Disch wrote: > 1) regarding the message pump. It appears the program forfeits control over > to FLTK as soon as it calls Fl::run(), and programs can catch idle events to > update itself between events. However pages clearly indicate that the timing > for idle events is not something that can be relied on. I get the distinct > impression that if I were to use idle events to drive my emulator, the > framerate would be jerky and the sound would either drop out, or require > crazy high latency. > > Needless to say, that is unacceptable for this paticular project. So I'm > wondering if there is any way to get around this paticular issue. Ideally, > I'd like it if you could retain control of the program and simply poll FLTK > to empty its event queue every so often (like between every frame) >
1) Yes, that's correct. You can also emulate fltk::run() by periodically calling fltk::check() in a loop, giving you control when fltk refreshes its windows. Sound in general should never be handled by the same thread that does display if you care about latency. > 2), 3) and 4) fltk is only a widget library, not a gaming library. So any joypad/gamepad/sound/sleep is outside its scope. > > 5) Does FLTK have any kind of Unicode support? The example code I saw > seemed to use char arrays for strings everywhere. I've been trying to make a > conscious effort to make my programs as Unicode friendly as possible. If I'm > stuck using char arrays that's fine -- it's not a huge setback -- though > Unicode would be nice. > fltk2 has solid Unicode support. fltk1 has only recently (like this month) officially gotten a port of it. > > 6) Just what is the difference between FLTK v1.1.x and v.2.0.x? The > download pages have 1.1 linked first (and in bold) as if its still being > updated despite 2.0 being available. Is 2.0 still in beta or something? Is > there any reason to use 1.1 over 2.0 when starting a new project? > fltk1 contains a relatively stable and older api. It's api is general not changing very much. It lacks some often wanted things like namespace support, a much less efficient layout-redrawing mechanism and its code base is much more cumbersome (albeit a tad more battle tested). fltk1's fluid (widget creation tool) is a tad more mature than the one in fltk2. fltk1 releases a stable official version every 6 months to a year. fltk2 improves upon fltk1 with a much more cleaner codebase, native Unicode support, a separation of widget layout and redraw, and adds support for namespaces. Its api at this point is relatively stable, albeit there are still two or three widgets whose api is still ugly and that likely will suffer some changes. Also, Bill is intent in making the Image widget be more friendly to color conversions and hardware support. fltk2 also ships with an fltk1 wrapper that tries to emulate and make porting of fltk1 programs easier, albeit its success is very little (it is probably easier to go fltk2 -> fltk1 with it than the other way). fltk2 is in beta, with no official stable release yet. PS. Overall, if what you are looking for is a gaming library, the truth is that you'll probably be much better served by using SDL. SDL is a very solid gaming library. Its limitations is that it is a very poor widget library as there are not any tools for widget creation and your application is constrained to using a single window. Those limitations are usually not much an of an issue for games or emulators, thou. -- Gonzalo Garramuño [EMAIL PROTECTED] AMD4400 - ASUS48N-E GeForce7300GT Kubuntu Edgy _______________________________________________ fltk mailing list [email protected] http://lists.easysw.com/mailman/listinfo/fltk
