clutter/README

Clutter 0.3 README.
===================

Clutter it an open source software library for creating fast, visually
rich and animated graphical user interfaces. 

Clutter currently requires:

  * GLib >= 2.10.0
  * GdkPixbuf
  * Pango 1.x
  * OpenGL >= 1.2 or OpenGL ES 1.1
  * GLX, SDL or an EGL Implementation

The official website is:                
   http://www.clutter-project.org
The Clutter blog is at
   http://www.clutter-project.org/blog
To subscribe to the Clutter mailing list, send mail to: 
   clutter+subscribe@o-hand.com 
The official mailing list archive is:   
   http://lists.o-hand.com/clutter/
New bug page on Bugzilla:               
   http://bugzilla.o-hand.com/enter_bug.cgi?product=Clutter

Clutter is LGPL licensed.


INSTALLATION
====

See the INSTALL file. Info on specific Clutter options;

 --enable-debug=[no/minimum/yes]
	Turn on debugging (default=yes):
	  yes: All glib asserts, checks and runtime clutter verbose messages. 
          minimum: Just glib cast checks and runtime clutter verbose messagaes.
          no: No glib asserts or checks and no runtime clutter verbose messages
	      (Only really of use in extreme performance cases)

 --enable-maintainer-flags=[no/yes]
        Use strict compiler flags (default=no)

 --enable-gtk-doc        
	use gtk-doc to build API documentation (default=no). Requires gtk-doc 
	present on system

 --enable-manual=[no/yes]
        Build application developers manual. Requires jw and xmlto binaries.
	Presently incomplete.

  --without-fpu           
	Assume target hardware has no floating point unit. Useful only
	for embedded targets such as ARM.

  --with-flavour=[glx/eglx/eglnative/sdl]
        Select the Clutter backend: (defualt=glx)

	  glx: Fully featured GLX backend. Using Open GL.

	  eglx: EGL/Open GL ES backend for EGL on X windows implementations
		(experimental)

	  eglnative: EGL/Open GL ES backend on 'native windowing system' - i.e
		     raw framebuffer. Expects EGL implementation to provide a 
		     createNativeWindow () call. Also optionally supports 
		     tslib for touchscreen events.
		     (experimental)

	  sdl: Basic SDL backend, using Open GL. Should provide portability
	       to windows and possibly other OS's. 


VERSIONING
====

Clutter uses the common "Linux kernel" versioning system, where
even-numbered minor versions are stable and odd-numbered minor
versions are development snapshots.

Different Minor versions break both API and ABI but are paralell
installable. The same Minor version with differing Micro version is
expected to be ABI compatible with other micro versions. Though this
is not guarenteed, especially for odd numbered minor releases, we'll
try our very hardest (promise).


HACKING
====

If you want to hack on and improve clutter check the contained TODO
file for pending tasks and HACKING for general coding guidelines.


BUGS
====
Bugs should be reported to the OpenedHand Bugzilla at:

  http://bugzilla.o-hand.com/enter_bug.cgi?product=Clutter

You will need an account.

In the report you should include:
* what system you're running Clutter on;
* which version of GLib, GdkPixbuf and OpenGL you are using;
* which video card and which drivers you are using, including output of
  glxinfo and xdpyinfo.
* how to reproduce the bug.

If you cannot reproduce the bug with one of the tests that come with Clutter
source code, you should include a small test case displaying the bad
behaviour.

If the bug exposes a crash, the exact text printed out and a stack trace
obtained using gdb are greatly appreciated.


PATCHES
====
Patches should be submitted using Bugzilla. Patches fixing a bug should be
attached to the bug report; patches for new features or for fixing bugs not
yet reported should be attached to a newly opened bug. Patches should always
be in the unified diff format.


RELEASE NOTES
====

Relevant information for developers with existing Clutter applications
wanting to port to newer releases (See NEWS for general new feature info).

Release Notes for Clutter 0.4.0
-------------------------------

* clutter_actor_show_all does not recurse for groups at least (this is to
  match the original group_show_all behaviour)

* ClutterBox API has changed: clutter_box_pack_start() and
  clutter_box_pack_end() have been removed in favour of the clutter_box_pack()
  API.

* Both clutter_threads_enter() and clutter_threads_leave() have been
  removed from the API, as they just created confusion and the wrong
  idea that Clutter is either thread-safe or thread-aware. Full
  thread-awareness is arriving in the next revision (see bug #429).

Release Notes for Clutter 0.3.1
-------------------------------

* clutter_actor_apply_transform_to_point() parameters changed to use 
  ClutterVertices.

* New 'Native API' backend expects EGL implementation to provide a 
  CreateNativeWindow() API call. 

* Exisiting X11 based egl backend public API calls now prefixed eglx.

Release Notes for Clutter 0.3
-----------------------------

* ClutterTexture changes:
  + clutter_texture_set_pixbuf() now takes a GError paremeter.
  + clutter_texture_upload_data has been split into two new and
    more functional versions; clutter_texture_set_from_rgb_data(),
    clutter_texture_set_from_yuv_data().

* The GLX specific API has been moved to the GLX backend code and
  it's now under the ClutterGlx namespace. 

* The priority of the various users of the GLib main loop has been
  reviewed and changed were necessary. Every paint is queued with a
  priority of G_PRIORITY_DEFAULT + 10; timelines are allocated with
  a G_PRIORITY_DEFAULT + 30 priority; events are processed with a
  G_PRIORITY_DEFAULT priority. This ensures that events are processed
  before the paints take place.

* The ClutterActor::allocate_coords() has been renamed to
  ClutterActor::query_coords(), in order to clarify its usage.

* Actors overriding ClutterActor::request_coords() and
  ClutterActor::query_coords() must convert sizes obtained from the
  public API from pixels to ClutterUnits, using the conversion
  macros found in clutter-units.h. The conversion will be necessary
  until the public API will switch over to returning the generic
  units too.

* Users of Intel video cards should find that disabling sync-to-vblank
  is no longer necessary. In case Clutter applications take really
  long times for redrawing and appear stuck and unresponsive, the
  sync-to-vblank feature might still be the culprit; in that case, use
  "export CLUTTER_VBLANK=none" to disable it and file a bug reporting the
  video card model, the driver version and the X server version.

* ClutterTimeline objects now share the same timeout pool (see the
  ClutterTimeoutPool API). This might cause problems with heavily
  threaded libraries without integration with the GLib main loop.
  If an application experiences bad behaviours during animations
  use "export CLUTTER_TIMELINE=no-pool" to disable the timeout pool.

* clutter_color_parse() now handles color definitions with alpha. Alpha
  will default to fully Opaque rather than fully transparent if not specified.

* The Clutter examples/ directory has been removed and replaced with a 
  tests/ directory.

* The ClutterEvent API has been changed, and specific functions have been
  removed in favour of event-agnostic ones.

* The ClutterStage::input-event signal has been removed. All the events now
  emit the ClutterStage::event and ClutterStage::event-after signals, for
  generic event handling.

* Runtime options now dependant on backend.

* ClutterGroup API to add, remove and list children has been deprecated in
  favour of ClutterContainer API. The ClutterGroup::add and
  ClutterGroup::remove signals have been deprecated:
  ClutterContainer::actor-added and ClutterContainer::actor-removed should
  be used instead.