Re: DirectFB/SDL backends

[Christopher Armstrong]

> Am 31.07.2006 um 20:07 schrieb Eric Maland:
> > I've also considered building the backend on SDL, which has  
> > accelerated hardware support via DirectFB.  Building it on SDL may  
> > also automagically add support on other platforms in some form.  Is  
> > this a totally misguided idea or am I correct in thinking SDL could  
> > be a usable backend?
> 
> While this is generally not a totally misguided idea, SDL may have  
> some disadvantages over other backends. I programmed only a bit with  
> SDL, and I didn't find out how to resize SDL windows back then. But  
> maybe I just didn't find it in the API. A more severe point is the  
> lack of font rendering support in SDL. You will need to find a  
> library providing you with this or implement it yourself, and it may  
> be hard to find a library that does this in an acceptable way for a  
> GUI library like AppKit. Most SDL games don't need those more  
> sophisticated font rendering features.

Another thing you may wish to consider is that SDL doesn't support
multiple windows. It was supposed to be one of their 2.0 features, but I
don't think they got far with that version. I think the only significant
advantages it provides is a good abstraction for access to OpenGL and
some compositing primitives (which are more important for games than for
gnustep-gui applications).

Cheers
Christopher Armstrong
carmstrong at fastmail __@DOT__ com doot au

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  Christopher Armstrong
  carmstrong@fastmail.com.au

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