Compiling .slint Files

The Slint SC compiler translates a .slint file into one Rust source file. It defines the component and the types the .slint file declares, and embeds the images it uses. It depends only on the slint-sc crate.

The examples on this page compile ui/indicator.slint:

export component Indicator inherits Window {
    in property <bool> alarm: false;
    callback acknowledged;

    background: #202020;

    Rectangle {
        x: 16px;
        y: 16px;
        width: 32px;
        height: 32px;
        background: root.alarm ? #c02020 : #20a020;

        TouchArea {
            clicked => { root.acknowledged(); }
        }
    }
}

slint

To learn what you can write in a .slint file, see the Language Specification.

From the Command Line

Pass --slint-sc and the output file:

slint-compiler --slint-sc ui/indicator.slint -o indicator.rs

bash

From a Build Script

Run the compiler from your crate’s build.rs, so that Cargo regenerates the code whenever a file in ui/ changes:

// build.rs
use std::path::PathBuf;
use std::process::Command;

fn main() {
    let out_dir = PathBuf::from(std::env::var_os("OUT_DIR").unwrap());
    let output = out_dir.join("indicator.rs");
    let compiler = std::env::var_os("SLINT_COMPILER").unwrap_or("slint-compiler".into());

    let status = Command::new(&compiler)
        .arg("--slint-sc")
        .arg("ui/indicator.slint")
        .arg("-o")
        .arg(&output)
        .status()
        .expect("failed to run slint-compiler");
    assert!(status.success(), "slint-compiler failed on ui/indicator.slint");

    println!("cargo:rerun-if-env-changed=SLINT_COMPILER");
    println!("cargo:rerun-if-changed=ui");
}

rust

The script runs slint-compiler from your PATH. Set SLINT_COMPILER to the path of the binary to use a specific one instead. Keep the .slint files and the images they use in ui/, since Cargo only watches that directory.

Including the Generated Code

Include the generated file in the module of your crate that uses the component:

include!(concat!(env!("OUT_DIR"), "/indicator.rs"));

rust

This declares the Indicator struct and the IndicatorCallbacks trait in the current module.