11 KiB
GLFW
Introduction
GLFW is a free, Open Source, portable library for OpenGL and OpenGL ES application development. It provides a simple, platform-independent API for creating windows and contexts, reading input, handling events, etc.
Version 3.0.4 is not yet described. As this is a patch release, there are no API changes.
If you are new to GLFW, you may find the introductory tutorial for GLFW 3 useful. If you have used GLFW 2 in the past, there is a transition guide for moving to the GLFW 3 API.
Compiling GLFW
Dependencies
To compile GLFW and the accompanying example programs, you will need CMake, which will generate the project files or makefiles for your particular development environment. If you are on a Unix-like system such as Linux or FreeBSD or have a package system like Fink, MacPorts, Cygwin or Homebrew, you can simply install its CMake package. If not, you can get installers for Windows and OS X from the CMake website.
Additional dependencies are listed below.
Visual C++ on Windows
The Microsoft Platform SDK that is installed along with Visual C++ contains all the necessary headers, link libraries and tools except for CMake.
MinGW or MinGW-w64 on Windows
These packages contain all the necessary headers, link libraries and tools except for CMake.
MinGW or MinGW-w64 cross-compilation
Both Cygwin and many Linux distributions have MinGW or MinGW-w64 packages. For
example, Cygwin has the mingw64-i686-gcc
and mingw64-x86_64-gcc
packages
for 32- and 64-bit version of MinGW-w64, while Debian GNU/Linux and derivatives
like Ubuntu have the mingw-w64
package for both.
GLFW has CMake toolchain files in the CMake/
directory that allow for easy
cross-compilation of Windows binaries. To use these files you need to add a
special parameter when generating the project files or makefiles:
cmake -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=<toolchain-file> .
The exact toolchain file to use depends on the prefix used by the MinGW or
MinGW-w64 binaries on your system. You can usually see this in the /usr
directory. For example, both the Debian/Ubuntu and Cygwin MinGW-w64 packages
have /usr/x86_64-w64-mingw32
for the 64-bit compilers, so the correct
invocation would be:
cmake -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=CMake/x86_64-w64-mingw32.cmake .
For more details see the article CMake Cross Compiling on the CMake wiki.
Xcode on OS X
Xcode contains all necessary tools except for CMake. The necessary headers and libraries are included in the core OS frameworks. Xcode can be downloaded from the Mac App Store.
Unix-like systems with X11
To compile GLFW for X11, you need to have the X11 and OpenGL header packages
installed, as well as the basic development tools like GCC and make. For
example, on Ubuntu and other distributions based on Debian GNU/Linux, you need
to install the xorg-dev
and libglu1-mesa-dev
packages. The former pulls in
all X.org header packages and the latter pulls in the Mesa OpenGL and GLU
packages. Note that using header files and libraries from Mesa during
compilation will not tie your binaries to the Mesa implementation of OpenGL.
Generating with CMake
Once you have all necessary dependencies, it is time to generate the project files or makefiles for your development environment. CMake needs to know two paths for this: the path to the source directory and the target path for the generated files and compiled binaries. If these are the same, it is called an in-tree build, otherwise it is called an out-of-tree build.
One of several advantages of out-of-tree builds is that you can generate files and compile for different development environments using a single source tree.
Using CMake from the command-line
To make an in-tree build, enter the root directory of the GLFW source tree and run CMake. The current directory is used as target path, while the path provided as an argument is used to find the source tree.
cd <glfw-root-dir>
cmake .
To make an out-of-tree build, make another directory, enter it and run CMake with the (relative or absolute) path to the root of the source tree as an argument.
cd <glfw-root-dir>
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
Using the CMake GUI
If you are using the GUI version, choose the root of the GLFW source tree as source location and the same directory or another, empty directory as the destination for binaries. Choose Configure, change any options you wish to, Configure again to let the changes take effect and then Generate.
CMake options
The CMake files for GLFW provide a number of options, although not all are
available on all supported platforms. Some of these are de facto standards
among CMake users and so have no GLFW_
prefix.
If you are using the GUI version of CMake, these are listed and can be changed
from there. If you are using the command-line version, use the ccmake
tool.
Some package systems like Ubuntu and other distributions based on Debian
GNU/Linux have this tool in a separate cmake-curses-gui
package.
Shared options
BUILD_SHARED_LIBS
determines whether GLFW is built as a static
library or as a DLL / shared library / dynamic library.
LIB_SUFFIX
affects where the GLFW shared /dynamic library is
installed. If it is empty, it is installed to $PREFIX/lib
. If it is set to
64
, it is installed to $PREFIX/lib64
.
GLFW_CLIENT_LIBRARY
determines which client API library to use. If set to
opengl
the OpenGL library is used, if set to glesv1
for the OpenGL ES 1.x
library is used, or if set to glesv2
the OpenGL ES 2.0 library is used. The
selected library and its header files must be present on the system for this to
work.
GLFW_BUILD_EXAMPLES
determines whether the GLFW examples are built
along with the library.
GLFW_BUILD_TESTS
determines whether the GLFW test programs are
built along with the library.
OS X specific options
GLFW_USE_CHDIR
determines whether glfwInit
changes the current
directory of bundled applications to the Contents/Resources
directory.
GLFW_USE_MENUBAR
determines whether the first call to
glfwCreateWindow
sets up a minimal menu bar.
GLFW_BUILD_UNIVERSAL
determines whether to build Universal Binaries.
Windows specific options
USE_MSVC_RUNTIME_LIBRARY_DLL
determines whether to use the DLL version or the
static library version of the Visual C++ runtime library. If set to ON
, the
DLL version of the Visual C++ library is used. It is recommended to set this to
ON
, as this keeps the executable smaller and benefits from security and bug
fix updates of the Visual C++ runtime.
GLFW_USE_DWM_SWAP_INTERVAL
determines whether the swap interval is set even
when DWM compositing is enabled. If this is ON
, the swap interval is set even
if DWM is enabled. It is recommended to set this to OFF
, as doing otherwise
can lead to severe jitter.
GLFW_USE_OPTIMUS_HPG
determines whether to export the NvOptimusEnablement
symbol, which forces the use of the high-performance GPU on nVidia Optimus
systems.
EGL specific options
GLFW_USE_EGL
determines whether to use EGL instead of the platform-specific
context creation API. Note that EGL is not yet provided on all supported
platforms.
Installing GLFW
A rudimentary installation target is provided for all supported platforms via CMake.
Using GLFW
See the GLFW documentation.
Changelog
- Renamed configuration header to
glfw_config.h
to avoid conflicts - Generated file
glfw3.pc
did not respect the LIB_SUFFIX CMake option - [Win32] Bugfix: Removed joystick axis value negation left over from GLFW 2
- [Win32] Bugfix: Restoring windows using the Win+D hot key did not trigger the focus callback
- [Win32] Bugfix: The disabled cursor mode clip rectangle was updated for unfocused windows
- [Cocoa] Added dependency on CoreVideo framework for refresh rate retrieval
- [Cocoa] Enabled Lion full screen for resizable windowed mode windows
- [Cocoa] Bugfix: The
GLFW_KEY_GRAVE_ACCENT
key was reported asGLFW_KEY_WORLD_1
and vice versa - [Cocoa] Bugfix: The
GLFW_KEY_F13
key was reported asGLFW_KEY_PRINT_SCREEN
- [Cocoa] Bugfix: Implicit conversion from
NSUInteger
to int caused warnings with Xcode 5 - [Cocoa] Bugfix: Use of undeclared selectors with
@selector
caused warnings with Xcode 5 - [Cocoa] Bugfix: The cursor remained visible if moved onto client area after having been set to hidden outside it
- [Cocoa] Bugfix: The refresh rate was zero for all modes of certain monitors
- [Cocoa] Bugfix: The
install_name
field of the dynamic library was not set - [Cocoa] Bugfix: Full screen windows were never reported as having focus
- [X11] Added setting of the
WM_CLASS
property to the initial window title - [X11] Bugfix: Removed joystick axis value negation left over from GLFW 2
Contact
The official website for GLFW is glfw.org. There you can find the latest version of GLFW, as well as news, documentation and other information about the project.
If you have questions related to the use of GLFW, we have a
support forum, and the IRC
channel #glfw
on Freenode.
If you have a bug to report, a patch to submit or a feature you'd like to request, please file it in the issue tracker on GitHub.
Finally, if you're interested in helping out with the development of GLFW or
porting it to your favorite platform, we have an occasionally active
developer's mailing list,
or you could join us on #glfw
.
Acknowledgements
GLFW exists because people around the world donated their time and lent their skills.
- Bobyshev Alexander
- artblanc
- arturo
- Matt Arsenault
- Keith Bauer
- John Bartholomew
- Niklas Behrens
- Niklas Bergström
- Doug Binks
- blanco
- Lambert Clara
- Andrew Corrigan
- Noel Cower
- Jarrod Davis
- Olivier Delannoy
- Paul R. Deppe
- Jonathan Dummer
- Ralph Eastwood
- Gerald Franz
- GeO4d
- Marcus Geelnard
- Stefan Gustavson
- Sylvain Hellegouarch
- heromyth
- Paul Holden
- Toni Jovanoski
- Osman Keskin
- Cameron King
- Peter Knut
- Robin Leffmann
- Glenn Lewis
- Shane Liesegang
- Дмитри Малышев
- Martins Mozeiko
- Tristam MacDonald
- Hans Mackowiak
- Kyle McDonald
- David Medlock
- Jonathan Mercier
- Marcel Metz
- Kenneth Miller
- Bruce Mitchener
- Jeff Molofee
- Jon Morton
- Pierre Moulon
- Julian Møller
- Ozzy
- Andri Pálsson
- Peoro
- Braden Pellett
- Arturo J. Pérez
- Pieroman
- Jorge Rodriguez
- Ed Ropple
- Riku Salminen
- Sebastian Schuberth
- Matt Sealey
- SephiRok
- Steve Sexton
- Systemcluster
- Dmitri Shuralyov
- Daniel Skorupski
- Bradley Smith
- Julian Squires
- Johannes Stein
- Justin Stoecker
- Nathan Sweet
- TTK-Bandit
- Sergey Tikhomirov
- Samuli Tuomola
- urraka
- Jari Vetoniemi
- Simon Voordouw
- Torsten Walluhn
- Jay Weisskopf
- Frank Wille
- yuriks
- Santi Zupancic
- Lasse Öörni
- All the unmentioned and anonymous contributors in the GLFW community, for bug reports, patches, feedback, testing and encouragement