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diff --git a/documentation/src/intro.dox b/documentation/src/intro.dox new file mode 100644 index 000000000..2965883c1 --- /dev/null +++ b/documentation/src/intro.dox @@ -0,0 +1,353 @@ +/** + + \page intro 1 - Introduction to FLTK + +The Fast Light Tool Kit ("FLTK", pronounced +"fulltick") is a cross-platform C++ GUI toolkit for +UNIX®/Linux® (X11), Microsoft® Windows®, and +MacOS® X. FLTK provides modern GUI functionality without the +bloat and supports 3D graphics via OpenGL® and its built-in +GLUT emulation. It was originally developed by Mr. Bill Spitzak +and is currently maintained by a small group of developers +across the world with a central repository in the US. + +\section intro_history History of FLTK + +It has always been Bill's belief that the GUI API of all +modern systems is much too high level. Toolkits (even FLTK) are +<I>not</I> what should be provided and documented as part of an +operating system. The system only has to provide arbitrary +shaped but featureless windows, a powerful set of graphics +drawing calls, and a simple <I>unalterable</I> method of +delivering events to the owners of the windows. NeXT (if you +ignored NextStep) provided this, but they chose to hide it and +tried to push their own baroque toolkit instead. + +Many of the ideas in FLTK were developed on a NeXT (but +<I>not</I> using NextStep) in 1987 in a C toolkit Bill called +"views". Here he came up with passing events downward +in the tree and having the handle routine return a value +indicating whether it used the event, and the table-driven menus. In +general he was trying to prove that complex UI ideas could be +entirely implemented in a user space toolkit, with no knowledge +or support by the system. + +After going to film school for a few years, Bill worked at +Sun Microsystems on the (doomed) NeWS project. Here he found an +even better and cleaner windowing system, and he reimplemented +"views" atop that. NeWS did have an unnecessarily +complex method of delivering events which hurt it. But the +designers did admit that perhaps the user could write just as +good of a button as they could, and officially exposed the lower +level interface. + +With the death of NeWS Bill realized that he would have to +live with X. The biggest problem with X is the "window +manager", which means that the toolkit can no longer +control the window borders or drag the window around. + +At Digital Domain Bill discovered another toolkit, +"Forms". Forms was similar to his work, but provided +many more widgets, since it was used in many real applications, +rather then as theoretical work. He decided to use Forms, except +he integrated his table-driven menus into it. Several very large +programs were created using this version of Forms. + +The need to switch to OpenGL and GLX, portability, and a +desire to use C++ subclassing required a rewrite of Forms. +This produced the first version of FLTK. The conversion to C++ +required so many changes it made it impossible to recompile any +Forms objects. Since it was incompatible anyway, Bill decided +to incorporate his older ideas as much as possible by +simplifying the lower level interface and the event passing +mechanisim. + +Bill received permission to release it for free on the +Internet, with the GNU general public license. Response from +Internet users indicated that the Linux market dwarfed the SGI +and high-speed GL market, so he rewrote it to use X for all +drawing, greatly speeding it up on these machines. That is the +version you have now. + +Digital Domain has since withdrawn support for FLTK. While +Bill is no longer able to actively develop it, he still +contributes to FLTK in his free time and is a part of the FLTK +development team. + +\section intro_features Features + +FLTK was designed to be statically linked. This was done by +splitting it into many small objects and designing it so that +functions that are not used do not have pointers to them in the +parts that are used, and thus do not get linked in. This allows +you to make an easy-to-install program or to modify FLTK to +the exact requirements of your application without worrying +about bloat. FLTK works fine as a shared library, though, and +is now included with several Linux distributions. + +Here are some of the core features unique to FLTK: + +\li sizeof(Fl_Widget) == 64 to 92. + +\li The "core" (the "hello" program compiled & linked with a static FLTK + library using gcc on a 486 and then stripped) is 114K. + +\li The FLUID program (which includes every widget) is 538k. + +\li Written directly atop core libraries (Xlib, WIN32 or Carbon) for + maximum speed, and carefully optimized for code size and performance. + +\li Precise low-level compatability between the X11, WIN32 and MacOS + versions - only about 10% of the code is different. + +\li Interactive user interface builder program. Output is human-readable + and editable C++ source code. + +\li Support for overlay hardware, with emulation if none is available. + +\li Very small & fast portable 2-D drawing library to hide Xlib, WIN32, + or QuickDraw. + +\li OpenGL/Mesa drawing area widget. + +\li Support for OpenGL overlay hardware on both X11 and WIN32, with + emulation if none is available. + +\li Text widgets with Emacs key bindings, X cut & paste, and foreign + letter compose! + +\li Compatibility header file for the GLUT library. + +\li Compatibility header file for the XForms library. + +\section intro_licensing Licensing + +FLTK comes with complete free source code. FLTK is available +under the terms of the <A href="license.html">GNU Library +General Public License</A> with exceptions that allow for static +linking. Contrary to popular belief, it can be used in +commercial software - even Bill Gates could use it! + +\section intro_what What Does "FLTK" Mean? + +FLTK was originally designed to be compatible with the Forms +Library written for SGI machines. In that library all the +functions and structures started with "fl_". This +naming was extended to all new methods and widgets in the C++ +library, and this prefix was taken as the name of the library. +It is almost impossible to search for "FL" on the +Internet, due to the fact that it is also the abbreviation for +Florida. After much debating and searching for a new name for +the toolkit, which was already in use by several people, Bill +came up with "FLTK", including a bogus excuse that it +stands for "The Fast Light Toolkit". + +\section intro_unix Building and Installing FLTK Under UNIX and MacOS X + +In most cases you can just type "make". This will +run configure with the default of no options and then compile +everything. + +FLTK uses GNU autoconf to configure itself for your UNIX +platform. The main things that the configure script will look +for are the X11 and OpenGL (or Mesa) header and library files. +If these cannot be found in the standard include/library +locations you'll need to define the <tt>CFLAGS</tt>, +<tt>CXXFLAGS</tt>, and <tt>LDFLAGS</tt> environment variables. +For the Bourne and Korn shells you'd use: + +\code +CFLAGS=-Iincludedir; export CFLAGS +CXXFLAGS=-Iincludedir; export CXXFLAGS +LDFLAGS=-Llibdir; export LDFLAGS +\endcode + +For C shell and tcsh, use: + +\code +setenv CFLAGS "-Iincludedir" +setenv CXXFLAGS "-Iincludedir" +setenv LDFLAGS "-Llibdir" +\endcode + +By default configure will look for a C++ compiler named +<tt>CC</tt>, <tt>c++</tt>, <tt>g++</tt>, or <tt>gcc</tt> in that +order. To use another compiler you need to set the <tt>CXX</tt> +environment variable: + +\code +CXX=xlC; export CXX +setenv CXX "xlC" +\endcode + +The <tt>CC</tt> environment variable can also be used to +override the default C compiler (<tt>cc</tt> or <tt>gcc</tt>), +which is used for a few FLTK source files. + +You can run configure yourself to get the exact setup you need. +Type "./configure <options>", where options are: + +\par --enable-cygwin +Enable the Cygwin libraries under WIN32 + +\par --enable-debug +Enable debugging code & symbols + +\par --disable-gl +Disable OpenGL support + +\par --enable-shared +Enable generation of shared libraries + +\par --enable-threads +Enable multithreading support + +\par --enable-xdbe +Enable the X double-buffer extension + +\par --enable-xft +Enable the Xft library for anti-aliased fonts under X11 + +\par --bindir=/path +Set the location for executables [default = $prefix/bin] + +\par --datadir=/path +Set the location for data files. [default = $prefix/share] + +\par --libdir=/path +Set the location for libraries [default = $prefix/lib] + +\par --includedir=/path +Set the location for include files. [default = $prefix/include] + +\par --mandir=/path +Set the location for man pages. [default = $prefix/man] + +\par --prefix=/dir +Set the directory prefix for files [default = /usr/local] + +When the configure script is done you can just run the +"make" command. This will build the library, FLUID +tool, and all of the test programs. + +To install the library, become root and type "make +install". This will copy the "fluid" executable +to "bindir", the header files to +"includedir", and the library files to +"libdir". + +\section intro_windows Building FLTK Under Microsoft Windows + +There are three ways to build FLTK under Microsoft Windows. +The first is to use the Visual C++ 5.0 project files under the +"visualc" directory. Just open (or double-click on) +the "fltk.dsw" file to get the whole shebang. + +The second method is to use the <TT>configure</TT> script +included with the FLTK software; this has only been tested with +the CygWin tools: + +\code +sh configure --prefix=C:/FLTK +make +\endcode + +The final method is to use a GNU-based development tool with +the files in the "makefiles" directory. To build +using one of these tools simply copy the appropriate +makeinclude and config files to the main directory and do a +make: + +\code +copy makefiles\Makefile.<env> Makefile +make +\endcode + +\subsection intro_visualcpp Using the Visual C++ DLL Library + +The "fltkdll.dsp" project file builds a DLL-version +of the FLTK library. Because of name mangling differences +between PC compilers (even between different versions of Visual +C++!) you can only use the DLL that is generated with the same +version compiler that you built it with. + +When compiling an application or DLL that uses the FLTK DLL, +you will need to define the <tt>FL_DLL</tt> preprocessor symbol +to get the correct linkage commands embedded within the FLTK +header files. + +\section intro_os2 Building FLTK Under OS/2 + +The current OS/2 build requires XFree86 for OS/2 to work. A +native Presentation Manager version has not been implemented +yet (volunteers are welcome!). + +The current set of Makefiles/configuration failes assumes that EMX 0.9d +and libExt (from +<A HREF="http://posix2.sourceforge.net">posix2.sourceforge.net</A>) +is installed. + +To build the XFree86 version of FLTK for OS/2, copy the appropriate +makeinclude and config files to the main directory and do a make: + +\code +copy makefiles\Makefile.os2x Makefile +make +\endcode + +\section intro_internet Internet Resources + +FLTK is available on the 'net in a bunch of locations: + +\par WWW +<A href="http://www.fltk.org/">http://www.fltk.org/</A> <BR> +<A href="http://www.fltk.org/str.php">http://www.fltk.org/str.php</A> + [for reporting bugs]<BR> +<A href="http://www.fltk.org/software.php">http://www.fltk.org/software.php</A> + [source code] + +\par FTP +<A HREF="ftp://ftp.fltk.org/pub/fltk">California, USA (ftp.fltk.org)</A><BR> +<A HREF="ftp://ftp2.fltk.org/pub/fltk">Maryland, USA (ftp2.fltk.org)</A><BR> +<A HREF="ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/mirrors/ftp.fltk.org/pub/fltk">Espoo, Finland (ftp.funet.fi)</A><BR> +<A HREF="ftp://linux.mathematik.tu-darmstadt.de/pub/linux/mirrors/misc/fltk">Germany (linux.mathematik.tu-darmstadt.de)</A><BR> +<A HREF="ftp://gd.tuwien.ac.at/hci/fltk">Austria (gd.tuwien.ac.at)</A> + +\par EMail +<A href="mailto:fltk@fltk.org">fltk@fltk.org</A> [see instructions below]<BR> +<A href="mailto:fltk-bugs@fltk.org">fltk-bugs@fltk.org</A> [for reporting bugs] + +\par NNTP Newsgroups +news.easysw.com + +To send a message to the FLTK mailing list +("fltk@fltk.org") you must first join the list. +Non-member submissions are blocked to avoid problems with +unsolicited email. + +To join the FLTK mailing list, send a message to +"majordomo@fltk.org" with "subscribe fltk" +in the message body. A digest of this list is available by +subscribing to the "fltk-digest" mailing list. + +\section intro_reporting Reporting Bugs + +To report a bug in FLTK, send an email to +"fltk-bugs@fltk.org". Please include the FLTK version, +operating system & version, and compiler that you are using +when describing the bug or problem. We will be unable to provide +any kind of help without that basic information. + +Bugs can also be reported to the "fltk.bugs" newsgroup or on the +SourceForge bug tracker pages. + +For general support and questions, please use the FLTK mailing list +at "fltk@fltk.org" or one of the newsgroups. + +\htmlonly +<hr> +<a class="el" href="index.html">[Index]</a> +<a class="el" href="preface.html">[Previous] Preface</a> +<a class="el" href="basics.html">[Next] 2 - FLTK Basics</a> +\endhtmlonly +*/ |