[aldacron]

This little project is an effort to collate several modules which interface with various multimedia-related libraries. Each package will be self contained, eliminating the need for import lib dependencies - all shared libraries will be loaded dynamically by the modules. Some time ago I adopted the habit of never linking an import lib with the main executable of any of my projects, thanks in no small part to the oh-so-helpful error message Windows displays when the user is missing a required DLL. Nearly every D port I've seen of existing C libs require linking with the import lib. So if it seems like I'm reinventing stuff, now you know why.

The first three packages on my hit list are, in order:
opengl
DirectInput (DX5 flavor)
openal

The opengl package is complete up to gl 1.5, and I am currently working on the extensions. After those 3 are put together, I'll be moving on to other things. What I'm looking at right now (in no particular order): dx5 ~ 9, libpng, libjpeg, libogg, and libvorbis. Beyond that, I'm open to including just about anything (as long as it's multimedia [read: games] related). But what I have defined here is what I will consider a 1.0 release.

Because I'm doing all of this by hand, I'm bound to overlook a function here or there (ogl is so friggin big). I'll happily accept help from anyone willing to put these ports through their paces and making those obscure function calls that most of us don't make. Also, I'm on the lookout for those who know their way around Linux (and eventually Mac when D arrives there) better than I to handle version(Linux) on those modules which apply. I'm abstracting the LoadLibrary calls, so the Linux ports will be minimal effort. Anyone interested please give a shout.

I hope that a) you find this useful and b) I find time to actually start the project which spawned all of this

[JJR]

The project is an excellent idea! Thank you for starting it.

But... the name's connotation is very unfitting! Are you planning on abandoning the project?

[larsivi]

May I suggest DevIL (www.imagelib.org)? It may not be basic enough, though.

[aldacron]

[l8night]

a bit of an aside; Good see another fan of explicit linking, I would be interested in you view of my dynloader templated lib (within util8) on http://www.geocities.com/one_mad_alien/dcode/index.html
the core32 lib has the dx8 (and soon dx9) bits without DirectInput, but I have C code to explicitly get most of it (there are issues with some of the structs that are loaded from dlls) so may have some code for you so coerce into you lib sometime this month.
I've been thinking of porting libpng or porting the 6legs java png classes
all depends on which happend first; I sober up, or I get a job!!

[aldacron]

[aldacron]

[l8night]

dynloader:
I'm not going to be using loader.d, I wrote my code to solve a problem, that of being able to use timeGetTime from winmm.dll without having to resort to changing the code that called timeGetTime or making an import lib for winmm.dll.
the majority of the code is redundant unless you use it, it stems from the lack of varargs in templates, so T function(P) need a template as does T function (P0, P1 ) as does T function( p0, P1, ..., Pn ) ad nausium.
then there is a linking issue for each linkage type you need a template, hence the enum and the reproduction of the templates
and finally there are the structure with the over loaded opCall, a little slower (5?) but means you can import with 2 lines of code (only one needs the params), rather than 3 where one is an alias to the template.
FYI loader.d is in the phobos src dir already (0.86 and 0.8

DInput:
yes it was all that c_diFormat stuff, in the end I gave in to the greater evil and used #pragma lib(...) [as it was VC6 not mingw] in my code (wipped myself with birch twigs, live on web-cam for a few minutes to cleanse my soul)
I will have a look at the SDL code tomorow after I find my dx9 bits
which I kind of shelved once I found that I could not get a HDC from a D3D9 texture (or could not work out how to do it) and all the VC examples use the DXEX (i think that right) lib which is a static lib (or seemed to be) thus no good for a D project. [trying to render a bitmap onto a texture, openGL was easy (er)]

Mike.

[aldacron]

[Hohums]

This sounds good. May I suggest me glee port for openGL extentions.

http://badmama.com.au/~anderson/

[aldacron]

[Hohums]