Pre built libraries and many games and applications compiled for RISC OS using this library can be downloaded from The Unix Porting Project at http://www.riscos.info/unix/.
This library currently needs a minimum of RISC OS 3.6. The source code for the library (and a lot of the programs built with it) also need long file names.
Note: As most programs ported from other OSes use high resolution graphics and a memory back buffer a machine with a StrongARM processor and 1 or 2MB of VRAM (or a better machine) is recomended.
Several environmental variables have been defined to make porting programs easier (i.e. By setting these variable you do not need to have source code differences between OSes).
1. Use the name of the program unless it is !RunImage
2. Check the folder specification for the folder !RunImage is run from. If it is a folder name use that name, otherwise if it is an environmental variable of the form <XXX$Dir> use the value of XXX.
Set to 1 to use a system memory back buffer for the screen in full screen mode. Some programs on other systems assume their is always a back buffer even though the SDL specification specifies this is not the case. The current RISC OS implementation uses direct writes to the screen if a hardware fullscreen is requested.
Set to 2 to use an ARM code full word copy. This is faster than the standard back buffer, but uses aligned words only so it is possible (but unlikely) for it to corrupt the screen for 8bpp and 16bpp modes.
Set to 3 to use a RISC OS sprite as the back buffer. This is usually the slowest for most SDL applications, however it may be useful in the future as Sprite acceleration is added to various hardware that runs RISC OS.
SDL$<appname>$CloseAction - set the action for the close icon. Again as programs don't match the specification you can set this to 0 to remove the close icon from the main window for applications where this does not affect the program.
On RISC OS a fullscreen mode directly accesses the screen. This can be modified by the environmental variable (SDL$<appname>$BackBuffer) or by using the SDL_SWSURFACE flag to write to an offscreen buffer that is updated using SDL_UpdateRects.
In a wimp mode the screen colours are not changed for a hardware palette instead the RISC OS sprite colour mapping is used to get the best matching colours.
Currently this won't work if the application starts up in Fullscreen mode.
Toggling to fullscreen will only work if the monitor is set up to support the exact screen size requested.
SDL_EnableUNICODE
Unicode translation used here is only really accurate for 7 bit characters.
SDL_NumJoysticks/JoystickName etc.
Hardcoded to expect only 1 joystick with 4 buttons if the Joystick module is loaded.
SDL_GetTicks
Timer used has only a centisecond accuracy. This applies to other time related functions.
SDL_Delay
Modified to poll keyboard/mouse during the delay on the event thread.
Notes on current implementation
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Keyboard and mouse are polled so if too long a time is spent between a call to SDL_PumpEvents, functions that use it, or SDL_Delay events can be missed.
