Try GLFW instead of GLUT/Win32

OpenGL OpenGL: Basic Coding
1

Is GLUT better than pure Win32 coding? A common question. I wanted the best of both, so I created my own Win32 wrapper called GLFW.

You can try it at: http://opengl.freehosting.net/glfw/

It is a combination of GLUT and Win32 programming: you don’t need to know Win32 programming, and you do not need a DLL.

Plus, the GLFW source is clean, compact and easy to modify if you really want to get into Win32 programming.

Let me know what you think about it.

/Marcus

2

Well I’ve just read the reference section on your website. glfw seems good, but I don’t think that the present version could replace glut, for it’s still too small. If you want many people to be interested in your API, you’ll need to give to glfw features that glut doesn’t have AND that are difficult to get working with the win32 API. For example, glfwGetKey is not very exciting since the GetAsyncKeyState of the win32 API is very easy to use. I think you should give more special features to glfw, like :

  • complicated user interfaces
  • multithreading (THE MOST IMPORTANT !)
  • graphics files loading
    These features are really tiring to obtain from the win32 api and are not supplied by glut. If you could bring one of these into glfw, many people could download it.

Cheers
Morglum