Re: [pygame] Pygame_sdl2

[Michael Lutynski <michael@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

This is great news, and thank you for sharing this. How do we get this on the news feed on the main pygame.org site so that there isnât a perception that ânothingâs happeningâ with PyGame?

~ Michael 

On Sat : Apr 4, 2015 6:42:36 PM you wrote:
> I mentioned this in passing a few months ago, but I think it's time to
> formally announce Pygame_sdl2.
> 
> Pygame_sdl2 starts with the premise that the Pygame API is important. The
> Pygame API has been used by thousands of games, libraries, and engines, and
> is being taught to beginning programmers. Preserving the Pygame API is
> important, as it means that those games, libraries, and engines will keep
> running, and those programmers' experience will not become obsolete.
> 
> At the same time, SDL2 support is beneficial for a number of reasons. SDL
> 1.2 is now obsolete, and has been for a while. New features, and ports to
> new platforms - especially the important mobile platforms - have been added
> to SDL2, and SDL2 only. For a while, I tried to add Android support by
> maintaining, as part of PGS4A, a port of SDL 1.2 to Android,
> but that proved to be very difficult as mobile platforms keep evolving.
> 
> In October of last year, Patrick Dawson and myself began work on
> Pygame_sdl2, a reimplementation of the Pygame API using SDL2 and related
> libraries. The goal of the project is to allow games written to the Pygame
> API to run, using SDL2, on desktop and mobile platforms. We've also exposed
> some SDL2-provided functionality in a way that remains compatible with
> older code.
> 
> At least for now, Pygame_sdl2 is available at:
> 
> https://github.com/renpy/pygame_sdl2
> 
> It's been used - as part of my Ren'Py engine - to release multiple games on
> Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, and Android, and I've been able to get
> Pygame_sdl2 to run on iOS, but haven't submitted to the App Store yet. This
> process, which included at least one Steam release, helped to
> shake out the more obvious problems.
> 
> Pygame_sdl2 is written in a mix of Python, Cython, and C. Use of the Cython
> code massively simplified the project - by not having to worry about the
> details of python bindings, we were able to get the initial version of
> Pygame_sdl2 running in a short amount of time. Newly-written code is
> licensed under SDL2's Zlib license, while the code we imported from Pygame
> is licensed under the LGPL. (The LGPL's terms control distribution.)
> 
> Pygame_sdl2 implements a large portion of pygame, but not all of it.
> Currently implemented modules are:
> 
> * pygame_sdl2.color
> * pygame_sdl2.display
> * pygame_sdl2.draw
> * pygame_sdl2.event
> * pygame_sdl2.font
> * pygame_sdl2.gfxdraw
> * pygame_sdl2.image
> * pygame_sdl2.joystick
> * pygame_sdl2.key
> * pygame_sdl2.locals
> * pygame_sdl2.mixer (including mixer.music)
> * pygame_sdl2.mouse
> * pygame_sdl2.scrap
> * pygame_sdl2.sprite
> * pygame_sdl2.surface
> * pygame_sdl2.sysfont
> * pygame_sdl2.time
> * pygame_sdl2.transform
> * pygame_sdl2.version
> 
> Experimental new modules include:
> 
> * pygame_sdl2.render
> 
> Current omissions include:
> 
> * Modules not listed above.
> 
> * APIs that expose pygame data as buffers or arrays.
> 
> * Support for non-32-bit surface depths. Our thinking is that 8, 16, and
> (to some extent) 24-bit surfaces are legacy formats, and not worth
> duplicating code four or more times to support. This only applies to
> in-memory formats - when an image of lesser color depth is loaded, it is
> converted to a 32-bit image.
> 
> * Support for palette functions, which only apply to 8-bit surfaces.
> 
> There are a few additions to the pygame API, including support for the
> application lifecycle events on Android and iOS, IME-based text input, and
> SDL2 renderers.
> 
> 
> While I plan to, at the very least, maintain this indefinitely to support
> Ren'Py, my hope is that it could be useful to the larger Pygame community.
> For now, Pygame_sdl2 could probably benefit from testing, both informal
> reports of missing APIs and incorrect implementations, and someone helping
> to integrate the relevant portions of the pygame test suite.
> 
> The modules that have not been implemented are often that
> way because we don't have much experience with them - for example, I've
> never been able to wrap my head around the <thing>array modules. So help
> implementing those, or porting the Pygame implementations, would be
> appreciated.
> 
> 
> For now, pygame_sdl2 has been maintained as part of the Ren'Py github
> organization, but if there's enough interest in contributing and expanding
> it, it might make sense to break it out into its own project.
> 
> Anyway, thank you for reading through this message, and for trying out
> pygame_sdl2.