SFML 2 and its new website released

[pdinklag]

Congrats!

[Tuffywub]

Awesome! Good job!!! 
IOS + Android??? SSSSWWWWEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeetttttt!!! 

[Laurent]

I'm sure there is a huge bunch of people eager to assist you in making SFML work on Android (and other platforms)!

If so, they can already start working on it
I already got contributions, even partial ports for iOS in the past, and those definitely help me today. But I never got anything for Android

I already started porting SFML to Android (and Raspberry Pi btw) and I'm having the entire framework working except the network module which hasn't yet been ported. https://github.com/Sonkun/esfml (branch Android)

Awesome! I'll have a look at your work.

As for SFML 2.2, I think you should focus on adding support for OpenGL ES 1.1 first, as it doesn't take much effort (OpenGL ES 1.1 being close to OpenGL 2.x).

This is exactly what I'm doing. As long as OpenGL ES 2.0 is not required, I won't break the rendering API.

A iOS port needs OpenGL ES 1.x supported and won't be possible without redesigning the entire window module. In my humble opinion, you should keep this huge API break for SFML3.0 and concentrate on adding interesting features such a video module, signal&slot to the system module, etc. and all this stuff  without breaking the API.

The iOS port will be ported to the current API. I may add some features, but I won't redesign anything. If I design a specific API that better suits mobile devices, that won't happen before SFML 3.

So, to summarize: iOS + current API + OpenGL ES 1.1 = quickly done.

BTW: I am using .net binding but you have mistake on website in .net 32bit binding link - sfml-dev.org/download/sfml.net/SFML.Net-2.0-32bits.zip

Fixed, thank you.

I'm kinda missing a feature list. If you send a new user to the website and ask him to answer the question "What is SFML?" he won't be able to properly answer it, since he can't get any information on what SFML really is.

I hope that people will know what SFML is before visiting the website. And the homepage says that SFML is a C++ library that deals with graphics, audio, network and windowing. I think it's enough to get the feeling of what SFML does. Details are in the documentation and tutorials.

You also might want to update the release thread, but I guess you haven't forgotten that and you're still compiling the huge, huge change log.

Done. No changelog this time, I gave up a long time ago. There's one for SFML 2.0 RC, but it's incomplete and inconsistent (since the naming conventions have changed).

[Hiura]

Yeay ! Long Life To SFML ! 

[Atomical]

I don't know how much this is relevant but freeglut 3.0 has Android support with OpenGL ES 2.0 http://freeglut.sourceforge.net/docs/android.php

The new design is so cleeaaan

[Sonkun]

I already started porting SFML to Android (and Raspberry Pi btw) and I'm having the entire framework working except the network module which hasn't yet been ported. https://github.com/Sonkun/esfml (branch Android)

Awesome! I'll have a look at your work.

As for SFML 2.2, I think you should focus on adding support for OpenGL ES 1.1 first, as it doesn't take much effort (OpenGL ES 1.1 being close to OpenGL 2.x).

This is exactly what I'm doing. As long as OpenGL ES 2.0 is not required, I won't break the rendering API.

A iOS port needs OpenGL ES 1.x supported and won't be possible without redesigning the entire window module. In my humble opinion, you should keep this huge API break for SFML3.0 and concentrate on adding interesting features such a video module, signal&slot to the system module, etc. and all this stuff  without breaking the API.

The iOS port will be ported to the current API. I may add some features, but I won't redesign anything. If I design a specific API that better suits mobile devices, that won't happen before SFML 3.

So, to summarize: iOS + current API + OpenGL ES 1.1 = quickly done.

The plan wasn't to introduce the project like this but never mind :p

You'll find on the master branch OpenGL ES 1.1 supported (including the context creation and the EGL error macro),  as well as some minor improvements regarding CMake and OpenGL/OpenAL macros.

Then, the Android branch takes over to bring Android support It provides a sfml-main module to have a portable int main() and which forward lifecycle callbacks. I rewrote the native glue code provided by the NDK to remove useless stuff and to make use of the system module (threads + string).

Not to break the API, it uses some tricks:

• sf::Event::Resized event means the screen orientation has changed
• It sends sf::MouseMove events when detecting finger motion events
• sf::Event::Closed event means the app wants to terminate
• It sends MouseLeft/MouseEntered when the activity is paused/resumed
• It sends LostFocus/GainedFocus when the activity is stopped/restarted

I need to rebase on the last SFML2 commit and give instructions to compile. From what I remember, that's something like

NDK=/$HOME/Workspace/android/ndk cmake -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=../cmake/Toolchains/Android.cmake ..

To get a bit of context, you may want to read the wiki (which actually introduces the project :p).

[Laurent]

I don't know how much this is relevant but freeglut 3.0 has Android support with OpenGL ES 2.0

And? They don't have a high-level graphics API on top of that, so it's not a problem for them, supporting OpenGL ES 2.0 is just a few lines to change in the context creation code.

You'll find on the master branch OpenGL ES 1.1 supported (including the context creation and the EGL error macro),  as well as some minor improvements regarding CMake and OpenGL/OpenAL macros.

Is Android 100% compliant with the generic EGL API? Because iOS is not (they have their own Objective-C layer on top of it, EAGL... )

Then, the Android branch takes over to bring Android support  It provides a sfml-main module to have a portable int main() and which forward lifecycle callbacks.

I've had a look at your code this morning, and saw that.

Not to break the API, it uses some tricks:
sf::Event::Resized event means the screen orientation has changed
It sends sf::MouseMove events when detecting finger motion events
sf::Event::Closed event means the app wants to terminate
It sends MouseLeft/MouseEntered when the activity is paused/resumed
It sends LostFocus/GainedFocus when the activity is stopped/restarted

Looks like what I wanted to do for iOS
One more thing: map the accelerometer to joystick #0.
And what's the difference between "activity paused", "activity stopped" and "app terminated"?

[Sonkun]

You'll find on the master branch OpenGL ES 1.1 supported (including the context creation and the EGL error macro),  as well as some minor improvements regarding CMake and OpenGL/OpenAL macros.

Is Android 100% compliant with the generic EGL API? Because iOS is not (they have their own Objective-C layer on top of it, EAGL... )

100% compliant, you chose the dark side :p

Looks like what I wanted to do for iOS
One more thing: map the accelerometer to joystick #0.
And what's the difference between "activity paused", "activity stopped" and "app terminated"?

Great idea for the accelerometer! I'll do it.

An activity is the Android term to mean an application responding to lifecycle events.
An activity gets paused when something is brought to front and so, hides partially the activity screen (the activity no longer receives input events).
An activity is stopped when the user leaves the application (by pressing the home button or because you're having a call, etc.). In those cases, the main thread still runs but should do nothing (the window and its attached context is disabled).
An activity is terminated when the main finishes or because the OS has asked for that (mainly for memory reasons).

How does that work on your side ?

[Laurent]

How does that work on your side ?

They have a bunch of detailed notifications. I haven't investigated much, for now I just map the EnterBackground/EnterForeground notifications to the LostFocus/GainedFocus events. They seem to match your description of the "activity stopped" notification, so I think we are good.

[Foaly]

Wow this is awesome! Great to see 2.0 finally released! Congratulations to everybody who contributed!

Some news for the near future:
- SFML 2.1 will be released as quickly as possible and be a bug fix release
- SFML 2.2 should add support for iOS, I'm already working on it

That is great news too. Can't wait for 2.2

The release made it in a big German technologie news site: heise.de

[eXpl0it3r]

The release made it in a big German technologie news site: heise.de

Nice! I wonder though if I had anything to do with it, since I sent out a mail to them yesterday, but only got an "Out of Office" reply.
(Still waiting for a response from Golem.de)

[binary1248]

Don't forget to contact the package maintainers for the major distros.

Here are some package pages I found:
http://packages.debian.org/sid/libsfml-dev
http://packages.ubuntu.com/quantal/libsfml-dev
https://admin.fedoraproject.org/pkgdb/acls/name/SFML

Gentoo and Arch are already using 2.0.

Which reminds me... someone has to update the GitHub wiki FAQ .

[eXpl0it3r]

Which reminds me... someone has to update the GitHub wiki FAQ .

*points at binary1248*

Btw. Laurent, as I've mentioned once via PM, I think it would now soon be a good time to make the General Rules topic sticky in all the help forums and also be nice to have a sticky thread pointing to the FAQ in all the help forums, so people will actually start using it more often. binary1248 has already made quite an effort to get some good answers in.

[Tank]

The release made it in a big German technologie news site: heise.de

That's awesome. For non-German-speaking people: It's one of the largest (if not THE largest) IT-related websites in Germany.

[Lo-X]

Wow =)

The website is very attractive, simple and with good colors.
Congrat's for SFML2 release, it's been waited :p

Edit : Special congrat's for the documentation design(I mean CSS design). One of the clearest I've ever seen