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Improve documentation (preface + intro)

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Update particularly Windows (but also other) build instructions.
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Albrecht Schlosser 2024-04-27 19:46:25 +02:00
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documentation/src/intro.dox
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@ -3,12 +3,12 @@
\page intro Introduction to FLTK
The Fast Light Tool Kit ("FLTK") is a cross-platform C++ GUI toolkit for
UNIX®/Linux® (X11 or Wayland), Microsoft® Windows®, and
Apple® macOS®. FLTK provides modern GUI functionality without the
UNIX®/Linux® (X11 and Wayland), Microsoft® Windows®, and
Apple® macOS®. FLTK provides modern GUI functionality without
bloat and supports 3D graphics via OpenGL® and its built-in
GLUT emulation. It was originally developed by Mr. Bill Spitzak
and is currently maintained by a small group of developers
across the world with a central repository in the US.
across the world with a central repository on GitHub.
\section intro_history History of FLTK
@ -65,14 +65,25 @@ Bill received permission to release it for free on the
Internet, with the GNU general public license. Response from
Internet users indicated that the Linux market dwarfed the SGI
and high-speed GL market, so he rewrote it to use X for all
drawing, greatly speeding it up on these machines. That is the
version you have now.
drawing, greatly speeding it up on these machines.
Digital Domain has since withdrawn support for FLTK. While
Bill is no longer able to actively develop it, he still
contributes to FLTK in his free time and is a part of the FLTK
development team.
FLTK was later ported to Windows and macOS. FLTK 1.4 added a
"driver based" system of virtual device drivers that enabled
porting to Wayland as well. Drawing features include Windows GDI+,
Cairo (Wayland and X11), and improved text layout with Pango.
There have been experiments using this driver system to build FLTK
based on SDL2, Android, and other graphics systems based solely on
simple pixel drawing, but this experimental code is not included
in FLTK 1.4. There are thoughts to enable more platforms in later
FLTK versions.
\section intro_features Features
FLTK was designed to be statically linked. This was done by
@ -86,12 +97,18 @@ is now included with several Linux distributions.
Here are some of the core features unique to FLTK:
\li sizeof(Fl_Widget) == 64 to 92.
Note: sizes given below are mostly from 32-bit systems and FLTK 1.1
or earlier, this list needs updates for current FLTK (1.4).
\li sizeof(Fl_Widget) == 64 to 92 (120 in FLTK 1.4 on 64-bit Linux).
\li The "core" (the "hello" program compiled & linked with a static FLTK
library using gcc on a 486 and then stripped) is 114K.
(FLTK 1.4 on 64-bit Linux: 1.1 MB).
\li The FLUID program (which includes every widget) is 538k.
(FLTK 1.4 with more widgets on 64-bit Linux: 2.3 MB and
2.0 MB on 32-bit Windows).
\li Written directly atop core libraries (Xlib, Wayland, Windows or Cocoa) for
maximum speed, and carefully optimized for code size and performance.
@ -99,13 +116,13 @@ Here are some of the core features unique to FLTK:
\li Precise low-level compatibility between the X11, Windows and MacOS
versions - only about 10% of the code is different.
\li Interactive user interface builder program. Output is human-readable
and editable C++ source code.
\li Interactive user interface builder program FLUID. Its output is
human-readable and editable C++ source code.
\li Support for overlay hardware, with emulation if none is available.
\li Very small & fast portable 2-D drawing library to hide Xlib, Cairo, Windows,
or macOS Quartz.
\li Very small & fast portable 2-D drawing library to hide Xlib, Cairo,
Windows, or macOS Quartz.
\li OpenGL/Mesa drawing area widget.
@ -113,12 +130,13 @@ Here are some of the core features unique to FLTK:
emulation if none is available.
\li Text widgets with cut & paste, undo, and support
for Unicode text and international input methods.
for Unicode text and international input methods.
\li Compatibility header file for the GLUT library.
\li Compatibility header file for the XForms library.
\section intro_licensing Licensing
FLTK comes with complete free source code.
@ -142,6 +160,7 @@ the toolkit, which was already in use by several people, Bill
came up with "FLTK", including a bogus excuse that it
stands for "The Fast Light Toolkit".
\section intro_fluid FLUID
FLTK comes bundled with FLUID. FLUID, short for Fast Light User Interface
@ -153,11 +172,18 @@ The FLUID User Handbook is available at https://www.fltk.org/documentation.php .
It can also be compiled from the FLTK source repository using the `fluid_docs`
target in the CMake build environment.
\section intro_cmake Building and Installing FLTK with CMake
Starting with version 1.4, the recommended FLTK building system
is CMake. See file README.CMake of the FLTK source tree for all information.
It's also possible to use \p configure and \p make as follows to build and install FLTK.
Starting with version 1.4, the recommended FLTK building system is CMake.
CMake is a "Build System Generator" that can generate build environments
for usage with Ninja, Make, and many more, for instance IDE's.
See file README.CMake.txt of the FLTK source tree for more information.
\note
In FLTK 1.4 you can also use \p configure and \p make as follows to build and
install FLTK. However, configure/make support will be dropped in FLTK 1.5.0.
\section intro_unix Building and Installing FLTK Under UNIX and macOS with make
@ -201,7 +227,7 @@ override the default C compiler (\p cc or \p gcc),
which is used for a few FLTK source files.
You can run configure yourself to get the exact setup you need.
Type "./configure <options>", where options are:
Type "./configure <options>", where some of the options are:
\par --enable-cygwin
Enable the Cygwin libraries under Windows
@ -213,7 +239,7 @@ Enable debugging code & symbols
Disable OpenGL support
\par --disable-svg
Disable support of reading and writing of Support Vector Graphics (.svg) files.
Disable support of reading and writing of Scalable Vector Graphics (.svg) files.
\par --disable-print
Disable print support for an X11/Wayland platform
@ -226,45 +252,48 @@ Enable multithreading support
\par --enable-wayland
This is the default for Linux and FreeBSD systems equipped with the Wayland software.
Enable the use of Wayland for all window operations, of Cairo for all graphics
and of Pango for text drawing. Resulting FLTK apps run as Wayland clients if a Wayland
Enable the use of Wayland for all window operations, of Cairo for all graphics, and
of Pango for text drawing. Resulting FLTK apps run as Wayland clients if a Wayland
compositor is available at run-time, and as X11 clients otherwise but keep using
Cairo and Pango for all graphics.
\par --disable-xft
Disables the Xft library, resulting in non anti-aliased fonts (X11 platform).
This is not recommended.
\par --enable-usecairo
All drawing operations use the Cairo library (rather than Xlib) producing
antialiased graphics (X11 platform, implies --enable-pango).
\par --enable-pango
Enable the Pango library for drawing any text in any script with any font under X11/Wayland.
Enable the Pango library for drawing any text in any script with any font
under X11/Wayland.
\par --enable-x11
When targeting cygwin, build with X11 GUI instead of windows GDI.
When targeting Cygwin, build with X11 GUI instead of windows GDI.
Also applicable to macOS platforms supplemented with XQuartz.
\par --enable-cairo
Enable support of class Fl_Cairo_Window (all platforms, requires the Cairo library).
Enable support of class Fl_Cairo_Window (all platforms, requires Cairo as
an external library).
\par --enable-cairoext
Enable the FLTK instrumentation for cairo extended use (requires --enable-cairo).
Enable the FLTK instrumentation for cairo extended use (implies --enable-cairo).
\par --disable-gdiplus
Don't use GDI+ when drawing curves and oblique lines (Windows platform).
\par --enable-cp936
Under X11, enable use of the GB2312 locale
Under X11, enable use of the GB2312 locale.
\par --bindir=/path
Set the location for executables [default = $prefix/bin]
Set the location for executables. [default = $prefix/bin]
\par --datadir=/path
Set the location for data files. [default = $prefix/share]
\par --libdir=/path
Set the location for libraries [default = $prefix/lib]
Set the location for libraries. [default = $prefix/lib]
\par --includedir=/path
Set the location for include files. [default = $prefix/include]
@ -273,50 +302,74 @@ Set the location for include files. [default = $prefix/include]
Set the location for man pages. [default = $prefix/man]
\par --prefix=/dir
Set the directory prefix for files [default = /usr/local]
Set the directory prefix for files. [default = /usr/local]
When the configure script is done you can just run the
"make" command. This will build the library, FLUID
tool, and all of the test programs.
"make" command. This will build the library, FLUID tool,
fltk-options (setup tool), and all of the test programs.
To install the library, become root and type "make install".
This will copy the "fluid" executable to "bindir", the header
files to "includedir", and the library files to "libdir".
\section intro_windows Building FLTK Under Microsoft Windows
NOTE: This documentation section is currently under review.
More up-to-date information for this release may be available
in the file "README.Windows.txt" and you should read
that file to determine if there are changes that may be
NOTE: This documentation section is currently under review. More
up-to-date information for this release may be available in the files
"README.Windows.txt" and "README.CMake.txt" and you should read
these files to determine if there are changes that may be
applicable to your build environment.
FLTK 1.3 is officially supported on Windows (2000,) 2003,
FLTK 1.4 is officially supported on Windows (2000,) 2003,
XP, and later. Older Windows versions prior to Windows 2000
are not officially supported, but may still work.
are not officially supported but may still work.
The main reason is that the OS version needs to support UTF-8.
FLTK 1.3 is known to work on recent versions of Windows such as
Windows 7, Windows 8/8.1 and Windows 10 and has been reported to work
in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of these.
FLTK 1.4 is known to work on recent versions of Windows such as
Windows 7, Windows 8/8.1, Windows 10 and Windows 11, and has been
reported to work in both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows versions.
FLTK currently supports the following development
environments on the Windows platform:
\note Libraries built by any one of the following build environments
can not be mixed with object files from any of the other environments
because they use incompatible C++ conventions internally.
CAUTION: Libraries built by any one of these build
environments can not be mixed
with object files from any of the other environments!
(They use incompatible C++ conventions internally.)
FLTK currently supports the following development environments on the
Windows platform:
Free Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 Express and Visual C++ 2010 Express
or later versions using workspace and project files generated by CMake.
Older versions and the commercial versions can be used as well, if they
can open the project files.
\subsection intro_msvc Free and Commercial Microsoft Visual Studio Versions
Visual Studio 2015 Community or later versions use workspace and project
files generated by CMake. Older versions and the commercial versions can
be used as well, if they can open the project files generated by CMake.
FLTK support of Visual C++ is limited to the support of CMake for these
Visual Studio versions.
Be sure to get your service packs!
Since FLTK 1.4 the project files MUST be generated with CMake.
Please read "README.CMake.txt" for more information about this.
\subsection intro_msvc_dll Using the Visual C++ DLL Library
The Visual Studio project files can be used to build a DLL version
of the FLTK library if CMake option 'FLTK_BUILD_SHARED_LIBS=ON' is
set. Because of name mangling differences between PC compilers (even
between different versions of Visual Studio) you can only use the DLL
that is generated with the same compiler version that you built it with.
When compiling an application or DLL that uses the FLTK DLL with Visual
Studio, you need to define the \p FL_DLL preprocessor symbol to get
the correct linkage commands embedded within the FLTK header files.
New since FLTK 1.4.0:
If you build your application project with CMake and use the CMake target
'fltk::fltk-shared' to link your application, then 'FL_DLL' is defined
automatically for you (by CMake Compile Definition). If you use your
own (hand-made) Visual Studio project you still need to define FL_DLL
to compile all source files that use FLTK headers.
\subsection intro_cygwin_mingw GNU toolsets (Cygwin or MinGW) hosted on Windows
If using Cygwin with the Cygwin shell, or MinGW with the Msys shell,
@ -342,13 +395,13 @@ many cases as different tool chains on Windows have
different ideas about where the files should be "installed" to.
For example, if you "install" the libraries using Msys/MinGW
with the following command:
with the following command
\code
make install
\endcode
Then Msys will "install" the libraries to where it thinks
then Msys will "install" the libraries to where it thinks
the path "/usr/local/" leads to. If you only ever build code
from within the Msys environment this works well, but the
actual "Windows path" these files are located in will be
@ -373,43 +426,32 @@ the FLTK libraries and header files into that path.
The other options to "configure" may also be used to
tailor the build to suit your environment.
\subsection intro_visualcpp Using the Visual C++ DLL Library
The "fltkdll.dsp" project file builds a DLL-version
of the FLTK library. Because of name mangling differences
between PC compilers (even between different versions of Visual
C++!) you can only use the DLL that is generated with the same
version compiler that you built it with.
When compiling an application or DLL that uses the FLTK DLL,
you will need to define the \p FL_DLL preprocessor symbol
to get the correct linkage commands embedded within the FLTK
header files.
\section intro_internet Internet Resources
FLTK is available on the 'net in a bunch of locations:
\par FLTK Source Repository on GitHub
https://github.com/fltk/fltk
\par WWW
https://www.fltk.org/ <br>
https://www.fltk.org/bugs.php [for reporting bugs] <br>
https://www.fltk.org/software.php [download source code]<br>
https://www.fltk.org/newsgroups.php [newsgroup/forums]
\par NNTP Newsgroups
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/fltkgeneral [Google Groups interface]
\par User Forums and NNTP Newsgroups
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/fltkgeneral [Google Groups interface] <br>
news://fltk.org:1024/ [NNTP interface]<br>
https://www.fltk.org/newsgroups.php [web interface]<br>
https://www.fltk.org/newsgroups.php [web interface]
\section intro_reporting Reporting Bugs
To report a bug in FLTK, or for feature requests, please use the form at
<A href="https://www.fltk.org/bugs.php">https://www.fltk.org/bugs.php</A>,
and click on "Submit Bug or Feature Request".
You'll be prompted for the FLTK version, operating system & version,
and compiler that you are using. We will be unable to provide
any kind of help without that basic information.
To report a bug in FLTK, or for feature requests, please use
<A href="https://www.fltk.org/bugs.php">https://www.fltk.org/bugs.php</A>
for information about where and how to post bugs, feature requests,
or ask for help on using FLTK.
For general support and questions, please use the fltk.general newsgroup
(see above, "NNTP Newsgroups") or the web interface to the newsgroups at

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@ -4,17 +4,15 @@
This manual describes the Fast Light Tool Kit ("FLTK")
version 1.4.0, a C++ Graphical User Interface
("GUI") toolkit for UNIX, Microsoft Windows and Apple OS X.
("GUI") toolkit for UNIX, Microsoft Windows and Apple macOS.
Version 1.4.0 introduces support for a new windowing system
under Linux/Unix: Wayland. FLTK applications under Linux/Unix
run, unchanged, as Wayland or X11 clients depending on what's
available at run-time.
Version 1.4.0 introduces support for a new windowing system under
Linux/Unix: Wayland. FLTK applications under Linux/Unix run unchanged
as Wayland or X11 clients depending on availability at run-time.
Each of the chapters in this manual is designed as a tutorial for
using FLTK, while the appendices provide a convenient reference
for all FLTK widgets, functions, and operating system
interfaces.
for all FLTK widgets, functions, and operating system interfaces.
<B>This manual may be printed, modified, and/or used under
the terms of the FLTK license provided in \ref license.</B>
@ -46,7 +44,7 @@ This manual is organized into the following chapters and appendices:
\section preface_conventions Conventions
This manual was generated using Doxygen
(see http://www.doxygen.org/)
(see https://www.doxygen.org/)
to process the source code itself, special comments in the code,
and additional documentation files.
In general, Doxygen recognizes and denotes the following entities as shown:
@ -54,7 +52,7 @@ In general, Doxygen recognizes and denotes the following entities as shown:
- methods, such as Fl_Widget::callback(Fl_Callback* cb, void* p),
- functions, such as fl_draw(const char *str, int x, int y),
- internal links, such as \ref preface_conventions,
- external links, such as http://www.stack.nl/~dimitri/doxygen/
- external links, such as https://www.fltk.org/.
Other code samples and commands are shown in <tt>regular courier type</tt>.
@ -74,10 +72,10 @@ Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7 and later Windows versions.
FLTK uses the preprocessor definition <tt>_WIN32</tt> for the 32 bit
and 64 bit Windows API.
\par OS X, <tt>__APPLE__</tt>
The Apple desktop operating sytem OS X 10.0 and later. MacOS 8 and 9 support
\par macOS (aka Mac OS X), <tt>__APPLE__</tt>
The Apple desktop operating sytem macOS 10.0 and later. MacOS 8 and 9 support
was dropped after FLTK 1.0.10. FLTK uses the preprocessor definition
<tt>__APPLE__</tt> for OS X.
<tt>__APPLE__</tt> for macOS.
\section preface_copyrights Copyrights and Trademarks
@ -88,7 +86,7 @@ License with 4 exceptions, located in \ref license.
UNIX is a registered trademark of the X Open Group, Inc.
Microsoft and Windows are registered trademarks of Microsoft
Corporation. OpenGL is a registered trademark of Silicon
Graphics, Inc. Apple, Macintosh, MacOS, and Mac OS X are
Graphics, Inc. Apple, Macintosh, MacOS, macOS, and Mac OS X are
registered trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc.