More Restructuring

Okay, a quick update on the site’s pending rearrangement.  Firstly, tutorials are in fact going to stay as posts, not pages. I decided I didn’t want a static front page, but I don’t want general “blog” content on the front page either, so thing’s will have to stay as they are. Secondly, I’m finding more and more as I write tutorials that I have to bother going into detail about which software to install and so on and so forth. This is not only time consuming for me, but also probably annoying for the majority of you who have the software already. But I have a solution: I’m going to write a few new posts about setting up “development environments” on Windows and Unix. Then, when I do a tutorial, I’ll just assume you’ve done all the setup in the other post. In fact, I’m thinking I might more generally put a little “prerequisites” and “recommended reading” section at the top of each tutorial. That way, we can focus on the new stuff, but all the background material is easily available to those who need it.

Summary of Content

Naturally there’ll be one for Windows and one for Linux/Unix, each with various subsections. Now, I don’t want to spend too long writing these setup tutorials, but I do want to keep everyone happy So here’s a quick list of what I’ll cover in each one – lot me know if there’s anything you really want added!

Windows

• Visual C++
• MinGW
• Code::Blocks
• MSYS

Linux/Unix

• GCC
• Code::Blocks
• Text editor (e.g. vim)

Generic

• CMake
• Doxygen
• Git
• Subversion

These last few will be covered in both tutorials, although the specifics will be a little different of course.

Poised to Overclock

Right. Unfortunately I just haven’t had the time to write any posts about building Boost today… The computer’s been out of action all day so far as I’ve been replacing my broken motherboard and installing my after market heatsink and fan, which I I mentioned a few days back. So instead, I’ll just share a few words about that and Boost can wait until tomorrow.

I can certainly say that the fan is really, really quiet, and temperatures appear to be lower than with the stock cooler (I say stock – it certainly looks like Intel’s socket 775 stock cooler, but the fan has an Akasa sticker…). I haven’t had a chance to do any temperature readings under stress yet, so we’ll see how things go. When I have a chance I’ll be trying a little light overclocking too so I’ll let you know how that goes… I’m hoping to get my 2.83Ghz CPU up to a stable 3.4, but I haven’t overclocked before so I don’t know if that’s realistic with my relatively cheap cooler.

At present, I am just reinstalling all my Windows software. I’m hoping to have a minute to play around with ASUS Express Gate, since it appears not to be working out of the box… And then? Well it’s coming up to midnight local time and yet I’m still hoping to not only reinstall Linux Mint, but also successfully install Gentoo (which involves compiling my own kernel ). Still, I’ll see how things go, and I’ll try to sleep a little bit before my early start tomorrow…

Sign up now for new SFML Binaries!

Later on today, I’ll be sending out some updated SFML binaries for Windows. Not only that, there’s going to be a brand new script for installing SFML on Unix (in particular, Ubuntu/Linux Mint, but I’m sure a little modification will have it running elsewhere). If you want to be the first to get hold of all this, remember to subscribe by email if you haven’t yet. Otherwise, they’ll be added to the downloads page in a few days.

Renewed SFML 2.0 Builds

Remember all that time ago when I promised regular SFML 2.0 builds to blog subscribers, plus occasional builds for everyone else, as well? I sent out an initial build, but that was it. Anyway, I’m going to try and get that underway again. So, all current email subscribers will be emailed it – drop me an email if you want to opt out. And if you’re not yet subscribed by email, but would like to get the new builds as soon as possible, then please do subscribe now. But don’t worry if you really don’t want to give your email; I’ll provide a link to the build on the downloads page shortly as well.

Initially, the binaries will just be for VC++ 2008, VC++ 2010 and MinGW as before. I do want to provide Unix binaries as well, but it’s a little tricky with dependencies and stuff so I’ve go to decide how best to go about it. Ultimately I think I’ll try and create a Debian package for users of Debian, Ubuntu and Mint; otherwise it’ll probably have to be binaries without dependencies provided (you’d have to go to your package manager and find them yourself). As for MacOS, I’d like to provide binaries there too, just for the sake of completeness, but it’s not an OS I have – or ever into to have – access to, so I’d have to look into cross compiling it from Linux or Windows.

So anyway, you can look forward to updated Windows binaries this afternoon, and I’ll let you know when I can get some build for other platforms. Just remember than while I will keep you up to date with posts and the downloads page, the quickest and easiest way to hear about updates (and new posts) is to subscribe. So go ahead and do it! You’ll get your binaries soon

PS: I’m providing these files for convenience (and to make the site more popular ), but it’s still a great learning experience to build them yourself at least once. So check out my building SFML tutorials, for Windows/MinGW, Windows/VC or Linux/GCC. Oh, and just so you know, they’ll be updated with some new information soon too!

Scheduled Maintenance

The blog’s been quiet for quite a while now, for which I apologise. Basically, my work has dragged on longer than expected, but hopefully I’ll be able to continue soon.

But to the title of the post. My computer is becoming old and too hot, so I am upgrading one or two components and switching case. I also want to reinstall Windows, but there’s no point doing that until the hardware’s been changed. Why should you care? Well basically, I am meaning to upload some prebuilt SFML binaries, but to do so I want to install Visual C++ Express 2008 and 2010 in order to provide the widest range of development options I can. However, my computer is not in a fit state for extra junk right now and frankly I don’t want two of the same IDE on the primary desktop. Therefore, what I’ll do is run it off Virtual PC. Once again, however, I don’t want to get knee deep in that kind of thing until my desktop is new and improved.

Anyway, I hope you won’t lose interest in the mean time, and I’ll try not to keep you waiting too long!

Until then,
Xander

Windows Setup Files

When it comes to distribution, it is obviously advantageous to be able to use setup files to distribute on Windows. You can automate the install process, and also package any necessary redistributable files and dlls (license permitting) in a single file. But how do we make such setup files?

Well here are the links to two options: InnoSetup and NSIS. Both are free (check their licenses for details). In the past I have used InnoSetup.

It has a wizard which makes the creation of a generic installer very quick and easy – that includes readme and license files, installation of multiple files, password protection and control of shortcut creation. However, you can also write scripts directly, providing a greater degree of control over the generated installer.

SFML Graphics – Images and Sprites

So welcome to your second SFML tutorial. This time we’ll be covering basic graphics: displaying images. First, I provide the videos corresponding to this tutorial. Read on for the textual version.