Gitpedia

GWork

Skinnable GUI with useful widget collection. Fork of GWEN.

From billyquith·Updated February 21, 2026·View on GitHub·

GWork is a skinnable, embeddable GUI library with an extensive control set. Control rendering is abstracted, and can be implemented by any application wishing to use the library. Gwork (*pronounced "gw-orc"*) is a fork of the GUI library [GWEN][gwen]. It was forked to fix issues with GWEN and add new features. The project is written primarily in C++, distributed under the Other license, first published in 2013. Key topics include: allegro5, c-plus-plus, cross-platform, directx11, game-ui.

GWork

Linux & MacOS status: Build Status Windows: Build status

GWork is a skinnable, embeddable GUI library with an extensive control set. Control rendering
is abstracted, and can be implemented by any application wishing to use the library.
Gwork (pronounced "gw-orc") is a fork of the GUI library GWEN. It was forked
to fix issues with GWEN and add new features.

A number of rendering backends are provided for use, or as an example for your own:

  • Allegro5 (cross-platform).
  • DirectX 11 (Windows 7+).
  • Irrlicht3D (cross-platform).
  • OpenGL2 (cross-platform. Uses GLFW).
  • OpenGL Core Profile (cross-platform. Uses GLM, GLEW, GLFW).
  • SDL2 (cross-platform).
  • SFML2 (cross-platform).
  • Software (cross-platform). Render to texture.

Note that the software renderer can be used on any platform, but, obviously, with the penalty of
not having hardware acceleration. For more information see the documentation.

Documentation

Changes

  • See CHANGELOG for changes to Gwork, and the differences from GWEN.

Issues

Please report problems to Github or they'll get lost.

Build

Get source code:

  • From git: git clone https://github.com/billyquith/GWork.git gwork or
  • Download zip & unzip

CMake is used to generate the project files. See cmake -h to see all the generators for
your platform. Only have one renderer per build directory. Choose renderer:

  • -DRENDER_ALLEGRO5=ON
  • -DRENDER_DIRECTX11=ON
  • -DRENDER_IRRLICHT=ON
  • -DRENDER_OPENGL=ON
  • -DRENDER_OPENGL_CORE=ON
  • -DRENDER_SDL2=ON
  • -DRENDER_SFML2=ON
  • -DRENDER_SW=ON

For example to build Allegro 5 renderer using Ninja:

bash
cd gwork mkdir build && cd build # put build files in subdirectory cmake -GNinja -DRENDER_ALLEGRO5=ON .. # create Ninja project files

Providing the dependencies are present, this will create a sample executable. When run it will
demonstrate all of the controls available:

bash
ninja # build project bin/GworkAllegro5Sample # run sample

Contributors

Showing top 12 contributors by commit count.

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This article is auto-generated from billyquith/GWork via the GitHub API.Last fetched: 6/1/2026