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SFML website / Request: Help newbies using SFML without having to care about compilation
« on: November 22, 2015, 10:27:14 am »
Hello all!! I remember being new to C++ and wanting to get SFML for my system for the first time. I arrived at the download section of the website, only to see that no precompiled version of SFML was available for my specific GCC version. I eventually found out how to do this by myself, but this process is quite a headache for beginners. It can scary people out quite quickly if not enough tutorials are available.
SFML tutorial on how to compile got me strong on my hope that the process would eventually work, but I wished it could be even easier at the time. If we eliminate this entry barrier, I bet we can get even more people using this library.
As SFML seems to be interested in attracting people for its ease of use, I think I can help SFML by providing you this suggestion:
I have found something which can ease this for the beginner. It is basically choosing a compiler which can download the latest SFML version by itself without requiring that the user cares about how to compile SFML. And if the user updates his compiler, his SFML will get updated automatically without headaches.
I though we could advertise this on the download section of SFML (http://www.sfml-dev.org/download/sfml/2.3.2/) or on the "Getting Started" tutorials on http://www.sfml-dev.org/tutorials/2.3/
Basically its installing the MSYS2 compiler system and using its package manager (pacman) to download SFML from it.
The user just has to open the package manager (pacman), search for SFML inside it and ask to install it.
See details for the package manager here: http://sourceforge.net/p/msys2/wiki/MSYS2%20installation/
And an old example of installing the SFML from this package manager here: https://github.com/Alexpux/MSYS2-packages/issues/10
The information is not too complete now, but I bet we can organise it in a way to make it very clear and useful to every beginner.
Thanks!
EDIT: If you from SFML have no time for this, I could try writing the tutorial myself, and you from SFML administration could make the aesthetics of it such as to fit your website or making final changes when needed.
SFML tutorial on how to compile got me strong on my hope that the process would eventually work, but I wished it could be even easier at the time. If we eliminate this entry barrier, I bet we can get even more people using this library.
As SFML seems to be interested in attracting people for its ease of use, I think I can help SFML by providing you this suggestion:
I have found something which can ease this for the beginner. It is basically choosing a compiler which can download the latest SFML version by itself without requiring that the user cares about how to compile SFML. And if the user updates his compiler, his SFML will get updated automatically without headaches.
I though we could advertise this on the download section of SFML (http://www.sfml-dev.org/download/sfml/2.3.2/) or on the "Getting Started" tutorials on http://www.sfml-dev.org/tutorials/2.3/
Basically its installing the MSYS2 compiler system and using its package manager (pacman) to download SFML from it.
The user just has to open the package manager (pacman), search for SFML inside it and ask to install it.
See details for the package manager here: http://sourceforge.net/p/msys2/wiki/MSYS2%20installation/
And an old example of installing the SFML from this package manager here: https://github.com/Alexpux/MSYS2-packages/issues/10
The information is not too complete now, but I bet we can organise it in a way to make it very clear and useful to every beginner.
Thanks!
EDIT: If you from SFML have no time for this, I could try writing the tutorial myself, and you from SFML administration could make the aesthetics of it such as to fit your website or making final changes when needed.