I've recently implemented some improvements centered on
bindbc-sdl.
== New Loader Function
I've added a function to bindbc-loader (on Windows only) to allow
adding a single path to the default DLL search path. This is to
solve the problem that some of the SDL satellite libraries would
fail to load when placed in a directory outside of the search
path, such as a ./libs subdirectory.
The problem is that SDL loads its dependencies dynamically. So
when a bindbc user would load a lib with a custom path, e.g.,
`loadSDLImage("libs\\SDL2_image.dll")`, the system loader would
find that DLL just fine, but then when it in turn attempted to
load a dependency like libpng, the system loader would search the
DLL search path and *not* the libs subdirectory, thereby causing
a failure.
Now you can do this:
```
version(Windows) setCustomLoaderSearchPath("libs");
if(loadSDL() < sdlSupport) { /* handle error */ }
if(loadSDL_Image() < sdlImageSupport) { /* handle error */ }
// Give SDL_image a chance to load libpng and libjpeg (it loads
them lazily
// when the corresponding flags are passed to IMG_Init.
auto flags = IMG_INIT_PNG | IMG_INIT_JPEG;
if(IMG_Init(flags) != flags) { /* handle error */ }
// Now reset the default loader search path
version(Windows) setCustomLoaderSearchPath(null);
```
It's up to the caller to ensure the path is valid. For example,
if the executable is run from a different directory, then "libs"
will not be relative to the current working directory.
`SDL_GetBasePath` can help there:
https://wiki.libsdl.org/SDL_GetBasePath?highlight=%28%5CbCategoryFilesystem%5Cb%29%7C%28CategoryEnum%29%7C%28CategoryStruct%29
I'm unaware of any issues with other libraries BindBC binds to,
but if they do arise, this will solve those, too.
== SDL_net
I didn't initially port SDL_net over because I didn't think
anyone was using it. I was waiting for someone to request it.
Someone did. It's a small API, so it took a matter of minutes to
complete.
== Streamlined SDL_* version identifiers
Previously, the SDL satellite library bindings could be enabled
with e.g., `BindSDL_Image`, `BindSDL_TTF`, etc. That would enable
the lowest supported version of the library. To enable a more
recent version, an additional identifier was required
(`SDL_Image_205`, `SDL_TTF_2014`). That's just dumb. Now, only
one identifier is required, e.g., `SDL_Image_205` will do the
trick by itself now. `SDL_Image` is equivalent to the
`SDL_Image_200`. The old approach is still supported, though, so
current build configs should continue to work without change.
See the loader documentation for details on the new function:
https://github.com/BindBC/bindbc-loader
There's also a bit about it in the bindbc-sdl documentation,
along with the details about the approach to version identifiers.
https://github.com/BindBC/bindbc-sdl/blob/master/README.md
I've got some bigger packages to port over from Derelict yet (the
OpenCL binding, for example). I've also had a request to include
support for SDL's thread/mutex API so folks using DasBetterC can
have access to it. That's all in the pipeline. Going forward, I
plan to devote a handful of hours one day a week to bindbc until
I've implemented everything on my task list, so it will get done
sooner rather than later.
