Tool Open source
GPUI Fast is an experimental fork of GPUI, the UI framework used by the Zed editor, focused on retained-mode rendering and native view composition. Its retained layout engine preserves views whose inputs have not changed and reuses unchanged layout nodes, so subsequent frames render, lay out, prepaint, and paint only affected parts while replaying the previous output for retained views. Changes in entities, globals, list or scroll state, hover, bounds, content masks, and window refreshes invalidate the relevant retained state; retention can also be disabled for comparison and debugging.
The project also explores placing native views such as a WebView inside a GPUI window while keeping GPUI popovers, menus, and dialogs above them. It aims to preserve GPUI's existing API and keep its changes in separate fast/ directories so applications can adopt the experimental behavior without rewriting their UI code. Applications can use the repository as a Git dependency in place of upstream GPUI; code that reads state outside GPUI's observable entities may require an explicit cx.notify() when that state changes.
GPUI Fast is intended for experimentation and measurement, and its internals may change. It is based on upstream GPUI from Zed and is licensed under Apache-2.0.
1 use taken from transcripts — each links to the moment in the video.
An experimental fork of the UI framework behind Zed that preserves unchanged views and layouts between frames to reduce redraw work, while exploring native web views inside GPU windows.
1 in the library.