Re: LGDC Homepage contents

[Christian Reiniger <warewolf@mayn.de>]

Magnus Norddahl wrote:

>I've taken a look on games.tudols.com, and noticed we need some contents on
>them. :-)

LOL :)

>According to the earlier posting from Christian, we need "comparison" part
>should contain the following info:
>
>Using the right libs:
>
>  	- the general FAQ
> 	- list of known bugs and their workarounds
> 	- Strengths and weaknesses of the individual libs examined
> 	- List of especially promising combinations (+analysis on the "why")
>  	- Tips & Tricks
> 	- "My first time" (where/how to start)
>
>The problem is, that we need to decide _how_ were going to provide this
>information. You can find my proposal at
>
>  http://dark.x.dtu.dk/~mbn/right_libs.html
>  (and right_libs.txt)

Ok, good that you posted this. My problem is that I tend to aim for systems
that are near perfect from the start. And apparently I did this for the
LGDC homepage, too. Which is totally brain-dead ;)

Ok, let's relabel the structure draft we had now the "planned structure of
the mature site" and distill a structure suitable for the first version out
of it:

Available Tools (one fixed (non-dynamic) page for each of the categories)
 	- Platform dependent SDKs 
	- lowlevel Platform independent SDKs 
	- Highlevel Platform independent SDKs 
	- Applications etc (TheGimp, egcs, jdk, ...)
propably the most work.

Comparison of SDKs (helping game programmers to choose the right tools)
[I think we should rename that to something like "Using Them" of "In
Practice"(?)]
	Your draft seems to be quite good for this, Magnus. But I suppose
we don't compare/point-out-the-strengths on a per-project base, but instead
on a per-library or per-part base (just like in the "Tools" section). But
as this is Really Much Work (TM) it's perhaps nevertheless better to use
your draft for now. Yes.

Example games
	IIRC ClanLib and GAMES both have example games. It would suffice
for the start if we place some screenshots and links to their homepages
here. Quite little work.

Discussions/Contacting
	- The Mailing list
	Henti, you still have the mailing list intro text I wrote, right?
-> almost done
	- irc meeting summaries (moved here from the PPlay site)
some conversion work (spartanic -> looking-like-the-rest-of-the-site)

Projects
	- What Linux game development projects exist now?
Little into of the projects. Should be easy to modify Magnus' proposal for
this. Or we make it just a simple link collection for now.

Compatibility standards (Specifications of common code etc)

We don't have anything in this area yet -> nothing to place there. Just some
"This section will focus around the compatibility agreements and common
code of the Linux Game SDK projects" intro text.


Related sites (??) Links that don't fit into the other categories, like
- www.linuxprogramming.com/ 
- Scene Zone (http://alumina.universation.net/) 
- www.xwindows.org/ 

Just a simple link collection for now. Comments on the links can be added
later.


Ok. Henti, you can already prepare the "Related Sites", "Compatibility" and
"Discussions" sections while we bring the "Projects", "Examples" and
"Comparison" docs into a usable form and write the library overviews for
the "Tools" part.


For a start, here's the overviews for some PenguinPlay parts:


Name: PenguinPlay Event/Thread Subsystem 
Homepage: none yet
Type: Event and thread handling, timing
Developed by: PenguinPlay
Description: This is subsystem will help setting watches for system events
such as timeouts, async I/O events and system signals. It will take care of
(optionally) deferring handling of an event till outside of a signal
handler etc. There will also be support for handling events in separate
threads etc.
A cross platform thread API will also be mand available.
Supported Platforms: none yet
Main Language: C
Existing Language Wrappers: none yet
Status: Basic design proposed, unimplemented and subject to change. 


Name: PenguinFile
Homepage: http://sunsite.auc.dk/penguinplay/PenguinDoc/FileAccess.html
Type: General file handling
Developed by: PenguinPlay
Description: PenguinFile is more or less the normal stdio/iostream with
the added capability to transparently handle files contained in WAD-like
archives. Other uses may be found for it. The interface will be very similar
to C stdio, (there maybe be a iostream alike interface for C++ too).
Supported platforms: Linux (porting is easy)
Main Language: C
Existing language wrappers: none yet
Status: Design standing, archiver tool working, implementation of the
reading part not started yet


Name: Penguin2D
Homepage: http://sunsite.auc.dk/penguinplay/PenguinGraphics/pg2d/
Type: High level 2D Graphics system
Developed by: PenguinPlay
Description: The PenguinPlay 2d graphics subsystem (pg2d), is a Layer O
API which provides at the most basic level for lightweight, abstract
drawing surfaces, users can draw into them using supplied or user defined
draw commands. Surfaces includes front end to GGI visuals, framebuffers and
3d textures, new types can be defined. Support for higher level concepts
such as animations are planned for pg2d.
Supported platforms: Linux
Main Language: C++
Existing Language Wrappers: none
Status: Low level framework implemented. Draw command handlers and high
level constructs still need to be created.


Name: PenguinGUI 
Homepage: http:/sunsite.auc.dk/penguinplay/PenguinDoc/gui-draft/
Type: GUI system
Developed by: PenguinPlay
Description: The PenguinPlay GUI system provides the basic support for
adding GUI functionality (mouse pointers, text input/output, gauges, menu
structures etcetc) to a game. It is designed to handle the wide range of
looks&feels in games. While the system itself covers only the basics, we
will assemble a library of more or less concrete widgets to make writing
game GUIs almost as easy as writing with "traditional" ones. 
Supported Platforms: none yet
Main Language: C++
Existing Language Wrappers: none yet
Status: Basic design almost finished, soon moving on to interface design. 


Name: PenguinPlay GameSpace 
Homepage: http://sunsite.auc.dk/penguinplay/PenguinDoc/gamespace.html
Type: general game world framework
Developed by: PenguinPlay
Description: A framework for game entities such us monsters, players walls
and pickups. The framework covers issues such as collision detection,
trajectories & AI and drawing layout. The actuall detailed handling of such
issues is left to the game programmer (although ready built handlers could
be built for common cases).
Supported Platforms: none yet
Main Language: C++
Existing Language Wrappers: none yet
Status: Basic design proposed, unimplemented and subject to change.


So, you know what that means?? ACTION!! ;)
Let's make this homepage fly!

Cu
	Christian
--

REALITY.SYS corrupted ... reboot Universe [Y,n]?