An easier way to define the initial layout from code

[EriKWDev]

I really like this extension to egui! I've written several apps at my previous work using egui_dock, but I am now switching to egui_tiles for my current company's game engine. Adding docking/tiles to egui really takes the gui to the next level.

The thing that was not so nice about egui_dock was the way in which you defined the initial layout of all the tabs and panes in code. If I really put my head to it, I was able to get the layout I wanted, but after coming back to the code way later it was always a pain.

Sadly, I felt the same now that I came back to my layout code for egui_tiles. I feel like there should be a way to describe the layout I want in a more expressive and editable way rather than a bunch of calls to set_share and needing to have good names for panes/tiles/tabs and manually inserting them into the correct Container. Maybe it's just me, but not knowing the internals of egui_tiles there seem to be a lot of concepts to learn for the user.

I usually don't advocate for crazy macros, but I feel like there could be a use for one here just to make the initial creation of the Tree really ergonomic. Perhaps this can even be done with plain functions - implementation detail.

Here is my current layout:

And it would be lovely to be able to express it in a way like this:

// (all panes defined above) 

let initial_layout = egui_tiles::layout_helper! {
    horizontal(1.0, {
        tabs(0.7, [scene_pane, profiler_pane, game_pane]),
        vertical(0.3, {
            tabs(0.5, [inspector_pane]),
            tabs(0.3, [scene_settings_pane]),
            tabs(0.2, [assets_pane]),
        }),
    })
};
let root = tiles.insert_new(initial_layout);
let tree = Tree::new("application_tree", root, tiles);

rather than

// (all panes defined above)

let mut inner_right = Linear {
    children: vec![inspector, scene_settings, assets],
    dir: LinearDir::Vertical,
    ..Default::default()
};
inner_right.shares.set_share(inspector, 0.5);
inner_right.shares.set_share(scene_settings, 0.3);
inner_right.shares.set_share(assets, 0.2);
let right = tiles.insert_new(Tile::Container(Container::Linear(inner_right)));

let left_tabs = tiles.insert_tab_tile(vec![scene_view, profiler, game]);

let mut inner_left = Linear {
    children: vec![left_tabs],
    dir: LinearDir::Vertical,
    ..Default::default()
};
inner_left.shares.set_share(left_tabs , 1.0);
let left = tiles.insert_new(Tile::Container(Container::Linear(inner_left)));

let mut inner = Linear {
    children: vec![left, right],
    dir: LinearDir::Horizontal,
    ..Default::default()
};
inner.shares.set_share(left, 0.7);
inner.shares.set_share(right, 0.3);
let root = tiles.insert_new(Tile::Container(Container::Linear(inner)));

let tree = Tree::new("application_tree", root, tiles);

---

Maybe I'm just using egui_tiles poorly though and there are some hidden gems here that I've not discovered to make the layout cleaner/readable xP

[Ben-Ku]

Seems like a really nice idea, defining panes right now is really a pain atm.