Is SDL still being updated?

Engines and Middleware Programming

Started by Staryon January 19, 2006 12:17 PM

10 comments, last by Roots 18 years, 2 months ago

156

Author

January 19, 2006 12:17 PM

Hi, I have been using SDL for a few months and I am very happy with it. However, I was wondering if there are still people working on this project, because I haven't seen updates since I got it for the first time. I am also wondering how popular is this library, and if more and more people are using it every day or not. Thanks a lot!

tont

139

January 19, 2006 12:46 PM

i heard a new version is in the works but i could be wrong. just repeating what i heard from these forums :P

basement

229

January 19, 2006 01:03 PM

I am a very happy user, too :)

I haven't seen any major updates in the last 2 years but I guess that's because the library is very mature on the major platforms. If you subscribe to the mailing list you see a few patches coming up every few days but mostly for the more obscure platforms. I hope to see more work done for SDL_mixer though, there are some problems. I would gladly help there but I really lack the experience with sound-related stuff.

I would say there are a lot of users actually, not only for games, and it comes preinstalled with many operating systems.

About SDL 2 I dunno, looks like it will take a long time to become stable.

["kampfpanzer" 2D shooter]::

rip-off

11,000

January 19, 2006 01:15 PM

if you don't mind compiling it yourself, you get a new version quite often. additions to the interface are less often, usually lumped in at version number changes.

the big 2.0 is still floating in the air, lots of cool stuff being discussed but quite a while away from being realised

as basement mentioned, the mailing list is where you will hear of all the additions, but you'll hear more bug fixes for esoteric OSes than suggestions and so on.

blog | twitter

Drew_Benton

1,865

January 19, 2006 01:50 PM

Quote:Original post by basement
About SDL 2 I dunno, looks like it will take a long time to become stable.

You could probabally bet it'll be out before Duke Nukem Forever [grin].

Anyways, yes SDL is still being worked on, you can see all of the progress here. I don't know how 'popular' the library is, but I do see more people using it now, so the user base definitly has to be growing. It's not perfect or the best library, but it is certainly a great library. I love it [wink] You are using 1.2.9 correct Staryon? If you are that's why you have not seen any updates, 1.2.9 was recently released, so it might be a bit before a new version is added.

Ezbez

1,164

January 19, 2006 02:08 PM

SDL is a pretty popular library, at least for making games. You can find a good number of resources online about it, even a book or two. Theres a good number of people on this forum who use it, so you'll be able to find plenty of help reguarding your questions here.

Roots

1,626

January 19, 2006 02:35 PM

If you go to #sdl on irc.freenode.net, the topic says something like "SDL 2.0, postponed indefinitely". I asked just this morning what it means, and I was told something along the lines of "there's a lot of great ideas, but no one is implementing them". If you have some free time and are an experienced C programmer, consider giving them a hand. I would love to see what a new major version of SDL would be like, but unfortunately I'm so wrapped up in many other projects it has to be added to my "Things I would like to do if I could clone myself" list. [wink]

Hero of Allacrost - A free, open-source 2D RPG in development.
Latest release June, 2015 - GameDev annoucement

Staryon

156

Author

January 20, 2006 09:02 AM

Thanks for your answers.

Yes, I´m using 1.2.9
I´m glad that there are many people using this library. I hope they can keep it updated frequently and that 2.0 version doesn´t take too long in being released.

Regards.

Staryon

156

Author

January 20, 2006 09:31 AM

Sorry Roots, I didn't see your reply.
It would be nice to help in a project like this, but right now I don't think I have the time to work regularly on this project. However it's something that I would like to do eventually so I'll visit the IRC channel some often.

Thanks for the information!