Development State [26/11/13]

• Over the past two weeks, almost all of my time working with SDLU was spent at updating the build system. Here's the detailed info:

Build System:

• Added new autotools build system
• Added CMake build system for the tests
• Added ability to link to OpenGL ES on desktop platforms [premake]  
• Fixed compatibility with premake 4.3
• Lots of bug fixes

API Changes:
    none

Misc Changes:

• Increased speed of SDLU_RenderSetPoints()
• Fixed common test code build errors for Android 
• Removed old-unused code from the Button API

-- Aggelos Kolaitis

Development State [11th November]

This is the first development update since the 2.0.1 release. The last week I didn't do much, but here's the changelog.

API Additions

• Added button flag SDLU_BUTTON_FOREIGN, which allows you to have buttons without depending on the SDL2 Render API.

API Changes

• Points in SDLU_RenderDrawPolygon() and SDLU_RenderFillPolygon() should now be passed SDL_Point* lists. 
• Moved all cxx classes into the namespace SDLU, to make sure that naming collisions are avoided 

Build System

• Many updates and fixes in the premake and CMake build systems
• Added linux x86_64 executable  

Other Changes

• A number of bug fixes in the code
• Eliminated build errors

Expect a code snapshot soon...

-- Aggelos Kolaitis

Added CMake build system!

Surprise!! After one full week of coding and testing, the new CMake-based build system for SDLU is finally ready! This does not mean that the premake-based system will be ditched. A lot of work has been done there, and it's still the only way to go if you want to build the ports for iOS and Android.

I believe, however, that due to the fact that CMake is a little more well-known than premake, this move will make it easier for more people to build and try out the library.

Of course, the system is still under development, this is just a first draft that actually works (okay, not exactly a first draft, I paid extra attention into keeping it simple and well-structured).

-- Aggelos Kolaitis

Development State [14th October]

For the last few days, I concentrated mostly on stabilizing the build system both for the main library as well as for the iOS and Android ports. I'm proud to say that everything went as planned, and the build system is almost (if not already) ready for a release.

Other changes were the addition of a new hint SDLU_HINT_GL_ADD_PADDING, which may be set to change how SDLU_GL_LoadTexture() handles non-power-of-two-textures. See SDLU_hints.h and here for details.

Finally, many changes were made to the README files, to be as helpful and accurate as possible.

Expect a new snapshot in the next few days.

Development state [3rd October]

In my last post [about a week ago], I had said that the weekend would see some API changes that were planned to happen anyway. I decided it would be better for them to happen before the first release [it's going to be 2.0].

Well, the weekend turned out to be a week, because of some other tasks I had to fulfill over the last few days. Anyway, the changes are now in the main git repository here.

API Additions

• Added two new functions, SDLU_GetSpriteVelocity() and SDLU_GetSpriteAdvance()

API Changes

• Merged the functionality of SDLU_Get/SetSpritePaused() into SDLU_PauseSprite()
• Merged the functionality of SDLU_Get/SetButtonHidden() into SDLU_HideButton()
• Renamed SDLU_LoadTextureEx() to SDLU_LoadTextureWithColorkey()

API Removals

• Removed the shorter FPS_* macros, to avoid conficts with other libraries
• Removed SDLU_GetButtonPress(). Not only is it not required any more, but also using it would had negative impact in visuals and performance

Important changes

• Added new premake action ios, used to build the iOS port of the library (oh yeah!). See README-ios for details.
• Removed un-needed hard-coded stuff from the NetBeans project. Also, the project is now usable in NetBeans version 7.3 [may also work for older versions].
• Made several improvements and fixes at the README files

With those changes applied, and with the official (finally) iOS support, we are getting closer to a stable 2.0 release. Expect a new code snapshot soon.

-- Aggelos Kolaitis

It's gonna be a weekend of huge changes

The library has been stabilized in terms of features, so this weekend will have many API changes to keep a consistent feeling. I decided to do this before the 2.0 release, since after that it will be too late to make such changes.

-- Aggelos Kolaitis

The focus is now on the docs

For the next few days, I will restrict the development of the library to bug fixes and small API changes only, with very few additions. The primary goal right now is to start writing a rock-solid wiki, as well as update the documentation in the header files and the website.

Anyway, I haven't done much in the code over the last few days, so I guess we are also close to a release at this point. But first, I will try to update the build system to allow building SDLU as a DLL under Windows systems.

-- Aggelos Kolaitis

Development State [22th September 2013]

Last week was a week of many changes. Some things were removed, others were changed, and many new things were added, along with a bug fix for Android.

New Additions

• The code now should build for iOS and Mac OS X.
• New button flags SDLU_BUTTON_ROUND and SDLU_BUTTON_THEMED
• New premake option --force=LIBS [Read section Forcing Depencies in INSTALL]

Removals

• The SDLU_ALIGN_* macros are now exclusive to the Text Rendering API.

Changes

• Custom fonts for the Text Rendering API (see SDLU_SetTruetypeFont()) are now passed as ready TTF_Font* structures. This allows further control over the output as well as greater rendering speeds, since we don't have to create the font every time.
• Fixed common test code crashing on Android

Expect a snapshot soon...

-- Aggelos Kolaits

Testers for Mac OS X wanted!

Well, currently the library has reached a stable point is probably ready for a beta. There are some things that have to be done before that, though...

Besides adding some small APIs, I want to make sure the library actually works as expected under Mac OS X [and if I have the time possibly add official support for iOS]. This is as hard as it can get, because I have no access to a Mac machine.

For that reason, fellow OS X developers: Please test the library [build and run all the tests too to see if anything has to be fixed]. I don't want to make a release of something that has not been tested for Mac OS X. SDL2 is a cross-platfrom library, and so should SDLU be. But that's impossible without your help :)

-- Aggelos Kolaitis

Development state [15th September 2013]

I just managed to fix a long-running bug [been there for about two weeks :p], that would mess up the Text Rendering API, by changing the output position of the text at will. Turns out I just used int instead of float to store the scale factors. Anyway, now that I've also finished reworking the Android port and the new Button API, I guess the code has come to a mostly stable point.

Expect a source code snapshot soon!

Website [under development]: http://sdlu.bitbucket.org/
Repository: http://bitbucket.org/sdlu/sdlu

-- Aggelos Kolaitis