CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c++xcodemacosopengl
Petruza
Petruza

Reputation: 12276

Is there a simple way for opening one (or many) opengl window in mac OS X with C++?

Yes, I hate Objective-c, plus my project will be portable, so I'd like to code as much of it in C++ as possible, ideally 100%.
So I have a regular C++ project made with Xcode, and want to open some OpenGL windows.

edit: Damn, Glut takes over the app's control with glutMainLoop() and I'll like to have more control over the loop.
Will try freeglut, although I can't find OSX binaries, and I always have such bad luck trying to compile someone else's code.

Update:
I tried yet again to link to SDL 1.3 and this time I could get it to work! yoo-hoo!
I always wanted to work with SDL, but using more than one window was mandatory, and that's a feature of version 1.3 which is under development and I never could get it working.
As it is portable to a zillion OSes, and handles 2D graphics as well as OpenGL I'm going with it. Thanks to all!

Upvotes: 3

Views: 1593

Answers (4)

marni
marni

Reputation: 4360

This question has been asked over 3 years ago, yet remain quite fresh. I just recently went through similar exercise for planning school curriculum, and trying to figure out what's the best portable library to work with on Mac/Windows/Linux/mobile with OpenGL projects. Perhaps my notes will help someone make a decision. I only mention the main options that I've considered.

Higher level APIs, for window management plus additional goodies, like sprites, fonts, sounds, event handling, etc:

  • SFML and github repo: nice&tidy, C++, object oriented library that integrates with OpenGL natively. Portability for managing windows and OpenGL 3.3 contexts out of the box on MacOS, Win and Linux. Mobile support provided in the 2.2 branch (github).
  • SDL2: all major platforms, including mobile, supported. The OpenGL context needs to be manually managed somewhat, so use of GLEW for example comes really handy (see below). A bit lower level than SFML.

Lower level APIs, mostly for window and OpenGL context management:

  • GLWF: This is pretty much a GLUT replacement for modern OpenGL. Rather low level, but portable across: Win, OSX, Lin. In active development.
  • GLEW: I only mention it for completness. It doesn't manage windows, but helps managing OpenGL contexts and you might use it together with GLWF or SDL for example.

Others:

  • Freeglut: Open source continuation of GLUT. Suitable for small demo projects. I have not used it myself, but seen good docs and demo code. In active development.
  • GLUT: old one, discontinued. Legacy demos and code around the net.

Upvotes: 1

Beanz
Beanz

Reputation: 1977

If you don't want to use objective-c you're going to have to use either the deprecated carbon libraries, X11, or another library like GLUT to create the window. If portability is a concern either go the GLUT route, or you'll need to write your own window management code for each platform you want to support.

If you don't go the GLUT route you will need to write window management code fore each operating system so I strongly suggest you bite the bullet and write the window management in objective-c++. The only thing you really need to know is that a pointer is always a pointer no matter which language it is in, so just store objective-c ids as void* and cast them back to ids, it actually works out pretty easy.

Upvotes: 3

ergosys
ergosys

Reputation: 49039

GLUT works fine for your stated purpose, although you will probably wish for a nice C++ wrapper for it. I ended up hacking my own, and although GLUT isn't friendly to wrapping, it was doable.

EDIT: Since you have a problem with glutMainLoop(), you may be trying to do more than GLUT was designed to do -- it is mainly intended for hacks, one-off projects and opengl demos. And freeglut doesn't compile OOB on the mac, at least that was my experience.

For a portable, fuller featured app, Qt may be the way to go for you. Otherwise, design your C++ for portability and use a thin GUI layer on each platform. If getting something running on each platform is most important, go for the former. If the best user experience on each platform is most important, go for the latter. You may find that "thin" is not the most descriptive term for what is involved.

I found this demo to be useful for getting a simple Cocoa/OpenGL window working, even though the code has a number of ridiculous bugs: http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#samplecode/CocoaGL/Introduction/Intro.html

Upvotes: 2

Voivoid
Voivoid

Reputation: 755

i guess NeHe tutorials could help;

Upvotes: 2

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