GLFW 3.3 Is Released

#1

Post by dmitshur » Tue, Apr 16, 2019, 1:49 PM UTC

Re: GLFW 3.3 Is Released

#2

Post by eikenberry » Tue, Apr 16, 2019, 2:53 PM UTC

"GLFW is an Open Source, multi-platform library for OpenGL, OpenGL ES and Vulkan development on the desktop. It provides a simple API for creating windows, contexts and surfaces, receiving input and events."

Re: GLFW 3.3 Is Released

#3

Post by klodolph » Tue, Apr 16, 2019, 3:00 PM UTC

For those who wonder what GLFW is... if you want to play with OpenGL or Vulkan, make a graphics demo, or make a game, GLFW is a library that frees you from having to deal with the nuances of Win32/X11/etc, wrangles keyboard inputs and other things across platforms.

It is similar to LibSDL, but is more lightweight and GPU-centric. GLFW is designed more with greenfield projects in mind, whereas LibSDL was designed from the beginning to help with porting existing code. (They are both excellent libraries.)

Re: GLFW 3.3 Is Released

#4

Post by planteen » Tue, Apr 16, 2019, 3:09 PM UTC

Excellent! I've been using GLFW_TRANSPARENT_FRAMEBUFFER for over a year, but kept having to do builds out of Git to get support. It will be nice when this new library trickles into Linux distros over the next year.

Re: GLFW 3.3 Is Released

#5

Post by kbenson » Tue, Apr 16, 2019, 3:13 PM UTC

klodolph wrote: post #3

For those who wonder what GLFW is... if you want to play with OpenGL or Vulkan, make a graphics demo, or make a game, GLFW is a library that frees you from having to deal with the nuances of Win32/X11/etc, wrangles keyboard inputs and other things across platforms. It is similar to LibSDL, but is more lightweight and GPU-centric. GLFW is designed more with greenfield projects in mind, whereas LibSDL was designed from…

So, it's sort of like GLUT was? (is?) I only messed around with 3D rendering a little back in the very early 2000's, but from what I remember, GLUT made everything much easier.

Re: GLFW 3.3 Is Released

#6

Post by electricslpnsld » Tue, Apr 16, 2019, 3:20 PM UTC

kbenson wrote: post #5

klodolph wrote: post #3

For those who wonder what GLFW is... if you want to play with OpenGL or Vulkan, make a graphics demo, or make a game, GLFW is a library that frees you from having to deal with the nuances of Win32/X11/etc, wrangles keyboard inputs and other things across platforms. It is similar to LibSDL, but is more lightweight and GPU-centric. GLFW is designed more with greenfield projects in mind, whereas LibSDL was designed from…

So, it's sort of like GLUT was? (is?) I only messed around with 3D rendering a little back in the very early 2000's, but from what I remember, GLUT made everything much easier.

I mainly see GLFW used as a modern, if somewhat more bare bones (no font rendering, no event loop, etc), variant of GLUT.

Re: GLFW 3.3 Is Released

#7

Post by skocznymroczny » Tue, Apr 16, 2019, 3:20 PM UTC

kbenson wrote: post #5

klodolph wrote: post #3

For those who wonder what GLFW is... if you want to play with OpenGL or Vulkan, make a graphics demo, or make a game, GLFW is a library that frees you from having to deal with the nuances of Win32/X11/etc, wrangles keyboard inputs and other things across platforms. It is similar to LibSDL, but is more lightweight and GPU-centric. GLFW is designed more with greenfield projects in mind, whereas LibSDL was designed from…

So, it's sort of like GLUT was? (is?) I only messed around with 3D rendering a little back in the very early 2000's, but from what I remember, GLUT made everything much easier.

Yes, it's kind of like GLUT, although it covers fewer functionalities. It focuses only on abstracting the OS specific parts like keyboard/mouse input and window/graphics context creation. GLUT also offered things like rendering fonts, teapots and additional functionalities.

Re: GLFW 3.3 Is Released

#8

Post by Crinus » Tue, Apr 16, 2019, 3:22 PM UTC

kbenson wrote: post #5

klodolph wrote: post #3

For those who wonder what GLFW is... if you want to play with OpenGL or Vulkan, make a graphics demo, or make a game, GLFW is a library that frees you from having to deal with the nuances of Win32/X11/etc, wrangles keyboard inputs and other things across platforms. It is similar to LibSDL, but is more lightweight and GPU-centric. GLFW is designed more with greenfield projects in mind, whereas LibSDL was designed from…

So, it's sort of like GLUT was? (is?) I only messed around with 3D rendering a little back in the very early 2000's, but from what I remember, GLUT made everything much easier.

"is", as long as you consider FreeGLUT as being GLUT.

Re: GLFW 3.3 Is Released

#9

Post by minxomat » Tue, Apr 16, 2019, 3:41 PM UTC

Nice to see this is still in development. I wrote GLWF bindings for two languages and it was pretty easy to grok. It's also absolutely essential if you want to have an UI in a language without support for GUIs (like golang). Just use the OpenGL backend for the immediate mode UI lib of your choice (dear-imgui, nuklear, ...) and GLFW for the window setup and you're golden.

Re: GLFW 3.3 Is Released

#10

Post by enriquto » Tue, Apr 16, 2019, 4:02 PM UTC

Can somebody explain what are the advantages of glfw over freeglut? (other than the non-issue of "being" old)

I am using freeglut for casual opengl code, and I see no problem with it. Is there anything that I am missing?