Ecore

Ecore is a core component of the Enlightenment Foundation Libraries (EFL). It provides a portable event loop and a collection of low-level services used by applications built with EFL, including the Enlightenment window manager and other GUI toolkits. Ecore abstracts the platform-specific event loop mechanisms and exposes a consistent API for scheduling actions, handling input and output, and coordinating background work.

The library centralizes the main loop and provides watchers for timers, idle tasks, signals, and file descriptors. It supports multi-threading, inter-process communication, and process management, enabling responsive applications that perform work asynchronously. Ecore can run with different main-loop backends on various platforms, ensuring portability between Linux, Windows, and macOS.

Ecore is designed to be used by other EFL libraries (such as Evas for graphics rendering, Edje for layout, and Elementary as a UI toolkit) as well as standalone applications. It is released as open-source software under a permissive license.

History and role: Ecore originated within the Enlightenment project and was integrated as a foundational component of the EFL project maintained by the Enlightenment Foundation. It remains a central layer for event-driven programming in EFL-based applications.