fltk/documentation/basics.html
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<H1 ALIGN=RIGHT><A NAME=basics>2 - FLTK Basics</A></H1>
This chapter will teach you the basics of compiling programs that use
FLTK.
<H2>Naming</H2>
All public symbols in FLTK start with the characters 'F' and 'L':
<UL>
<LI>Functions are either <TT>Fl::foo()</TT> or <TT>fl_foo()</TT>. </LI>
<LI>Class and type names are capitalized: <TT>Fl_Foo</TT>. </LI>
<LI><A href=enumerations.html#Enumerations>Constants and enumerations</A>
are uppercase: <TT>FL_FOO</TT>. </LI>
<LI>All header files start with <TT>&lt;FL/...&gt;</TT>. </LI>
</UL>
<H2>Header Files</H2>
The proper way to include FLTK header files is:
<UL>
<PRE>
#include &lt;FL/Fl_xyz.H&gt;
</PRE>
</UL>
<B>Microsoft Windows developers please note:</B> case *is* significant
under other operating systems, and the C standard uses the forward
slash (/) to separate directories. <i>Do not do any of the following:</i>
<UL>
<PRE>
#include &lt;FL\Fl_xyz.H&gt;
#include &lt;fl/fl_xyz.h&gt;
#include &lt;Fl/fl_xyz.h&gt;
</PRE>
</UL>
<H2>Compiling Programs with Standard Compilers</H2>
Under UNIX (and under Microsoft Windows when using the GNU development
tools) you will probably need to tell the compiler where to find the
header files. This is usually done using the <TT>-I</TT> option:
<UL>
<PRE>
CC -I/usr/local/include ...
gcc -I/usr/local/include ...
</PRE>
</UL>
Similarly, when linking your application you will need to tell the
compiler to use the FLTK library:
<UL>
<PRE>
CC ... -L/usr/local/lib -lfltk -lXext -lX11 -lm
gcc ... -L/usr/local/lib -lfltk -lXext -lX11 -lm
</PRE>
</UL>
<H2>Compiling Programs with Microsoft Visual C++</H2>
In Visual C++ you will need to tell the compiler where to find the
FLTK header files. This can be done by selecting &quot;Settings&quot; from the
&quot;Project&quot; menu and then changing the &quot;Preprocessor&quot; settings under the
&quot;C/C++&quot; tab. Similarly, you will need to add the FLTK library to the
&quot;Link&quot; settings.
<P>You can build your Microsoft Windows applications as Console or
WIN32 applications. If you want to use the standard C <TT>main()</TT>
function as the entry point, FLTK includes a <TT>WinMain()</TT>
function that will call your <TT>main()</TT> function for you. </P>
<P><I>Note: The Visual C++ 5.0 optimizer is known to cause problems with
many programs. We only recommend using the &quot;Favor Small Code&quot;
optimization setting.</I> The Visual C++ 6.0 optimizer seems to be much
better and can be used with the "optimized for speed" setting.</P>
<H2>Writing Your First FLTK Program</H2>
All programs must include the file <TT>&lt;FL/Fl.H&gt;</TT>. In addition the
program must include a header file for each FLTK class it uses.
Listing 1 shows a simple &quot;Hello, World!&quot; program that uses FLTK to
display the window.
<UL><I>Listing 1 - &quot;hello.cxx&quot;</I>
<BR>&nbsp;
<PRE>
#include &lt;FL/Fl.H&gt;
#include &lt;FL/Fl_Window.H&gt;
#include &lt;FL/Fl_Box.H&gt;
int main(int argc, char **argv) {
Fl_Window *window = new Fl_Window(300,180);
Fl_Box *box = new Fl_Box(20,40,260,100,&quot;Hello, World!&quot;);
box-&gt;box(FL_UP_BOX);
box-&gt;labelsize(36);
box-&gt;labelfont(FL_BOLD+FL_ITALIC);
box-&gt;labeltype(FL_SHADOW_LABEL);
window-&gt;end();
window-&gt;show(argc, argv);
return Fl::run();
}
</PRE>
</UL>
After including the required header files, the program then creates a
window:
<UL>
<PRE>
Fl_Window *window = new <A href=Fl_Window.html#Fl_Window>Fl_Window</A>(300,180);
</PRE>
</UL>
and a box with the &quot;Hello, World!&quot; string in it:
<UL>
<PRE>
Fl_Box *box = new <A href=Fl_Box.html#Fl_Box>Fl_Box</A>(20,40,260,100,&quot;Hello, World!&quot;);
</PRE>
</UL>
Next, we set the type of box and the size, font, and style of the label:
<UL>
<PRE>
box-&gt;box(FL_UP_BOX);
box-&gt;<A href=Fl_Widget.html#Fl_Widget.labelsize>labelsize</A>(36);
box-&gt;<A href=Fl_Widget.html#Fl_Widget.labelfont>labelfont</A>(FL_BOLD+FL_ITALIC);
box-&gt;<A href=Fl_Widget.html#Fl_Widget.labeltype>labeltype</A>(FL_SHADOW_LABEL);
</PRE>
</UL>
Finally, we show the window and enter the FLTK event loop:
<UL>
<PRE>
window-&gt;<A href=Fl_Group.html#Fl_Group.end>end</A>();
window-&gt;<A href=Fl_Window.html#Fl_Window.show>show</A>(argc, argv);
return <A href=functions.html#run>Fl::run</A>();
</PRE>
</UL>
The resulting program will display the window below. You can quit the
program by closing the window or pressing the ESCape key.
<P ALIGN=CENTER><IMG src=./hello.C.gif></P>
<H3>Creating the Widgets</H3>
The widgets are created using the C++ <TT>new</TT> operator. For
most widgets the arguments to the constructor are:
<UL>
<PRE>
Fl_Widget(x, y, width, height)
</PRE>
</UL>
<P>The <TT>x</TT> and <TT>y</TT> parameters determine where the widget
or window is placed on the screen. In FLTK the top left corner of the
window or screen is the origin (i.e. x = 0, y = 0) and the units are in
pixels. </P>
<P>The <TT>width</TT> and <TT>height</TT> parameters determine the size
of the widget or window in pixels. The maximum widget size is
typically governed by the underlying window system or hardware. </P>
<p><tt>label</tt> is a pointer to a character string to label the
widget with or <tt>NULL</tt>. If not specified the label defaults to
<tt>NULL</tt>. The label string must be in static storage (such as a
string constant) because FLTK does not make a copy of it (it just uses
the pointer).
<H3>Get/Set Methods</H3>
<tt>box-&gt;box(FL_UP_BOX)</tt> sets the type of box the
Fl_Box draws, changing it from the default of <tt>FL_NO_BOX</tt>, which means
that no box is drawn. In our &quot;Hello, World!&quot; example we use <TT>
FL_UP_BOX</TT>, which means that a raised button border will be drawn
around the widget. You can learn more about boxtypes in <A href=#boytypes>
Chapter 3</A>.
<p>You could examine the boxtype in by doing
<tt>box->box()</tt>. Fltk uses method name overloading to make
short names for get/set methods. A "set" method is always of the form
"void&nbsp;name(type)", and a "get" method is always of the form
"type&nbsp;name()&nbsp;const".
<p>Almost all of these set/get pairs are very fast and short inline
functions and thus very efficient. However, <i>the "set" methods do
not call redraw()</i>, you have to call it yourself. This greatly
reduces code size and execution time. The only common exception is
<tt>value()</tt>, this does redraw() if necessary.
<H3>Labels</H3>
All widgets support labels. In the case of window widgets, the label
is used for the label in the title bar. Our example program calls the <A href=Fl_Widget.html#Fl_Widget.labelfont>
<TT>labelfont</TT></A>, <A href=Fl_Widget.html#Fl_Widget.labelsize><TT>
labelsize</TT></A>, and <A href=Fl_Widget.html#Fl_Widget.labeltype><TT>
labeltype</TT></A> methods.
<P>The <TT>labelfont</TT> method sets the typeface and style that is
used for the label, which for this example we are using <TT>FL_BOLD</TT>
and <TT>FL_ITALIC</TT>. You can also specify typefaces directly. </P>
<P>The <TT>labelsize</TT> method sets the height of the font in pixels. </P>
<P>The <TT>labeltype</TT> method sets the type of label. FLTK supports
normal, embossed, shadowed, symbol, and image labels. </P>
<P>A complete list of all label options can be found in <A href=common.html#labels>
Chapter 3</A>. </P>
<H3>Showing the Window</H3>
The <TT>show()</TT> method shows the widget or window. For windows
you can also provide the command-line arguments to allow users to
customize the appearance, size, and position of your windows.
<H3>The Main Event Loop</H3>
FLTK provides the <A href=functions.html#run><TT>Fl:run()</TT></A>
method to enter a standard event processing loop. This is equivalent
to the following code:
<UL>
<PRE>
while (Fl::wait());
</PRE>
</UL>
<TT>Fl::run()</TT> does not return until all of the windows under FLTK
control are closed (either by the user or your program). </TT></BODY></HTML>