Writing Tutorials

[pdinklag]

I started writing tutorials and polishing the website. Suggestions and hints are very welcome!
http://jsfml.org
Wiki (with tutorials): https://github.com/pdinklag/JSFML/wiki

I hope the site does not awake the impression that I take all the credit for SFML. After all, I "only" wrote a connection to it. Though, I think that the Java binding could play a big role in the future and deserves its own website. The only real way to have decent OpenGL in Java at this time is LWJGL, and using that requires OpenGL knowledge, which is not suitable for beginners. JSFML is.

[Zamadatix]

You might want to mention something about making sure the dependencies are able to be found by your "Setting up a basic JSFML application". Nothing can confuse a new coder like getting an error when nothing is wrong with the code.

This library is absolutely amazing and comes at the perfect time for me having just decided trying Java programming - I can see this going a long way.

[pdinklag]

Thanks for the heads-up.

Making sure the dependencies are found (actually all you will need is jsfml.jar in your classpath) depends alot on which IDE you choose - if any! And the tutorial is not about that really, that's also why I linked to basic first steps in the most common IDEs. Or is that not what you are talking about?

However, JSFML, if it becomes any popular, could indeed become a great utility for people to get started with Java. I believe most people start off wanting to code games because it's fun, and Java doesn't provide too many tools for that so far. So I might just make that first tutorial a little more detailed.

By the way, I did actually start working on more tutorials, but they are not online yet. There will be more progress once SFML 2 has been released.

[pdinklag]

I started writing a documentation / tutorials now on the github wiki: https://github.com/pdinklag/JSFML/wiki
Some cross-reading would be nice.

If I can keep up my current writing speed, I will be through quickly, but no promises...

[Hiura]

I haven't read everything (yet) but here are a few thoughts :

Setup should somehow tell the user where he can download JSFML (and maybe also how he can build it from the source ?).

Windows says «Alternatively to setFrameLimit, you can use setVerticalSyncEnabled to force vertical synchronization.» but it lack the following warning :

Never use both setVerticalSyncEnabled and setFramerateLimit at the same time! They would badly mix and make things worse.

Same chapter, «Fullscreen and other window settings» paragraph, I think it might mislead some users that DEFAULT is not in the list of flags.

«Our friends at Apple thought of something awesome» nicely put! 

Input : nothing to add.

I'll read the other chapters soon.

[pdinklag]

Thanks!
I'll fix what you mentioned already.

Setup should somehow tell the user where he can download JSFML (and maybe also how he can build it from the source ?).

Good idea about the download, I will add a link to JSFML download page (pretty empty atm ).

"Building from source" I will make an extra article. The vast majority of people using JSFML will probably be pure Java developers who won't go ahead and compile a C++ library. That makes it even more important that it works out of the box (I already look forward to testing on 100s of Linux distros ...).

EDIT:
Thinking about this:

Never use both setVerticalSyncEnabled and setFramerateLimit at the same time! They would badly mix and make things worse.

Wouldn't a little defensive programming fix this issue? If VSync is set to true, the framerate limit gets disabled and vice versa? This could be mentioned in their documentation.

[Laurent]

Wouldn't a little defensive programming fix this issue? If VSync is set to true, the framerate limit gets disabled and vice versa?

This is not an issue, people must understand what they do

[Hiura]

I read a few more chapters : I've not much to add, they are pretty good IMO.

Vectors and Rectangles, I only spotted a small type (a ` missing) which is now fixed (but I've made a typo in the commit log  ).

Shapes, small typo in a link (also fixed)

Transformation and Bounds, Very net! Nothing to add at all. (I was just troubled by 'viewn' but I guess it's just a local thing.)

[pdinklag]

Thanks!

And thanks for reading and fixing, too!
I just checked Wictionairy, and indeed, "viewn" does not seem to exist. That's weird, because I am very certain that it does exist. I will be talking to a native English speaker about this. At the places where I used it, it can safely be replaced by "seen".

[Hiura]

I just went through chapters 7 to 11. I only spot a minor typo and that's it! IMO, those are great tutorials : they explain very well the API and even go a little bit further by giving some good insights. Keep up the good work, I want to read the next chapters. 

[zsbzsb]

Hey nice job with the tutorials, I just skimmed them and I found them to be very good.

One thing to add to the "viewn" discussion. To be correct you should change "viewn" to "viewed" and it will sound (and match proper English) so much nicer

as viewn by the scene

to

as viewed by the scene

and

as viewn from itself

to

as viewed from itself

[pdinklag]

Thanks for the feedback.

If they are that good, maybe they can help out Laurent progress with the SFML 2.0 tutorials. The code changes required would be minimal for C++, but I guess that style is the most complicated question for that matter.

Chapters 13 through 15 are done now. 14 (Drawables and RenderStates) might require some feedback, since I wasn't able to test it yet and there is a lot of explanation in there. The Shader tutorial isn't really long, because I can't possibly explain GLSL in there. Instead, I gave a short example on a post effect.

[Laurent]

It would be cool if your website was not down when you post such a message

You should also correct the link in your first message.

[pdinklag]

Sorry, I deleted the page a few days ago in WinSCP. 
It's back on now. The tutorials are in the github wiki anyway: https://github.com/pdinklag/JSFML/wiki

And thanks for the hint - I thought I killed all the remainings of the old domain.