CODEWITHSUNDEEP
user-interfacegraphics
Chris K
Chris K

Reputation: 1576

2D graphics without OpenGL / DirectX as for a GUI Toolkit

I am wondering how to create some 2D graphics without using OpenGL or DirectX. Like, what do e.g. Qt or GTK use, to draw what is basically colored rectangles (and text)?

I know that with KDE 5 and Gnome 3 there were some complains that now OpenGL is required (for certain effects including 3D stuff like the desktop cube that was trendy for a while). So apparently something simpler was used before, yet I can't find out what. Here the answers are basically: OpenGL or SDL …

Upvotes: 2

Views: 1333

Answers (1)

florent teppe
florent teppe

Reputation: 596

Well the most basic way you have to draw a window on linux is to use Xlib or Win32 on windows. These are very basic window drawing APIs that also handle events. But it would probably be a lot of work to use them on their own.

SDL, SFML, or OpenGL are probably better options in most cases, since window rendering protocols can draw rectangles and images but lack a lot of QoL features that make your life as a dev easier. Maybe if you are looking for the absolute best performance Xlib (or wayland) would be the way to go, but if you are looking for a simple way to code a GUI application it's probably a bad idea.

If you want a great and easy to use GuI to do menus and stuffs, dear ImGui is very impressive and easy to use, and can run in a variety of rendering surfaces including SDL and DirectX

Also this answer could help you, it's seems a bit close : Does OpenGL use Xlib to draw windows and render things, or is it the other way around?

You'll notice that at the end they talk of other ways to draw windows which are AGG and Cairo. It's a bit of a wall text but a greatly detailed answer.

Upvotes: 1

Related Questions