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Version 5.2.beta \/___/ \/_/
A wrapper to use the Allegro library with Pascal compilers
by Guillermo "Ñuño" Martínez, April 21, 2018.
========
Contents
========
- Introduction
- License
- Installation and use
- Documentation
- Contact info
============
Introduction
============
Allegro.pas is a wrapper to allow Pascal compilers (such as Free Pascal and
Delphi) to use the Allegro library.
Note that Allegro 5 is wholly *incompatible* with Allegro 4 and earlier
versions, and so Allegro.pas is, but both may be installed at the same time
without conflicts.
This is a beta version of the Allegro.pas 5 version. It is released to show
what's done and to allow developers to test it and give feed-back. Please go
to the Allegro.pas' project site at SourceForge or GitHub to look for more
versions.
Current version was tested with Free Pascal on WindowsXP, Windows7 and
GNU/Linux, both 32bit and 64 bit, and with Delphi Tokio Starter Edition on
Windows 7 32bit. Other operating systems and compilers weren't tested.
The goal is to make Allegro.pas 5 compatible with any operating system
supported by Allegro, which are Windows, Linux, MacOS, iOS and Android.
AFAIK all these OS have Pascal compilers.
As this is a WIP version you should remember that at the moment not all
functionality are implemented.
Implemented
-----------
+ Event manager, including but not limited to keyboard, mouse, timer and
display.
+ OpenGL (except extensions).
+ Shaders.
+ Software bitmaps.
+ Text drawing.
+ ttf fonts.
+ 2D and 3D transformations.
+ Clipboard.
+ Custom memory management.
+ Native dialogs.
+ OpenGL extensions.
+ Demonstration game.
Partially implemented or need more testing
------------------------------------------
* Primitive drawing.
* Audio samples and streams.
* Joysticks.
Unimplemented
-------------
- Touch-screen support.
- kcm audio.
- Phys file system.
- Android support.
You can read more about this at the "TODO" file.
=======
License
=======
Allegro.pas is released under zlib/png license. Read it in file LICENSE.
====================
Installation and use
====================
Installation and use are different depending on the operating system and
compiler you're using. To make things more easy I've wrote different
documents for each one you can find in the ~/docs/build directory. For
example, read "windows.txt to know how to get and install Allegro in your
Windows, then read "lazarus.txt" to know how to use it with the Lazarus IDE.
For Lazarus and Free Pascal users it is recommendable to read the
"makefile.txt" file too.
Documentation
=============
At the moment the library documentation isn't complete, but includes most of
the library. You can build it (read ~/docs/build/make.txt) or download them
from the webpage (see Contact info). If you need more complete documentation
you can use the Allegro documentation for C language at http://liballeg.org/.
Also, there are a collection of examples and a demonstration game. Open them
and read the code. Some have a lot of comments that explain them.
============
Contact info
============
The project page is at http://allegro-pas.sourceforge.net/. There
are forums and a mailing-list you can use.
I've created a mirror at GitHub I try to keep up-to-date:
https://github.com/niuniomartinez/allegro-pas/.
You may find interesting the Game Development portal at the Free Pascal wiki
pages: http://wiki.freepascal.org/Portal:Game_Development
Also I (and other) visit these forums quite often:
Allegro community - http://www.allegro.cc/
Pascal Game Development (AKA "PGD") - http://www.pascalgamedevelopment.com/
PGD Telegram Chat - https://t.me/joinchat/AAAAAA53Fi94SyjjD5xYnA
Lazarus games - https://forum.lazarus.freepascal.org/index.php/board,74.0.html
Club Delphi (Spanish only) - http://www.clubdelphi.com/
