LVGL and SquareLine Studio are parting ways.
But as the saying goes: when a door closes a window opens. We are already working on how and what to create for you in order to make the UI development with LVGL even smoother.
You can read more about the details in this blog post.
P.S. We’re open to all your questions!
Hello Gabor,
This is sad news, I recall reading that you started Squareline Studio together with the guy who supposedly still owns it. What will become of Squareline now that collaboration with you is probably less tight? The software itself was honestly not perfect but I have had succes using it to quickly build screens that I could expand upon with my own code.
I have no experience with making desktop software but wouldn’t it be great if the UI designer itself could be Open-Source too? Of course I understand this might be very bad for Squarelines business.
Hi gabor.
Is there a specific reason?
Hi,
To be honest I also had concerns with the stability of SquareLine Studio. Besides, compared to how closely I coupled it to LVGL and promoted it, I didn’t get a reasonable level of control and any kind of decision making rights. As being not perfectly happy with it and not having control, I felt like the best move is to separate our ways.
We are still considering what should be our next step. Probably we will create a survay soon to better understand what you would really need.
A cross-platform free and open source visual designer that supports LVGL has been around for a while thanks to a donation from NLnet. I introduced it in this post: Free and Open Source EEZ Studio
Hi Gabor!
These are not good news.
This probably also explains my surprise recently that StudioLine is touting version 1.3.3 as a novelty, although it already offers 1.3.4 for download, but still only with LVGL 8.3.x and not with version 9.
But StudioLine is just a UI design tool, the core of a display project is certainly LVGL.
However, the price of its commitment to versatility is that LVGL has also become quite complex over time. The availability of a UI design tool has therefore become more important.
A UI designer like StudioLine, while not flawless, is an essential support for less experienced LVGL users. And certainly a time-saving tool for professionals.
I hope that you can find a workable solution here too.
Thank you at this point for the progress you have made so far!
Oh, I didn’t know EEZ Studio. I’ll check it out!
You’re very welcome. Feel free to contact us if you need any assistance. Currently we’re supporting LVGL 8.3 and have in our roadmap to add 9.0, too.
I tried it and honestly, my first impression, the GUI designer is similar to square line studio which was a relief and even the generated code is similar.
Thank you for saving me from manually writing the GUI code.
I have tried EEZ Studio and while I feel the lack of some important things like grid and flex design it is by far way more stable than SquareLine. I had some problems with something related to the animations which I can’t remember right now. EEZ Studio is fast and things just worked as expected, as opposed to SquareLine constant crashes and bugs. It just needs time to implement more of the LVGL features and it will be the perfect tool!
Edit: one nice feature from EEZ that comes to my mind is the ability to create styles that later can be applied to multiple objects.
This is the way forward IMO. An open source UI toolkit needs a free and open source designer. I will be porting from SquareLine to EEZ Studio in the future.
Will their software (SquarelineStudio) still generate LVGL code?
I echo your concerns about stability. 3 fast releases in a row … upgrades that trashed my stack and I had to rebuild interfaces … deleting screens but it left the .c file behind causing link errors …in the end I reverted to 1.3.0 on a clean machine and didn’t upgrade again. I felt the price was fair when I bought it, but not for the days of lost productivity taking upgrades.
I do think LVGL is well thought out and I hope you’re not too disheartened. Also, thanks for how quickly you respond to queries, etc.
Onwards!
I received this email from the SquareLine team, so I think they will support LVGL in the future on the embedded:
Dear SquareLine Studio Customer,
Due to differences in our business visions, from now on, the development and design of our software will be completely carried out by the SquareLine team and LVGL has no longer any influence in this.
In the last years we developed SquareLine Studio together and as a partner we also played a significant role in the current image and development of LVGL.
In the future, we would like to develop SquareLine Studio not as an LVGL editor, but as a complex, cross-platform UI solution.
We consider it essential to put emphasis on supporting LVGL in the future, we will also base our embedded technology on this platform. We continue to work to support our customers with unique and special solutions in addition to the original LVGL features. Our goal is still to quickly and easily create an extremely spectacular UI with our solutions.
The SquareLine team is constantly expanding and the developments have also accelerated. The February release includes many important new features and fixes, v2 version is coming soon, on which we will share more information with you soon.
We thank everyone who has chosen and supported us on this exciting path of development. You can count on our full support in the future, we will be excited to share with you details on our next developments at SquareLine Studio.
Turn to us in case of any questions!
Regards,
SquareLine Team
All this is somewhat worrying. I guess egos have clashed.
Dear Innovators,
SquareLine Studio is pleased to announce continued support for all versions of LVGL now, and in the future, with spectacular UI editing tools to make your embedded product design experience easy and seamless.
The entire SquareLine team is focused on creating innovative tools that save your company time and money so you can bring amazing products to market quickly and efficiently.
SquareLine Studio is on a journey to becoming a cross-platform UI solution. Our development roadmap is ambitious and exciting, and we will share more updates soon.
We look forward to supporting innovators who want to change the world. 
Feel free to contact us with any questions or thoughts.
SquareLine Team
Hi,
LVGL will continue to be the base of SquareLine Studio embedded technology, we will continuosly update LVGL versions in the future.
Hi All,
Thank you so much for being so supportive! It really means a lot!
It would be my first impression too. I tried my best to get rid of my ego, and see this situation through a purely technical point of view. And I felt like I don’t have enough influence on the project to make it work as I think an LVGL UI editor should work. After a lot of trials this issue couldn’t be resolved and I needed to admit myself that we need to look somewhere else for an official LVGL UI editor. Either we need to find a new partner or create our own software.
We are in the first 24 hours after the announcement and we have already received a huge number of feedback which confirms that we made the right decision. Already several collaboration opportunities have emerged. So now we are carefully evaluating our next steps while listening to your real needs.
I think many people are curious of when LVGL v9 will be supported.