magnum/doc/mainpage.dox

/*
    This file is part of Magnum.

    Copyright © 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 Vladimír Vondruš <mosra@centrum.cz>

    Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a
    copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"),
    to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation
    the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense,
    and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the
    Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

    The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included
    in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

    THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
    IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
    FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL
    THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
    LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING
    FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER
    DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
*/

namespace Magnum {
/** @mainpage

%Magnum is 2D/3D graphics engine written in C++11 and modern OpenGL. Its goal
is to simplify low-level graphics development and interaction with OpenGL using
recent C++11 features and to abstract away platform-specific issues.

@section mainpage-design-goals Design goals

-   **2D is not an ugly stepchild**
    Many engines out there were created as pure 2D or 3D and the alternative is
    usually just an afterthought, if it is present at all. If you want to do
    your next project in 2D only, you have to either relearn another engine
    from scratch or emulate it in 3D, leaving many things overly complicated.
    %Magnum treats 2D equivalently to 3D so you can reuse what you already
    learned for 3D and even combine 2D and 3D in one project.

-   **Forward compatibility**
    If newer technology makes things faster, simpler or more intuitive, it is
    the way to go. %Magnum by default relies on decent C++11 support and modern
    OpenGL features and if some feature isn't available, it tries to emulate it
    using older functionality. However, you are not restricted to use the older
    functionality directly, if you really want to.

-   **Intuitive, but not restrictive API**
    Scripting languages are often preferred to C/C++ because they are designed
    to have less complicated APIs and less boilerplate code. %Magnum is
    designed with intuitivity in mind, but also with speed and static checks
    that strongly-typed native code offers. It wraps OpenGL into less verbose
    and more type-safe API, which is easier to use. Usually the most common way
    is the most simple, but if you need full control, you can have it.

-   **Extensible and replaceable components**
    If you want to use different mathematical library for specific purposes,
    that new windowing toolkit, your own file formats or another physics
    library, you can. Conversion of math structures between different libraries
    can be done on top of pre-made skeleton classes, support for file formats
    is done using plugins and platform support is done by writing simple
    wrapper class.

@section mainpage-platforms Supported platforms

Graphics APIs:

-   **OpenGL** 2.1 through 4.4, core profile functionality and modern
    extensions
-   **OpenGL ES** 2.0, 3.0 and extensions to match desktop OpenGL functionality
-   **WebGL** 1.0 and extensions to match desktop OpenGL functionality

Platforms:

-   **Linux** and embedded Linux (natively using GLX/EGL and Xlib or through
    GLUT or SDL2 toolkit)
-   **Windows** (through GLUT or SDL2 toolkit)
-   **OS X** (through SDL2 toolkit, thanks to [Miguel Martin](https://github.com/miguelishawt))
-   **Google Chrome** (through [Native Client](https://developers.google.com/native-client/),
    both `newlib` and `glibc` toolchains are supported)
-   **HTML5/JavaScript** (through [Emscripten](https://github.com/kripken/emscripten/wiki))

@section mainpage-features Features

-   Vector and matrix library with implementation of complex numbers,
    quaternions and their dual counterparts for representing transformations.
-   Classes wrapping OpenGL using RAII principle and simplifying its usage with
    direct state access and automatic fallback for unavailable features.
-   Extensible scene graph which can be modified for each specific usage.
-   Plugin-based data exchange framework, tools for manipulating meshes,
    textures and images.
-   Pre-made shaders, primitives and other tools for easy prototyping and
    debugging.

@section mainpage-getting-started Getting started

Read thorough @ref getting-started "guide to download, build, install and start using Magnum"
in your project.

@section mainpage-hacking Hacking Magnum

If you want to hack on this engine, if you spotted a bug, need an feature or
have an awesome idea, you can get a copy of the sources from GitHub and start
right now! There is the already mentioned guide about
@ref building "how to download and build Magnum" and also guide about
@ref coding-style "coding style and best practices" which you should follow to
make the library as consistent and maintainable as possible.

Feel free to get more information or contact the author at:

- Website - http://mosra.cz/blog/magnum.php
- GitHub - https://github.com/mosra/magnum
- Twitter - https://twitter.com/czmosra
- E-mail - mosra@centrum.cz
- Jabber - mosra@jabbim.cz

@section mainpage-license License

%Magnum is licensed under MIT/Expat license:

>
>   Copyright © 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 Vladimír Vondruš &lt;mosra@centrum.cz&gt;
>
>   Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a
>   copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"),
>   to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation
>   the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense,
>   and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the
>   Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
>
>   The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included
>   in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
>
>   THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
>   IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
>   FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL
>   THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
>   LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING
>   FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER
>   DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
>

*/
}