58 lines
3.1 KiB
Plaintext
58 lines
3.1 KiB
Plaintext
IMPORTANT!
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=========
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Guichan is currently in a beta stage. This means that the API is not fixed and may
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change in the future. Every API change will break compatibility between older
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versions of Guichan.
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INTRODUCTON TO GUICHAN
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======================
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Guichan is a C++ GUI library designed for games. It comes with a standard set of
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'widgets' and can use several different objects for displaying graphics and
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capturing user input.
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Guichan has an abstract design which allows users of Guichan to use different
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objects for displaying of graphics and grabbing of user input. Guichan comes with
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three implemented graphics objects (SDLGraphics, OpenGLGraphics and AllegroGraphics)
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and two implemented input objects (SDLInput and AllegroInput). Due to Guichan's
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extendible nature, new objects can also be created by the developer to suit their
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needs.
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As Guichan is designed for games, Guichan lacks many features of more advanced GUI
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libraries (such as GTK and QT). However, a game developer may not normally require
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all the advanced features of the larger GUI libraries. Guichan aims to keep small
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and simple, thus avoiding the complication and large dependencies found with some
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other GUI libraries. Guichan is small but contains all basic GUI features making it
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ideal for games.
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Guichan allows the developer control over the initialization of external libraries,
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giving a degree of freedom which is almost required in game development, but not
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provided by some GUI libraries. Guichan should not be considered a full GUI library
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but rather a tool or helper library for game development.
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The basic nature of Guichan means that it comes with a small number of default
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widgets. There exists no themes or theme handling for Guichan, as their
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implementation would increase the size and complexity of the library unnecessarily.
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Instead, the developer creates their own new widgets by inheriting from the standard
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widgets or by overloading standard widget functions. This makes Guichan much more
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flexible for customisation than theme based GUIs, and more natural to use for C++
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developers, as they need only learn the API instead of a whole new theming system.
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FOR MORE INFORMATION AND DOWNLOADS
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==================================
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For more general information about Guichan and/or downloads related to Guichan
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please visit the Guichan homepage at http://guichan.sourceforge.net.
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GETTING HELP WITH GUICHAN
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=========================
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If you need help with Guichan, the best way to proceed is to ask questions either
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by joining the users mailing list or by joining our forum. Information about
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Guichan's mailing lists and our forum is found at the Guichan homepate at
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http://guichan.sourceforge.net.
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GETTING INVOLVED WITH GUICHAN DEVELOPMENT
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=========================================
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If you want to get involved with Guichan development, the best way to proceed is to
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suggest improvements to Guichan either by joining the developers mailing list or
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by joining our forum. Information about Guichan's mailing lists and our forum is
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found at the Guichan homepate at http://guichan.sourceforge.net.
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By Olof Naessén 2006-06-30. |