JetBrains announced “Jetpack Compose for Desktop”, desktop UI

November 5, JetBrains released the first milestone (Milestone 1) for “Jetpack Compose for Desktop”.

It is a modern UI framework for Kotlin based on Google’s Android-native UI building toolkit “Jetpack Compose”. For desktop, it supports Windows, Linux, and macOS. It has APIs similar to modern frameworks like React and Flutter, and it allows users to build high-performance and beautiful UI with declarative and reactive approach.

The knowledge learned by working with Jetpack Compose on Android can be used right away on Compose for Desktop, and core APIs behave just like their mobile APIs. It simplifies the UI development for desktop applications, and it allows UI code to be shared between Android and desktop.

It doesn’t require XML and template language. Hardware-accelerated rendering can be used via open-source 2D graphics library Skia. It provides desktop specific APIs and interoperability with Swing and AWT.

Milestone 1 release for Compose for Desktop is available for download from the project webpage.

Compose for Desktop
https://www.jetbrains.com/lp/compose/