What is SDL? How do I use It? How is it available?

What is SDL? How do I use It? Where is it available? Pros/Cons?
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What is SDL?
Simple Directmedia Layer. It’s like DirectX; offering an interface to graphics, sound and inputhandlich but in a platform independent way.

How do I use It?
Get the headers/source and libs and off you go.

Where is it available?
libsdl.org

Pros/Cons?

  • easy
  • portable
  • many helper libraries (SDLnet, SDLimage, …)
  • and a lot more
  • for some purposes too simple

Hi !

You can use it as a pure 2D graphics API or you can use it with OpenGL, OpenGL wise you could compare it to GLUT I guess, it has support for sound, network and a few other things to, it’s most common use is for games (both with and without OpenGL).

Mikael