261 lines
9.9 KiB
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261 lines
9.9 KiB
HTML
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<H1 ALIGN=RIGHT><A NAME="intro">1 - Introduction to FLTK</A></H1>
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The Fast Light Tool Kit ("FLTK", pronounced "fulltick") is a LGPL'd C++
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graphical user interface toolkit for X (UNIX®), OpenGL®, and
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Microsoft® Windows® NT 4.0, 95, or 98. It is currently
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maintained by a small group of developers across the world with a
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central repository in the US.
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<h2>History of FLTK</h2>
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It has always been Bill's belief that the GUI API of all modern systems
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is much too high level. Toolkits (even FL) are <i>not</i> what should
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be provided and documented as part of an operating system. The system
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only has to provide arbitrary shaped but featureless windows, a
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powerful set of graphics drawing calls, and a simple <i>unalterable</i>
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method of delivering events to the owners of the windows. NeXT (if you
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ignored NextStep) provided this, but they chose to hide it and tried to
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push their own baroque toolkit instead...
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<p>Many of the ideas in FLTK were developed on a NeXT (but <i>not</i>
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using NextStep) in 1987 in a C toolkit Bill called "views". Here he
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came up with passing events downward in the tree and having the handle
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routine return a value indicating the used the event, and the
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table-driven menus. In general he was trying to prove that complex UI
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ideas could be entirely implemented in a user space toolkit, with no
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knowledge or support by the system.
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<p>After going to film school for a few years, Bill worked at Sun
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Microsystems on the (doomed) NeWS project. Here he found an even
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better and cleaner windowing system, and he reimplemented "views" atop
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that. NeWS did have an unnecessarily complex method of delivering
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events which hurt it. But the designers did admit that perhaps the
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user could write just as good of a button as they could, and officially
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exposed the lower level interface.
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<p>With the death of NeWS Bill realized that he would have to live with
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X. The biggest problem with X is the "window manager", which means
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that the toolkit can no longer control the window borders or drag the
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window around.
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<p>At Digital Domain Bill discovered another toolkit, "Forms". Forms was
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similar to his work, but provided many more widgets, since it was used
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in many real applications, rather then as theoretical work. He decided
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to use Forms, except he integrated my table-driven menus into it.
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Several very large programs were created using this version of Forms.
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<p>The need to switch to OpenGL and GLX, portability, and a desire to
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use C++ subclassing required a rewrite of Forms. This produced the
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first version of FLTK. The conversion to C++ required so many changes
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it made it impossible to recompile any Forms objects. Since it was
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incompatable anyway, Bill decided to incorporate as much as possible my
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older ideas on simplifying the lower level interface and the event
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passing mechanisim.
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<p>Bill received permission to release it for free on the Internet,
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with the GNU general public license. Response from Internet users
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indicated that the Linux market dwarfed the SGI and high-speed GL
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market, so he rewrote it to use X for all drawing, greatly speeding it
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up on these machines. That is the version you have now.
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<p>Digital Domain has since withdrawn support for FLTK. While Bill is
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no longer able to actively develop it, he still contributes to FLTK in
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his free time and is a part of the FLTK development team.
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<h2>Features</h2>
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FLTK was designed to be statically linked. This was done by splitting it
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into many small objects and desigining it so that functions that are not
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used do not have pointers to them in the parts that are used, and thus
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do not get linked in. This allows you to make an easy-to-install program,
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or to modify FLTK to the exact requirements of your application, without
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worrying about bloat. FLTK works fine as a shared library, though, and
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has started being included on Linux distributions.
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<p>Here are some of the core features unique to FLTK:
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<ul>
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<li>sizeof(Fl_Widget) == 48.</li>
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<li>The "core" (the "hello" program compiled & linked with a static FLTK
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library using gcc on a 486 and then stripped) is 39.5K.</li>
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<li>A program including every widget is less than 108K. Does not use
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macros, templates, multiple inheritance, or exceptions.</li>
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<li>Written directly atop Xlib (or WIN32) for maximum speed,
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and carefully optimized for code size and performance.</li>
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<li>Precise low-level compatability between the X11 and WIN32
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version (only about 10% of the code is different).</li>
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<li>Interactive user interface builder program. Output is
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human-readable and editable C++ source code.</li>
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<li>Support for the X11 double buffering extension (emulation
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if not available and under Windows.)</li>
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<li>Support for X11 overlay hardware (emulation if none and
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under WIN32.)</li>
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<li>Very small & fast portable 2-D drawing library to hide
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Xlib and WIN32.</li>
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<li>OpenGL/Mesa drawing area widget.</li>
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<li>Support for OpenGL overlay hardware on both X11 and WIN32.
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Emulation if none.</li>
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<li>Text input fields with Emacs key bindings, X cut &
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paste, and foreign letter compose!</li>
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<li>Compatability header file for the GLUT library.</li>
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<li>Compatability header file for the XForms library.</li>
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<li>Much too much to list here...</li>
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</ul>
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<h2>Licensing</h2>
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FLTK comes with complete free source code. FLTK is available under the
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terms of the <a href="#licensing">GNU Library General Public
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License</a>. Contrary to popular belief, it can be used in commercial
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software! (Even Bill Gates could use it.)
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<h2>What Does "FLTK" Mean?</h2>
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FLTK was originally designed to be compatable with the Forms Library written
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for SGI machines. In that library all the functions and structures started
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with "fl_". This naming was extended to all new methods and widgets in
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the C++ library, and this prefix was taken as the name of the library.
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It is almost impossible to search for "FL" on the Internet, due to the
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fact that it is also the abbreviation for Florida. After much debating
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and searching for a new name for the toolkit, which was already in use
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by several people, Bill came up with "FLTK", and even a bogus excuse that
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it stands for "The Fast Light Tool Kit".
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<h2>Building and Installing FLTK Under UNIX</h2>
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In most cases you can just type "make". This will run configure with
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the default of no options and then compile everything.
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<p>FLTK uses GNU autoconf to configure itself for your UNIX platform. The
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main things that the configure script will look for are the X11, OpenGL
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(or Mesa), and JPEG header and library files. Make sure that they
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are in the standard include/library locations.
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<p>You can run configure yourself to get the exact setup you need. Type
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"./configure <options>", where options are:
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<dl>
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<dt>--enable-debug</dt>
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<dd>Enable debugging code & symbols</dd>
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<dt>--enable-shared</dt>
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<dd>Enable generation of shared libraries</dd>
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<dt>--bindir=/path</dt>
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<dd>Set the location for executables [default = /usr/local/bin]</dd>
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<dt>--libdir=/path</dt>
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<dd>Set the location for libraries [default = /usr/local/lib]</dd>
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<dt>--includedir=/path</dt>
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<dd>Set the location for include files. [default = /usr/local/include]</dd>
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<dt>--prefix=/dir</dt>
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<dd>Set the directory prefix for files [default = /usr/local]</dd>
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</dl>
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When the configure script is done you can just run the "make" command.
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This will build the library, FLUID tool, and all of the test programs.
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<p>To install the library, become root and type "make install". This
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will copy the "fluid" executable to "bindir", the header files to "includedir",
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and the library files to "libdir".
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<h2>Building FLTK Under Micrsoft Windows</h2>
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There are two ways to build FLTK under Microsoft Windows. The first
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is to use the Visual C++ 5.0 project files under the "visualc" directory.
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Just open (or double-click on) the "fltk.dsw" file to get the whole shebang.
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<p>The second method is to use a GNU-based development tool with the files
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in the "makefiles" directory. To build using one of these tools simply
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copy the appropriate makeinclude and config files to the main directory
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and do a make:
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<ul><pre>
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cp makefiles/makeinclude.<env> makeinclude
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cp makefiles/config.<env> config.h
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make
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</pre></ul>
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<h2>Building FLTK Under OS/2</h2>
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The current OS/2 build requires XFree86 for OS/2 to work. A native
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Presentation Manager version has not been implemented yet (volunteers are
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welcome!).
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<p>To build the XFree86 version of FLTK for OS/2, copy the appropriate
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makeinclude and config files to the main directory and do a make:
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<ul><pre>
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cp makefiles/Makefile.os2x Makefile
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cp makefiles/makeinclude.os2x makeinclude
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cp makefiles/config.os2x config.h
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make
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</pre></ul>
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<h2>Internet Resources</h2>
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FLTK is available on the 'net in a bunch of locations:
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<dl>
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<dt>WWW</dt>
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<dd><a href="http://fltk.easysw.com">http://fltk.easysw.com</a></dd>
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<dt>FTP</dt>
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<dd><a href="ftp://ftp.easysw.com/pub/fltk">ftp://ftp.easysw.com/pub/fltk</a><br>
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<a href="ftp://ftp.funet.fi/mirrors/ftp.easysw.com/pub/fltk">ftp://ftp.funet.fi/mirrors/ftp.easysw.com/pub/fltk</a><br>
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<a href="ftp://ftp.northamerica.net/pub/ESP/fltk">ftp.northamerica.net/pub/ESP/fltk</a><br></dd>
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<dt>EMail</dt>
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<dd><a href="mailto:fltk@easysw.com">fltk@easysw.com</a> [see instructions below]</dd>
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<dd><a href="mailto:fltk-bugs@easysw.com">fltk-bugs@easysw.com</a> [for reporting bugs]</dd>
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</dl>
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To send a message to the FLTK mailing list ("fltk@easysw.com") you must
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first join the list. Non-member submissions are blocked to avoid
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problems with SPAM...
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<p>To join the FLTK mailing list, send a message to "majordomo@easysw.com"
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with "subscribe fltk" in the message body. A digest of this list is available
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by subscribing to the "fltk-digest" mailing list.
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<h2>Reporting Bugs</h2>
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To report a bug in FLTK, send an email to "fltk-bugs@easysw.com". Please
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include the FLTK version, operating system & version, and compiler
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that you are using when describing the bug or problem.
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<p>For general support and questions, please use the FLTK mailing list
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at "fltk@easysw.com".
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</body>
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</html>
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