Re: [Plib-users] The Necessity of DLL's

[Steve B. <sjb...@ai...>]

Matt Jones wrote:
> Hi, I'm new to PLIB and am just looking into whether it is suitable for
> my project.
> 
> The application will be on win32 (with a later view to porting across
> platforms) and I expect to use either GLUT or freeglut.
> 
> Does this mean I will have to provide the glut32.dll with my project? 
> Despite the possibility of statically linking with libraries like
> glut32.lib it still seems all GLUT apps require this DLL too, and
> ideally I want to minimise dependencies...

If you utterly want to minimise depenencies and your windowing needs are
very basic (ie opening one window and rendering OpenGL into it) - then
you may be able to manage with PLIB's own 'PW' windowing library.  For
simple single window applications, it's a lot like GLUT...but it's a part
of PLIB so there are no extra dependencies.

> So maybe freeglut is better for this (ie. it may allow static linking
> without using any DLL's at runtime)?  Indeed I would much prefer to use
> freeglut for a variety of reasons.

Both GLUT and freeglut will work as either statically or dynamically linked
libraries.   I'm not a Windows user - but I think it's your choice.

> Hoping this question is not misplaced: what do I need to do to build an
> application with freeglut (and remove dependencies on GLUT)?

Not much - freeglut is intended as a plug-compatible library - if you are
compiled and running with GLUT.DLL, you can just replace that with the
freeglut DLL and it should still work - you don't even need to recompile.

> I know in readme.GLUT it says it does not depend on glut, but without
 > the DLL there anything I try still gives the same 'unable to locate
 > glut32.dll'.

It sounds like you are still linking against it...look at your
compile commands.

---------------------------- Steve Baker -------------------------
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