SDL Window Not Showing Up at all

Question

I am just now learning SDL and have downloaded the libraries and added them to my linker, etc with MinGW and I am trying to run a simple demo program to display a window and it will not show up at all. I get no errors at all, the window just doesn't show up.

#include "SDL.h"
#include <stdio.h>

int main(int argc, char* argv[]) {

SDL_Window *window;                    // Declare a pointer

SDL_Init(SDL_INIT_VIDEO);              // Initialize SDL2

// Create an application window with the following settings:
window = SDL_CreateWindow(
    "An SDL2 window",                  // window title
    SDL_WINDOWPOS_UNDEFINED,           // initial x position
    SDL_WINDOWPOS_UNDEFINED,           // initial y position
    640,                               // width, in pixels
    480,                               // height, in pixels
    SDL_WINDOW_OPENGL                  // flags - see below
);

// Check that the window was successfully created
if (window == NULL) {
    // In the case that the window could not be made...
    printf("Could not create window: %s\n", SDL_GetError());
    return 1;
}

// The window is open: could enter program loop here (see SDL_PollEvent())

SDL_Delay(3000);  // Pause execution for 3000 milliseconds, for example

// Close and destroy the window
SDL_DestroyWindow(window);

// Clean up
SDL_Quit();
return 0;

}

Answer 1

I just tested this on Linux and MinGW. It may be a problem with SDL_Delay blocking before the window gets a chance to show. Try adding a basic main loop to see if it works. This will create an empty window.

#include "SDL.h"
#include <stdio.h>

int main(int argc, char* argv[]) {

SDL_Window *window;                    // Declare a pointer

SDL_Init(SDL_INIT_VIDEO);              // Initialize SDL2

// Create an application window with the following settings:
window = SDL_CreateWindow(
    "An SDL2 window",                  // window title
    SDL_WINDOWPOS_UNDEFINED,           // initial x position
    SDL_WINDOWPOS_UNDEFINED,           // initial y position
    640,                               // width, in pixels
    480,                               // height, in pixels
    SDL_WINDOW_OPENGL                  // flags - see below
);

// Check that the window was successfully created
if (window == NULL) {
    // In the case that the window could not be made...
    printf("Could not create window: %s\n", SDL_GetError());
    return 1;
}

// A basic main loop to prevent blocking
bool is_running = true;
SDL_Event event;
while (is_running) {
    while (SDL_PollEvent(&event)) {
        if (event.type == SDL_QUIT) {
            is_running = false;
        }
    }
    SDL_Delay(16);
}

// Close and destroy the window
SDL_DestroyWindow(window);

// Clean up
SDL_Quit();
return 0;

}