openglean-devel

[openglean-devel]Empty window query

[Matt J. <mat...@fa...>]

Hi, I hope this is a good place to ask.
A very minor comment that I didn't feel I could submit as a bug or a
feature request.

When using the old GLUT library in my project, I created a window,
reserved lots of memory and then went into the glutmainloop.  Now in
between the time the window was created and the mainloop entered
(initialisation finished) the window was just filled with black - which
I guess was not updated, just initialised on creation to be black.

However, with the openGLEAN library the difference is this window,
although it has the frame and bar at the top, the contents is empty -
that is, the contents of the window are the same as the background so in
effect it looks completely transparent until the mainloop is reached,
where the background is finally filled in.

I'm not entirely sure this is a bug or a feature, but I would much
prefer the black initialisation because there is a long pause while
reserving memory in my prog and it looks very ugly during this time.  As
you can tell, it's not the most important query of all time..... just
aesthetics.

I am using openGLEAN 0.5.0 for windows, XP.  Development environment is
visual .net 2003.

By the way, thanks a lot for developing openGLEAN, it has been great to
use so far, and I'm looking forward to using the new fonts!

Best regards,

Matt

-- 
http://www.fastmail.fm - A fast, anti-spam email service.

Re: [openglean-devel]Empty window query

[Richard R. <sf...@ol...>]

On Mon, Aug 29, 2005 at 01:40:20PM +0100, Matt Jones wrote:
> Hi, I hope this is a good place to ask.
> A very minor comment that I didn't feel I could submit as a bug or a
> feature request.

Probably this is the best place for this discussion.


> When using the old GLUT library in my project, I created a window,
> reserved lots of memory and then went into the glutmainloop.  Now in
> between the time the window was created and the mainloop entered
> (initialisation finished) the window was just filled with black - which
> I guess was not updated, just initialised on creation to be black.

I can see how that can be desirable.


> However, with the openGLEAN library the difference is this window,
> although it has the frame and bar at the top, the contents is empty -
> that is, the contents of the window are the same as the background so in
> effect it looks completely transparent until the mainloop is reached,
> where the background is finally filled in.
> 
> I'm not entirely sure this is a bug or a feature, but I would much
> prefer the black initialisation because there is a long pause while
> reserving memory in my prog and it looks very ugly during this time.  As

I understand.  I'm mixed on whether to change the behavior.

Keeping the library simple never outranks important functionality.
In this case, I see a couple of workarounds.  One is to use a GLUT
timer to delay the time-consuming initialization.  (Or even spread
out the initialization in chunks over time, if there are other
things that you can do during that setup.)

The other workaround is along these lines:

    void redisplay_normal (void)
    {
        // ...
    }
    void redisplay_init (void)
    {
        blank_window ();
        do_initialization ();
        glutDisplayFunc (redisplay_normal);
        glutPostRedisplay ();
    }

    int main (int argc, char **argv)
    {
        // ...
        glutDisplayFunc (redisplay_init);

Will these ideas work for you?

I realize that these are just workarounds.


> you can tell, it's not the most important query of all time..... just
> aesthetics.

It's pretty important that the library allow for aesthetics.  (^&
I'll even go so far as to say: It is important to OpenGLEAN that
there be away around this issue.


> By the way, thanks a lot for developing openGLEAN, it has been great to
> use so far, and I'm looking forward to using the new fonts!

Of course, much is owed to those who came before:

 * Mark for the original GLUT.  Clean, simple, and pretty bug-free,
   really.
 * Pawel for the open-source implementation in freeglut.
 * The rest of the freeglut developers for fixes and enhancements.
 * Nigel for lots of work on the Doxygen documentation as well as
   misc. features and fixes, in OpenGLUT.

Without them, OpenGLEAN probably wouldn't exist.  (To say nothing of
the people who made the tools, and SourceForge for site support...)

And, I'm always looking for people willing and able to help OpenGLEAN
go in new directions.  Input, documentation, code, porting to new
build environments or window systems, testing, ...


Re. fonts: So far, there are no new fonts, but the GLUT font
selection was very restricted.  That's an area I want to address.
Right now, I'm the sole developer working on OpenGLEAN and new
fonts are a little ways back in the queue.


-- 
  "I probably don't know what I'm talking about."  http://www.olib.org/~rkr/

Re: [openglean-devel]Empty window query

[Matt J. <mat...@fa...>]

> In this case, I see a couple of workarounds.  One is to use a GLUT
> timer to delay the time-consuming initialization.  (Or even spread
> out the initialization in chunks over time, if there are other
> things that you can do during that setup.)
>
> Will these ideas work for you?

Of course, great ideas! thanks for that.

It must be quite a load on your mind being the sole developer.
I'm not in any position to help out either, but hope you don't ever feel
pressured to bust any guts coding away.  The font stuff would be cool
whenever it decides to make its way to the top of that list!

By the way, I have openGLEAN working nicely with GLOW, kind of using it
as a c++ wrapper plus its nice custom widget classes.  Just in case
anybody might be interested whether they worked together...

Best of luck with the proj.  Appreciate your efforts,

Matt

-- 
http://www.fastmail.fm - Or how I learned to stop worrying and
                          love email again

Re: [openglean-devel]Empty window query

[Richard R. <sf...@ol...>]

On Tue, Aug 30, 2005 at 12:44:30AM +0100, Matt Jones wrote:
> > In this case, I see a couple of workarounds.  One is to use a GLUT
> > timer to delay the time-consuming initialization.  (Or even spread
> > out the initialization in chunks over time, if there are other
> > things that you can do during that setup.)
> >
> > Will these ideas work for you?
> 
> Of course, great ideas! thanks for that.

Good news.  (^&


> It must be quite a load on your mind being the sole developer.
> I'm not in any position to help out either, but hope you don't ever feel
> pressured to bust any guts coding away.  The font stuff would be cool
> whenever it decides to make its way to the top of that list!

It's good to have criticism of one's ideas.  I don't have that as
the sole developer.  And when I stop, there's no one to keep the
forward momentum going.

Oh well.  It's moving at its own pace.  (^&


> By the way, I have openGLEAN working nicely with GLOW, kind of using it
> as a c++ wrapper plus its nice custom widget classes.  Just in case
> anybody might be interested whether they worked together...

That's good news.  I remember looking at GLOW a couple of years ago.
I can't remember why I didn't start using it, but I remember thinking
that it looked like it provided some nice GUIs.


> Best of luck with the proj.  Appreciate your efforts,

Thanks.


-- 
  "I probably don't know what I'm talking about."  http://www.olib.org/~rkr/