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General discussions / Re: Missing general information

« on: February 21, 2017, 12:53:43 am »

• For discussion on the major versions we have dedicated threads here on forum, as plenty of features are firstly discussed and only then the plan for their implementation is made. There is, however, usually Project section on Github for the upcoming release, major or minor, where you can see how it is going with the implementation of the particular features.

To me there is a big difference in 21 pages of the users' wishlists and what Laurent & team are actually planning on doing, and the project section on Github again does not give much longterm information to go on.

In conclusion, if you need the support for particular platform which happens not to have official SFML support, go for SDL or the like. Otherwise you should be good with SFML. SFML is mostly stable and the development is much faster compared to SDL or Allegro. The #1 and #7 are feature requests, not bugs. Feature requests may be left open for a longer time since sometimes it is not clear what implementation would be the most appropriate, or even, if the feature is in the scope of the project at all. Sometimes the reason for them being open is just that there are more important things to work on, as it is the case with #1.

I know they aren't bugs per se, but at least in my view they are rather big omissions if you want to make a professional application/game. I've had problems myself regarding the keyboard issue (I'm on a Swedish one) and I've had to do some ugly workarounds regarding issue 1 when it comes to implementing a proper gui system for instance. They might not be the most important features but in my view they are not so small as to not prioritize them for 5-6 years.

2

General discussions / Missing general information

« on: February 20, 2017, 03:13:36 pm »

Although this is my first post here I've been around the forum for two years. I might have missed this information but what I really miss here under General discussions (and that often seems to be asked by newcomers) is the following stickied posts:

• The longterm goal of SFML: is it meant to be used for small hobby projects or is it a serious alternative for SDL meant for creating professional 2D games?
• A clear roadmap for the next major version of the library and hopefully a rough timetable.

I really like SFML and would love to use it for a professional game but the uncertainty of what and when features will be added and bugs fixed makes me a little hesitant. Things like issues 1 and 7 still being open 5-6 years after reported/first discussed.

Anyway, this is meant as suggestions to help improve the library so I hope I don't come off as too negative.