I’m interested in creating a lightweight desktop environment for Wayland from scratch, and i was wondering if SDL could be used to create the Window manager. The way i figure it, a desktop environment is basically one giant multimedia application that creates GL contexts on the fly. I have an idea on how to create a Panel, animations, application launcher, etc., but can SDL be used to create the window decorations (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Window_decoration) for the desktop environment?
Yes. In theory, you could create a whole operating system using SDL, so it’s quite capable of making any GUI. Technically, most games are some kind of GUI.
Your idea sounds interesting; I recommend you put it into action.
Beware though, SDL’s file interface is limited. you might have to do some platform specific stuff to create a fully-fledged desktop environment.
I suggest you could do it all using SDL’s accelerated 2D functions, without going anywhere near GL calls. 3D effects like shadows can easily be achieved with 2D calls.
It’s possible, maybe, but I’m not sure it would be more help than
hindrance for this scenario.
(Creating a window isn’t the hard part of writing a window manager.)
–ryan.On 9/9/15 10:27 AM, Noob Saibot wrote:
I’m interested in creating a lightweight desktop environment for Wayland
from scratch, and i was wondering if SDL could be used to create the
Window manager. The way i figure it, a desktop environment is basically
one giant multimedia application that creates GL contexts on the fly. I
have an idea on how to create a Panel, animations, application launcher,
etc., but can SDL be used to create the window decorations
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Window_decoration for the desktop
environment?