SFML 2.3 Roadmap

[eXpl0it3r]

With SFML 2.2 still being quite fresh, it's time to provide the currently planned roadmap for SFML 2.3.

The focus of SFML 2.2 could probably be best described as the finding phase of the SFML Team. We had to figure out ways to manage GitHub and forum issues and how to work with Git in a team. Additionally the release was about cleaning up and throwing out some of the piled up issues and thus it's not a surprise that we were able to close 177 issues for SFML 2.2.
Now, with the SFML Team mostly in place and the original promise to have a more transparent development process, here's the currently planned roadmap for SFML 2.3. Keep in mind that if unforeseeable issues reveal themselves during development, some item might not make it into SFML 2.3 and don't forget that we're still trying to fix as many bugs as possible.


SFML 2.3 Roadmap

Keep the release cycle short!

Focus

• bugfix/al_context (PR, Issue) ✓
• feature/xcb (PR) ✓
• feature/gl_dev_new (PR) ✓
• feature/no_libsndfile_all_os (PR) ✓
• Update dependencies (stb_image ✓, freetype ✓)

Additional Bugfixes

• Scaling factor OS X (tomgalvin594:master, PR) ✓
• Crash in JoystickImpl.cpp due to typo (Issue) ✓
• Partial Sends (Discussion, Issue, PR) ✓

Additional Features

• No sfml-main for examples (Issue, PR) ✓

If you want to see all the development happening for SFML 2.3 checkout the milestone 2.3 on GitHub which holds all issues and pull requests that have been assigned to SFML 2.3.

Notice: With the goal of shorter release cycles the stability of the master branch has been a bit loosen. Meaning that some branches might get merged faster with the expectation that the final testing will happen on the master branch itself. For production code you should use stable releases, but if you want to help us test SFML, make sure to use the master branch and to report issues following this guide.

Thanks!

[Jesper Juhl]

You should add "replace libjpeg with libjpeg-turbo" to that list :-)
It's compatible with libjpeg, performs quite a bit better in my experience and generates equivalent results.

[Jabberwocky]

Thanks eXpl0it3r - appreciate you writing this up for us.

[SonarSystems]

SWEET

[SonarSystems]

Will there be more iOS and Android documentation?

[SLC]

Regarding the "feature/no_libsndfile_all_os (PR)". I've seen stb_vorbis.c used in Urho3D and it was quite impressive considering it's just a singe source file with a small executable size.

[eXpl0it3r]

Will there be more iOS and Android documentation?

We currently don't have anything planned. But providing some documentation/tutorials/guides is essentially not tied to a specific release.

I've seen stb_vorbis.c used in Urho3D and it was quite impressive considering it's just a singe source file with a small executable size.

The stb files are really nice. Since I haven't done any work on that branch, I'm not sure what the advantages/disadvantages are of using libvorbis though.

[Laurent]

SFML was using stb_vorbis.c before libvorbis, but the lack of seeking forced me to drop it.

[Ricky]

Can we expect 2.3 to be ready before the next SFML game jam?

[Hiura]

Maybe.

But nothing prevent you from using the master version. 

[Cleroth]

Now that VS2015 RC is out, will there be a download available for it? I've tried building it myself, but there are problems with external binary libs. Maybe there should be sources for the external libs, or at least point out where they are. Is jpeg.lib from http://libjpeg.sourceforge.net/? Which version of FreeType is it? 1.0? 1.1? 2.0.1+?

[eXpl0it3r]

RC is still not a release version. We could have considered it, if only VS preview/RC version didn't hold the danger of compromising the whole system. It requires you to uninstall it again for the official release version and that might kill other VS installs and that's something I don't want to risk nor deal with.

These are well known libraries, there's no need to provide extra sources. I guess we could be more verbose about the dependencies, then again it's also not very hard to figure out by looking for example at the FAQ or commit history.

Yes it's libjpeg (alternatively you can use libjpeg-turbo it's a drop-in replacement) and it's FreeType2.

[Cleroth]

Microsoft stated here that you will be able to upgrade the RC version to the RTM version:

We've received confirmation from the setup team that upgrading directly from RC to RTM will be supported, with the restriction that they must be the same edition (Community RC to Community RTM, or Enterprise RC to Enterprise RTM).

I'd imagine they'll probably do the same for release. There were warning about Preview versions possibly compromising the system, and those are not present in the RC pages, no matter how much I've searched. I suppose there's still a risk, so I've asked for clarification on that same page.

I guess I'll try my hand at compiling it myself with VS2015 RC again.