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Feature request: slang-gfx backend #8089
Description
Version/Branch of Dear ImGui:
1.91.1
Back-ends:
slang
Compiler, OS:
None
Full config/build information:
No response
Details:
Motivation
I'm writing a personal project with imgui and slang-gfx, and I hope there could be official support for slang-gfx backend. In short, slang is a brand new shading language resembling HLSL, but has richer language features and can be compiled to mainstream backends like dxil, spir-v etc. . slang-gfx is the abstraction library of graphics APIs, supporting cross-platform backends.
An official implementation of slang backend could be helpful for slang and imgui users.
Details of implementation
I've implemented my personal slang backend(haven't decoupled from my project framework, but it should be easy to do so). If this proposal could be taken, I'd be glad to make a PR writing the implementation.
Concerns
The only concern I have is slang is still under fast iteration development, which exact version we use in this implementation should be decided.
Screenshots/Video:
No response
Minimal, Complete and Verifiable Example code:
No response
Activity
ocornut commentedon Oct 22, 2024
Hello, thanks for your interest and links.
Until a technology is widespread/common enough and stable I would not want to take on hosting an official backend.
I would however encourage you to extract yours into one, following our conventions (eg: imgui_impl_slang.cpp filenames, same function names etc). We will link to it from the list of backends in wiki. If ever Slang becomes more popular and you want it we can later consider merging it into the main repository.
Hyiker commentedon Oct 23, 2024
Sounds reasonable, I may deliver my impl after some minor modifications to it.
ocornut commentedon Oct 23, 2024
Thank you. I'll close this now. If you end up sharing something please post here as people are likely to stumble here.
In the meanwhile I'm adding a link to this thread from https://github.com/ocornut/imgui/wiki/Bindings#frameworkengine-backends
fangjunzhou commentedon Apr 3, 2026
slang-gfx is deprecated. I'm currently maintaining this repo for my own projects: https://github.com/fangjunzhou/imgui.slang
Slang team is planning to add a imgui draw data pointer in the future.
Related threads in slangpy repo: shader-slang/slangpy#600, shader-slang/slangpy#858