I know exactly what I need. I just built a task manager in C with GTK+. It uses the theming built into GTK to allow users to change themes while the program is running but it's too memory heavy for my taste. I also have a background in web dev and understand how to build for accessibility. Currently the memory allocated for every single process on my computer is <3 MB but the interface displaying that information uses almost 55MB total when rendering. I need the ability to set fonts, colors, and sizes and the ability draw text as desktop manager understandable standard copy/pastable text. I want the font rendering to support basic anti aliasing. The API also needs to expose draw surfaces for me to draw OpenGL/Vulkan as needed. It needs to support both X and Waylandisms for window decorations. I specifically need the API to support animated icons for window decorations as that is currently unsupported by anyone at all in this space.
https://github.com/hparadiz/evemonYou're right though I'm already thinking of scaling and hidpi as another thing I need.