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From ClanLib Game SDK

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Contents 1 ClanLib Overview Documentation 1.1 Introduction 1.2 Getting Started with build environment 1.3 Creating your applications 1.4 Getting Help 1.5 Module Overviews 1.5.1 Core 1.5.2 Display 1.5.3 Graphical User Interface 1.5.4 Network 1.5.5 Misc

ClanLib Overview Documentation

Introduction

ClanLib is a cross platform toolkit library with a primary focus on game creation. The library is Open Source and free for commercial use, under the ClanLib License.

The library is split into a number of sub-libraries, each providing different classes of functionality. The library is deliberately built so that the different parts try not to put more external dependencies than they absolutely have to. With the exception of clanCore, you can pretty much cherry pick which libraries and classes you find useful, and avoid using the rest. Because of this, you can easily use ClanLib for non-gaming purposes, or mix ClanLib classes with other libraries without getting forced a load of things upon you that you do not need.

Getting Started with build environment

The first step is to ensure that your build environment is set up and ready. We have the following guides to help you with this:

• Visual C++ on Windows
• GNU C++ (gcc) on Linux systems
• XCode on Mac OS X (Not yet supported in Clanlib 2)
• MinGW on Windows, Anjuta, KDevelop (Experimental)

After you have set up your build environment and successfully built ClanLib, you are ready to start creating your applications.

Creating your applications

ClanLib supports that you use the normal platform specific main functions, such as main or WinMain, but a more common approach is to use the cross platform application main provided by the clanApplication library. We have a few simple examples here on how very simple "Hello World" ClanLib applications can look like:

• Console "Hello World" Example
• Display "Hello World" Example

In general, ClanLib is used by simply constructing the objects you require. The only prerequisites is that for each ClanLib sub-library you need to first construct a CL_SetupXX object which performs any initializations and deinitializations required for the library.

Getting Help

If you are having any problems with ClanLib or find some documentation to be limited about a certain topic you can always ask in our forums. These documents might help you as well:

• Frequently Asked Questions
• Porting from ClanLib 1.0 API
• Breaking changes between versions.

• ClanLib class object types overview

Module Overviews

For information about specific parts of ClanLib, see the module overviews below.

Core

• Threading
• Strings and text services
• Template callbacks
• XML services
• Resource management
• Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)
• File services and I/O devices
• Math and algorithms
• SharePtr Usage

Display

• Window management
• Drawing
• User input
• Raster graphics
• Sprites
• Sprites Resources
• Texture Resources
• Fonts
• Shader programs
• OpenGL
• Collision Detection
• Timing for Main Loop

Graphical User Interface

• GUI framework
• Theming model
• Standard Components
• GUI framework details

Network

• Sockets and DNS
• The NetGame Engine
• Web protocols (HTTP, SOAP, etc)

Misc

• Sound
• Regular expressions
• Database services
• Cross-platform application main
• Debugging with MSVC