magnum/doc/portability.dox

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

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*/

namespace Magnum {
/** @page portability Writing portable applications
@brief How to support different platforms and different OpenGL capabilities within one codebase.

@tableofcontents

@section portability-target Target-specific code

If %Magnum is compiled with e.g. OpenGL ES 2.0 support, some features present
in desktop version are not available. It means that some classes, functions
and enum values are simply not included in headers. It is designed this way to
make porting easier -- it is better to fail at compile time on e.g. undefined
enum value than fail at runtime in some corner case because given texture
format is not supported.

If you include Magnum.h, you get these predefined macros:

- @ref MAGNUM_TARGET_GLES if targeting OpenGL ES
- @ref MAGNUM_TARGET_GLES2 if targeting OpenGL ES 2.0
- @ref MAGNUM_TARGET_GLES3 if targeting OpenGL ES 3.0

Example usage:
@code
#ifndef MAGNUM_TARGET_GLES
Mesh::setPolygonMode(Mesh::PolygonMode::Lines);
// draw mesh as wireframe...
#else
// use different mesh, as polygon mode is not supported in OpenGL ES...
#endif
@endcode

Each feature is marked accordingly if it is not available in some targets. See
also @ref requires-gl and @ref requires-gles30.

@section portability-compiler Compiler-specific code

%Magnum is attempting to be future-proof and as intuitive for users as
possible. Many features from C++11 are used to simplify things and make them
faster and more secure, but on the other hand it requires fairly recent
compiler with good enough support of the new standard. Currently %Magnum is
written with GCC 4.7 and Clang 3.1 in mind, but support for some other
compilers is also available and handled by Corrade library. See Corrade.h for
more information.

Each feature is marked accordingly if it is not available on some compilers,
see @ref SceneGraph::DrawableGroup3D for an example. It is up to you (or your
platform) which compiler your code will support, code written for GCC 4.7 will
work also on Magnum compiled with support for older compilers.

@section portability-extensions Extension-aware code

Some functionality is depending on support of particular extension and thus
the decision cannot be made at compile time. Header Extensions.h contains list
of extensions, which you can pass to Context::isExtensionSupported() and
decide based on that:
@code
if(Context::instance()->isExtensionSupported<GL::ARB::geometry_shader4>()) {
    // draw mesh with wireframe on top in one pass using geometry shader...
} else {
    // draw underlying mesh...
    Mesh::setPolygonMode(Mesh::PolygonMode::Lines);
    // draw mesh as wirefreame in second pass...
}
@endcode

You can also decide on particular OpenGL version using Context::isVersionSupported(),
but remember that some features from that version might be available even if
the drivers don't expose that version.

On the other hand, if you don't want to write fallback code for unsupported
extensions, you can use macros MAGNUM_ASSERT_EXTENSION_SUPPORTED() or
MAGNUM_ASSERT_VERSION_SUPPORTED() to add mandatory requirement of given
extension or version:
@code
MAGNUM_ASSERT_EXTENSION_SUPPORTED(GL::ARB::geometry_shader4);
// just use geometry shader and don't care about old hardware
@endcode

Each class, function or enum value is marked accordingly if it needs specific
extension or specific OpenGL version. Various classes in %Magnum are taking
advantage of some extensions and enable faster code paths if given extension is
available, but also have proper fallback when it's not, for example
@ref AbstractShaderProgram-performance-optimization "AbstractShaderProgram",
@ref AbstractTexture-performance-optimization "AbstractTexture" or
@ref Mesh-performance-optimization "Mesh". See also @ref required-extensions.

@section portability-shaders Portable shaders

%Shaders are probably the most painful thing to port. There are many issues to
address - different shader syntax (`in`/`out` vs. `attribute` and `varying`
etc.), explicit vs. implicit methods to specify vertex attribute, uniform and
texture uniform locations, required precision qualifiers in OpenGL ES etc.

Shader class allows you to explicitly specify shader version and based on that
you can decide on the syntax in your shader code. You can also use
Context::supportedVersion() to conveniently select highest supported version
from a list:
@code
// MyShader.vert
#if __VERSION__ < 130
#define in attribute
#define out varying
#endif

in vec4 position;
in vec3 normal;

out vec4 transformedNormal;

void main() {
    // ...
}
@endcode
@code
// MyShader.cpp
Version version = Context::instance()->supportedVersion({Version::GL430, Version::GL330, Version::GL210});
attachShader(Shader::fromFile(version, "MyShader.vert"));
@endcode

All shaders in Shaders namespace support desktop OpenGL starting from version
2.1 and also OpenGL ES 2.0 and 3.0. Feel free to look into their sources to
see how portability is handled there.

@section portability-applications Platform-specific application support

Your application might run on Windows box, on some embedded Linux or even in
browser - each platform has different requirements how to create entry point
to the application, how to handle input events, how to create window and
OpenGL context etc. Namespace Platform contains base classes for applications
which are abstracting out most of it for your convenience.

All the classes support limited form of static polymorphism, which means you
can switch to another base class and probably don't need to change any other
code. It has its limitations, though - some toolkits don't support all keys,
mouse movement events etc.

In most cases the entry point is classic `main()` function, but some platforms
(e.g. Native Client) have different requirements. To make things easier, entry
points are handled using macros, which take care of the rest.

If exactly one `*Application` or `*Windowless*Application` header is included,
the application class is aliased to `Platform::Application` or
`Platform::WindowlessApplication` and the macro is aliased to
`MAGNUM_APPLICATION_MAIN()` or `MAGNUM_WINDOWLESSAPPLICATION_MAIN()` to
simplify porting. The same is with CMake code, if exactly one `*Application` or
`Windowless*Application` component , the libraries and include dirs are
available in `MAGNUM_APPLICATION_LIBRARIES` / `MAGNUM_WINDOWLESSAPPLICATION_LIBRARIES`
and `MAGNUM_APPLICATION_INCLUDE_DIRS` / `MAGNUM_WINDOWLESSAPPLICATION_INCLUDE_DIRS`
variables.

Example application, which targets both embedded Linux (using plain X and EGL)
and desktop (using SDL2 toolkit). Thanks to static polymorphism most of the
functions will work on both without changes, the main difference will be in
particular *Event class implementations:
@code
#ifndef MAGNUM_TARGET_GLES
#include <Platform/Sdl2Application.h>
#else
#include <Platform/XEglApplication.h>
#endif

class MyApplication: public Platform::Application {
    public:
        MyApplication(const Arguments& arguments);

    protected:
        void viewportEvent(const Vector2i& size) override;
        void drawEvent() override;
        void keyPressEvent(KeyEvent& event) override;
};

// ...

MAGNUM_APPLICATION_MAIN(MyApplication)
@endcode

And corresponding CMake code. Note that we need to call `find_package()` twice,
first to get variable `MAGNUM_TARGET_GLES` and then again to find proper
application library based on its value:
@code
find_package(Magnum REQUIRED)

if(MAGNUM_TARGET_GLES)
    find_package(Magnum REQUIRED Sdl2Application)
else()
    find_package(Magnum REQUIRED XEglApplication)
endif()

include_directories(${MAGNUM_INCLUDE_DIRS} ${MAGNUM_APPLICATION_INCLUDE_DIRS})

add_executable(myapplication MyApplication.cpp)
target_link_libraries(myapplication
    ${MAGNUM_LIBRARIES}
    ${MAGNUM_APPLICATION_LIBRARIES})
@endcode

*/
}