
Portability Libraries.
======================
             by Steve Baker.

All the documentation and installation instructions
are now online at:

  http://plib.sourceforge.net

They are also downloadable - along with example
programs and demos from the same site.


SUPPORT:

Please don't email me (Steve Baker) directly - I
get *WAY* too much mail as it is!  Instead, please
sign up to the PLIB user's mailing list.  Instructions
can be found here:

  http://plib.sourceforge.net


LICENSING:

These libraries are offered as OpenSource freeware
under the provisions of the GNU Library Public
License (LGPL). Those terms and conditions are
detailed in the file 'LICENSE' in this directory.

I have added a short preamble to LGPL that removes
no rights from ordinary users but offers special
dispensation to allow PLIB to be used under certain
commercial conditions (such as Games Consoles) where
the constraints of LGPL are impossible to meet.

|  As a special exception Steve Baker gives permission to link these 
|  libraries with proprietary software and distribute the resulting 
|  executable without including that proprietary code in any distribution 
|  as the LGPL would normally dictate. 
| 
|  This exception is ONLY granted in the case of an embedded system in 
|  which there is no possibility of an end user re-linking or recompiling 
|  against new versions of this library that may appear in the future.


REQUIREMENTS:

In addition to the libraries that I provide, you
will also need OpenGL (OpenGL 1.1 or later -
Mesa 3.0 or later) and GLUT (The OpenGL utilities
toolkit - version 3.7 or later) and a hardware 3D
graphics accellerator that supports OpenGL.


WHAT DO YOU GET?

The following libraries are provided:

JS  -- A Joystick interface.
PUI -- A simple GUI built on top of OpenGL.
SG  -- Some Standard Geometry functions (vector and
       matrix math, spheres, boxes, frustra, etc)
SL  -- A Games-oriented Sound Library.
FNT -- OpenGL texture-mapped font Library.
PW  -- A minimalist windowing library.
PSL -- A C-like scripting language.
SSG -- A Simple Scene Graph API built on top of OpenGL.
NET -- Some Networking functions for games.
UTIL-- Utilities - things that your OS would normally
       handle - but these functions are portable.

SSGAUX -- Some optional additional high level features for SSG
PUIAUX -- Some optional additional high level features for PUI


DIRECTORY STRUCTURE:

PLIB expects to be installed in one standard place:

  /usr/lib

...with header files at:

  /usr/include/plib


PORTABILITY and DEPENDANCIES:

Although all these libraries are designed to be easily
portable (and more importantly so that programs using
them can be UTTERLY portable), some of them have not
yet been ported to all operating systems.

JS  -- Currently Linux/Windows/BSD only.

UL  -- Should be portable to POSIX-compliant
       OS's ... and Windows.

SG  -- Totally portable, no dependancies.

PUI -- Requires OpenGL also FNT and SG.
       PUI also requires some kind of windowing
       library - which could be PW - or GLUT,
       freeglut, SDL, FLTK - or others.

PSL -- Requires UL.

PW  -- Requires UL.

NET -- Should be portable to POSIX-compliant
       OS's.

FNT and SSG -- Require OpenGL, SG and UL.

SSGAUX -- Requires SSG - and hence OpenGL, SG and UL.
PUIAUX -- Requires PUI - and hence FNT and SG.

SL  -- This has now been ported onto:

         Linux
         FreeBSD
         OpenBSD
         M$ Windows (NT,95,98 - so far)
         MacOS
         SGI IRIX
         Sun Solaris
         Any operating system that supports OSS (The
              Open Sound System).

       NOTE: SL has a subsidiary library 'SM' that
       can be used to control the audio mixer - but
       that is not portable beyond Linux.  You might
       get it to work under OSS-based sound systems
       too. Don't use SM if you want to write portable
       code.

       No other requirements.


AUX LIBRARIES AND TOOLS:

The 'tools' directory contains a number of useful tools
and utility programs that are either built using PLIB or
which are specifically useful when writing PLIB programs.


COMPILING/LINKING WITH PLIB

In your source code, add any combination of:

     #include <plib/ul.h>
     #include <plib/js.h>
     #include <plib/sg.h>
     #include <plib/fnt.h>
     #include <plib/pu.h>
     #include <plib/ssg.h>
     #include <plib/pw.h>
     #include <plib/puAux.h>
     #include <plib/psl.h>
     #include <plib/sl.h>
     #include <plib/net.h>
     #include <plib/ssgAux.h>

Add any of these to your link line:

  -lplibjs -lplibssgaux -lplibssg -lplibsl -lplibpu 
  -lplibpuaux -lplibpw -lplibpsl -lplibfnt -lplibnet
  -lplibsg -lplibul

Under UNIX/Linux, you'll also need:

  -lGLU -lGL -L/usr/X11/lib -lX11 -lXext -lXmu -lm
 
...and perhaps a -l for whatever windowing library
you're using - unless it's the built-in PW library.

             Steve Baker.
             <sjbaker1@airmail.net>
             http://www.sjbaker.org

