SDL, Atanua, platform-specific dialogs, and maybe SDL_wm_dialog

Howdy. This one’s a bit loaded.

First off, I’ve been working on my final project for school, Atanua
(http://atanua.org), a real-time logic simulator. It may, in itself,
be of interest to some folks reading this list.

It’s a very much an SDL application; the only bits that are
platform-specific are some dyndll calls for plug-ins and the three
platform-specific dialogs: file open, file save, and ok/cancel.

I ported Atanua to OS X and Linux (Ubuntu, so it’s GNOME). My bits
(the 10k lines of code of it) ported fine, as did SDL. The dyndll
stuff is fairly easy. The platform-specific dialogs weren’t.

I’ve written a little rant on my trials regarding these, and the rant
is, as of this writing, the most recent news item on my site
(http://iki.fi/sol).

Anyway, I know SDL is not exactly meant for this kind of use, but
those couple common dialog types could be very useful for other folks
working with SDL as well.

I’m pondering, now that I’ve done that much of a research, I’m
wondering if it would make sense to either write a separate package
for these in the lines of SDL_mixer or SDL_image - say, SDL_wm_dialog

  • or even to have such functions integrated into the SDL proper itself
    (seeing that there are some window manager handling functions
    already).

Cheers,
Jari

On Sun, Feb 17, 2008 at 6:23 AM, Jari Komppa <jari.komppa at gmail.com>

I’m pondering, now that I’ve done that much of a research, I’m
wondering if it would make sense to either write a separate package
for these in the lines of SDL_mixer or SDL_image - say, SDL_wm_dialog

  • or even to have such functions integrated into the SDL proper itself
    (seeing that there are some window manager handling functions
    already).
    These would be incredibly useful to have as part of SDL, but I think
    they diverge somewhat from the core purpose of the library. I, for
    one, would love it if you cleaned it up and made it into a separate
    package (with some sort of fallback for unhandled OSes).
    -:sigma.SB

I’ve written a little rant on my trials regarding these, and the rant
is, as of this writing, the most recent news item on my site
(http://iki.fi/sol).
Anyway, I know SDL is not exactly meant for this kind of use, but
those couple common dialog types could be very useful for other folks
working with SDL as well.

I just read your (intresting) rants, I can suggest you to look at
autopackage.org for the “find app directory” part (binreloc.c) and for
general packaging issues, this will help you sort out also the differences
in system libraries in different distro.

About ubuntu as developer distro, there is a trick: apt-get install
build-essential , this will install most of the packages you’ll need.

I’m one of the guys that is PRO the inclusion of a MessageBox() and
OpenFilename() like feature in SDL :), but it has been already explained
several times in this list the reasons there is not. Anyway two or three
times every year the thread popup, since it’s really painful if you are not
used to a platform do it (I’ve had problems similar to the ones you had on
linux on my first port attempts to OSX :slight_smile: )

Anyway, GTK is installed in almost every linux system, and don’t need C++
runtime, so it’s the best choice for the dialog.–
Bye,
Gabry

Folks, you might take a look at SDL 1.3 which does have/will have the
ability to do multiple windows which is designed to allow you to create a
GUI on top of SDL while not putting a GUI in SDL.

Bob PendletonOn 2/19/08, Gabriele Greco <gabriele.greco at darts.it> wrote:

I’ve written a little rant on my trials regarding these, and the rant
is, as of this writing, the most recent news item on my site
(http://iki.fi/sol).
Anyway, I know SDL is not exactly meant for this kind of use, but
those couple common dialog types could be very useful for other folks
working with SDL as well.

I just read your (intresting) rants, I can suggest you to look at
autopackage.org for the “find app directory” part (binreloc.c) and for
general packaging issues, this will help you sort out also the differences
in system libraries in different distro.

About ubuntu as developer distro, there is a trick: apt-get install
build-essential , this will install most of the packages you’ll need.

I’m one of the guys that is PRO the inclusion of a MessageBox() and
OpenFilename() like feature in SDL :), but it has been already explained
several times in this list the reasons there is not. Anyway two or three
times every year the thread popup, since it’s really painful if you are not
used to a platform do it (I’ve had problems similar to the ones you had on
linux on my first port attempts to OSX :slight_smile: )

Anyway, GTK is installed in almost every linux system, and don’t need C++
runtime, so it’s the best choice for the dialog.


Bye,
Gabry


SDL mailing list
SDL at lists.libsdl.org
http://lists.libsdl.org/listinfo.cgi/sdl-libsdl.org

How stable is 1.3 at this point?

Kev TripzeroOn 2/19/08 Bob Pendleton wrote:

Folks, you might take a look at SDL 1.3 which does have/will have the ability to do multiple windows which is designed to allow you to create a GUI on top of SDL while not putting a GUI in SDL.

Bob Pendleton

On 2/19/08, Gabriele Greco <gabriele.greco at darts.it> wrote:

I’ve written a little rant on my trials regarding these, and the rant

is, as of this writing, the most recent news item on my site
(http://iki.fi/sol).
Anyway, I know SDL is not exactly meant for this kind of use, but

those couple common dialog types could be very useful for other folks

working with SDL as well.
I just read your (intresting) rants, I can suggest you to look at autopackage.org for the “find app directory” part (binreloc.c) and for general packaging issues, this will help you sort out also the differences in system libraries in different distro.

About ubuntu as developer distro, there is a trick: apt-get install build-essential , this will install most of the packages you’ll need.

I’m one of the guys that is PRO the inclusion of a MessageBox() and OpenFilename() like feature in SDL :), but it has been already explained several times in this list the reasons there is not. Anyway two or three times every year the thread popup, since it’s really painful if you are not used to a platform do it (I’ve had problems similar to the ones you had on linux on my first port attempts to OSX :slight_smile: )

Anyway, GTK is installed in almost every linux system, and don’t need C++ runtime, so it’s the best choice for the dialog.


Bye,
Gabry


SDL mailing list

SDL at lists.libsdl.org

http://lists.libsdl.org/listinfo.cgi/sdl-libsdl.org

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Not bad. I wouldn’t use it for something with a short deadline, but I plan
to use it for my personal projects from now on.

Bob PendletonOn 2/19/08, Kevron Rees wrote:

How stable is 1.3 at this point?

Kev Tripzero

On 2/19/08 Bob Pendleton <@Bob_Pendleton> wrote:

Folks, you might take a look at SDL 1.3 which does have/will have the
ability to do multiple windows which is designed to allow you to create a
GUI on top of SDL while not putting a GUI in SDL.

Bob Pendleton

On 2/19/08, Gabriele Greco <gabriele.greco at darts.it> wrote:

I’ve written a little rant on my trials regarding these, and the rant
is, as of this writing, the most recent news item on my site
(http://iki.fi/sol).
Anyway, I know SDL is not exactly meant for this kind of use, but
those couple common dialog types could be very useful for other folks
working with SDL as well.

I just read your (intresting) rants, I can suggest you to look at
autopackage.org for the “find app directory” part (binreloc.c) and for
general packaging issues, this will help you sort out also the differences
in system libraries in different distro.

About ubuntu as developer distro, there is a trick: apt-get install
build-essential , this will install most of the packages you’ll need.

I’m one of the guys that is PRO the inclusion of a MessageBox() and
OpenFilename() like feature in SDL :), but it has been already explained
several times in this list the reasons there is not. Anyway two or three
times every year the thread popup, since it’s really painful if you are not
used to a platform do it (I’ve had problems similar to the ones you had on
linux on my first port attempts to OSX :slight_smile: )

Anyway, GTK is installed in almost every linux system, and don’t need
C++ runtime, so it’s the best choice for the dialog.


Bye,
Gabry


SDL mailing list
SDL at lists.libsdl.org
http://lists.libsdl.org/listinfo.cgi/sdl-libsdl.org

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http://lists.libsdl.org/listinfo.cgi/sdl-libsdl.org