Thread: Programming with SDL

I'm a beginner, I couldn't find any SDL forums, so I came here for help.
I can code a simple window, and handle simple mouse clicks and key hits, but that's it. I haven't found any tutorials that talk about anything other than displaying graphics or rendering windows and getting mouse clicks. I also looked in the SDL references.

What I want to do is make simple applications, such as a text editor, but I have absolutely no idea how to put text boxes or buttons in the program. Another problem is icons, I can put an icon in the window it self, but not as the .exe icon, as you would do with resources and such.

Can SDL handle buttons, text boxes, and executable icons, among other things? Or do I need another library?

Well you COULD make a program that looks just like a regular windows app using SDL, but it's kind of a round-about method. I'd recommend getting a library that's made specifically for making windows apps.

There's the Win32 SDK, which is free, and quite similar in style to SDL (useable in both C and C++). If you'd like to try that out, google for "Forger's Win32 Tutorial" - depending on your compiler - you may already have the library.

There are other libraries like MFC, OWL, etc... that you can research if you'd like, but I just use the Win32 SDK - it works in C and C++.

If you're designing applications with GUIs (Graphical User Interface) in other OSes like Linux, there are other cross-platform libraries for this - a popular choice being qt.

I do have Forgers tutorial, and I've done quite a bit of it, but I like SDL better (seems alot easier as well) but I guess I need to just stick with Win32.

So, can anyone help with the icon problem?

It's actually SDL_WM_SetIcon(), but that's not what I'm talking about.

SDL_WM_SetIcon sets the icon for the window, I need to know how to set actual executable file's icon.

I know how to do this with Win32, but not with SDL.

First of all, that doesn't work. Secondly, that's still not what I mean.

Can you use resources with SDL?

Erebus, you can use resources if you have a window's compiler but geting SDL(which is fairly platoform independent) to use the Win32 platform dependent resource types would be quite difficult, I think. So, if you just use your resource icons and call win32 functions with them you'll be OK, but if you want to turn a resource icon into a SDL_Surface you'll going to have to a bit of work.

I'd like to use the icon resources in a SDL program... Or use Win32 functions to use the icon resources... If that's what you mean.

You cane make a Win32 program and then just use SDL for the interface. That would allow you to use SDL for graphics, etc... but still use Win32 resource files like in Forger's.

I wouldn't really know how to go about doing that.

Having not doen it myself, I too am unsure, but you should be able to just write it like a regular SDL program, and if you need to make windows system calls, just include window.h and call the function. The same should, I believe, apply to the use of resource files, etc...

Perhaps google may turn up a few tutorials on using SDL in Win32 programs.

Alright, figured it out on my own, was very simple, actually.

Just had to make the resource file, then add it into the project and compile, worked perfectly.

Thanks for the help though!