the following terms are accepted:

• You must provide explicit notice that your project is using Carboxyl.
• You must link to the shared/dynamic version of Carboxyl, OR provide object files such that Carboxyl's libraries can be easily replaced with an equivalent version.
• You must not modify the source code of Carboxyl in any way.

Base

"Base? There's nothing basic about this!"

TODO: docs for this

NOTE: Carboxyl's Base library uses private Qt APIs, and is thus inherently tied to the specific Qt version it is built against. Do not attempt to rebuild Qt without also rebuilding Carboxyl.

Clover

"The pink theme makes me as happy as a pig in clover."

Clover is Carboxyl's custom theming engine. Clover leverages the existing QQuickPalette engine, but extends upon it by:

• Defining context switch operations
• Providing opinionated default themes (Light, Dark, Midnight/OLED)
• Defining accents separate from the main themes
• Passing light/dark mode status to the styling engine

Clover is in a very WIP state, and is subject to significant breaking changes before an official release.

Contour

"The contours of Graphide are quite pleasing."

Contour is Carboxyl's custom component library. It adds new components for a number of reasons, notably:

• Backporting new Qt Quick components to older versions (e.g. native dialogs)
• New components that provide useful functionality not provided in base Quick (e.g. labeled input fields)
• Extending existing component's functionality (e.g. tab bars and buttons)
• Reimplementing and improving inefficient or style-specific components (e.g. Material Ripple)

Specifically, Contour's custom components are:

• Labeled Fields (CarboxylLabeledTextField, etc)
  • These add floating labels to input fields, similar to the Material text field placeholder text.
• DoubleSpinBox
  • SpinBox, but with support for doubles.
• Dialog, NativeDialog
  • The default popup dialog has no styling, and many Qt versions completely lack support for native dialogs.
  • Dialog is a popup dialog with an opinionated default style.
  • NativeDialog is a workaround to provide version-agnostic support for a native dialog.
• Ripple
  • The default Material Ripple is extraordinarily inefficient, as it is not GPU-accelerated at all and does ridiculous amounts of subpixel and transparency calculations. This implementation exposes it to all styles, and optimizes it significantly.
• CarboxylTabBar
  • Like TabBar, but provides support for vertical tab bars.
• CarboxylTabButton
  • Like TabButton, but with better icon support, providing options to use an inline icon OR a vertically stacked icon, alongside optionally coloring the icon according to the current style and theme.

Chroma

"Helios is very chromatic. I like seeing my accent everywhere :)"

The bread and butter of Carboxyl. Chroma is the library containing all of Carboxyl's custom styles.

Graphide

"It's like Windows 11 without all the spyware. Neat."

Graphide is a style based off of Qt's FluentWinUI3 platform. It is designed to create a bubbly, rounded feel with proper accenting, without taking up lots of space or creating unusable touch targets.

• Graphide is fully compatible with Qt versions prior to 6.7, unlike FluentWinUI3.
• While Fluent design was used as a reference, the implementations themselves are largely derived from Helios.

Helios

"Today I learned that a Material-based theme can work on a desktop target."

Helios is a style based off of Google's Material Design guidelines. It is designed to create a bubbly, rounded feel with proper accenting, focusing on large touch targets and creating a universal UX flow between touch and desktop targets.

• Carboxyl reimplements many internal implementation details compared to Material (notably, many effects have been rewritten/simplified). As such, Helios will look and act dramatically different than the standard Material style.

Hydrogen

"I was forced to upgrade to Windows 11 a couple years ago. It's nice to remember the beauty of Windows 10's design."

Hydrogen is a style based off of Microsoft's Universal Design guidelines, notably used within Windows 10. It is designed to create a sleek, flat, desktop-oriented feel, mimicking the typical look & feel of a traditional Windows desktop.

• Carboxyl's primary changes to Hydrogen are found within its paletting.

Trioxide

"yeah it really just looks like a Linux desktop from 1990"

Trioxide is a style based off of Qt's Fusion style and KDE's design guidelines. It is designed to create a sleek, flat, desktop-oriented feel, mimicking the typical look & feel of a traditional Linux desktop.

• Many controls within Fusion are inadequate, don't follow proper theming, or just look bad. Trioxide intentionally reimplements large parts of the Fusion library for the sake of flexibility.

Basalt

"I don't know how to describe this theme, I just like it a lot."

Basalt is a minimalist design style, based off of Qt's Basic style. It is designed to create a sleek, flat, desktop-oriented feel, taking up as few resources as possible while maintaining a proper look & feel.

• Basalt takes some inspiration from Graphide and Hydrogen.

Ace (WIP)

Ace is a style based off of Microsoft's Aero Design guidelines, as well as Apple's Liquid Glass design philosophy. It is designed to create a glassy, bubbly feel, akin to Windows Vista and 7, without sacrificing readability or UX.

Camphor (WIP)

Camphor is a unique style created by crueter. It is designed to be compact and flat, while maintaining a mobile-oriented look & feel.

Cysteine (WIP)

Cysteine is a unique style created by crueter, based off of the Helios style. It is designed to define the bare minimum boundaries and layouts necessary to maintain clarity of its components.

Tropic (WIP)

Tropic is a style based off of Apple's Aqua Design guidelines. It is designed to create a colorful, rounded, and translucent look & feel.

TODO:

• {Scroll,Split,Stack,Swipe}View
• GroupBox?
• ApplicationWindow
• Frame
• Page
• HeaderViews
• ToolBar
• Delegate types
• Indicator types
• TextArea
• Tumbler
• Menus
• Drawer
• Popups
• ToolTip
• Separators