Please see the wiki for a more detailed explanation of what SDLCanvas has to offer, and some very basic documentation for its API.
SDLCanvas is completely inspired by the pygame C/Python library which is designed for creating 2D (and sometimes 3D) games using SDL2. Despite the confusing name, SDLCanvas is not designed for creating video games, although there's nothing stopping you from trying! I originally designed the library as a higher level interface into the SDL2 bindings for Julia to create basic graphics, image rendering, and font rendering.
The library is extremely bare-bones and lacks MOST of the features a developer would expect from a modern graphics library (anti-aliasing being one of the sore spots). It doesn't have collision detection, clipping, lighting, occlusion, cameras, or any of the bells and whistles of a game engine (because it isn't one)!
What it can do is draw shape primitives like lines, circles, and rectangles, render text and images, and comes with a GUI manager which currently only has a simple button implemented.
The "examples/" directory in the root of the repo has a series of strangely organised examples of how to use most of the features that already exist in the library.
Using Julia's package manager, SDLCanvas and its dependencies can be installed via:
using Pkg; Pkg.add("SDLCanvas")
, or alternatively in the Julia REPL:
julia> ]
pkg> add SDLCanvas
The "examples/" directory in the repo contains a SDLCanvas_template.jl which is a bare-bones program designed to display an empty black window. However for convenience, the template code is below:
using SDLCanvas
window = create_window("SDLCanvas", 800, 600)
function main()
clock = Clock(60)
RUNNING = true
while RUNNING
while events_exist()
event = pop_event()
if event.type == QUIT || is_key_pressed(event, K_ESCAPE)
RUNNING = false
break
end
end
splash(window, BLACK)
update_display(window)
tick(clock)
end
quit(window)
end
main()Drawing animated circles
Animated scrolling starfield
Spinning loading circle
WASD-player-controlled square
Animated, rotating ellipses
Displaying text centered relative to the surface's center
Displaying a PNG
Drawing circles according to mouse position and button clicked. Left click = Draw single filled red circle Hold right click = Draw filled green circle every frame
GUI manager and button demo
Very simple shape-painting app demo