______ ___ ___
/\ _ \ /\_ \ /\_ \
\ \ \L\ \\//\ \ \//\ \ __ __ _ __ ___
\ \ __ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ /'__`\ /'_ `\/\`'__\/ __`\
\ \ \/\ \ \_\ \_ \_\ \_/\ __//\ \L\ \ \ \//\ \L\ \
\ \_\ \_\/\____\/\____\ \____\ \____ \ \_\\ \____/
\/_/\/_/\/____/\/____/\/____/\/___L\ \/_/ \/___/
/\____/
\_/__/ Version 4.0.3
A game programming library.
By Shawn Hargreaves, Apr 19, 2003.
See the AUTHORS file for a
complete list of contributors.
#include <std_disclaimer.h>
"I do not accept responsibility for any effects, adverse or otherwise,
that this code may have on you, your computer, your sanity, your dog,
and anything else that you can think of. Use it at your own risk."
======================================
============ Introduction ============
======================================
Allegro is a cross-platform library intended for use in computer games
and other types of multimedia programming. It was initially conceived on
the Atari ST, but that platform sadly died during childbirth. After a
brief stay with Borland C, it was adopted by the fantastic djgpp
compiler, where it grew to maturity. In the fullness of time it gave
birth to children of its own, who went to live in such exotic locations
as DirectX and the X Server, but the entire family is now back together
again, living in harmony as a single portable entity. How about that for
a mixture of metaphors? :-)
A wide range of extension packages and add-on modules are also available,
which can be found in the "Library Extensions" section of the Allegro.cc
website, http://www.allegro.cc/.
According to the Oxford Companion to Music, Allegro is the Italian for
"quick, lively, bright". It is also a recursive acronym which stands for
"Allegro Low Level Game Routines".
=============================================
============ Supported platforms ============
=============================================
For instructions on how to install Allegro, how to link your programs
with it, and any additional information specific to each of the supported
platforms, see one of the files:
DOS/djgpp - see docs/build/djgpp.txt
DOS/Watcom - see docs/build/watcom.txt
Windows/MSVC - see docs/build/msvc.txt
Windows/MinGW32 - see docs/build/mingw32.txt
Windows/Cygwin - see docs/build/mingw32.txt
Windows/Borland - see docs/build/bcc32.txt
Linux (console) - see docs/build/linux.txt
Unix (X) - see docs/build/unix.txt
BeOS - see docs/build/beos.txt
QNX - see docs/build/qnx.txt
MacOS/MPW - see docs/build/macos.txt
General API information can be found in the main manual, usually referred
to as docs/txt/allegro.txt or simply allegro.txt throughout this document
and which is also available in HTML, TexInfo, and RTF format in the docs
directory.
==================================
============ Features ============
==================================
Cross-platform support for DOS, Windows, Unix, BeOS, QNX and MacOS systems.
Drawing functions including putpixel, getpixel, lines, rectangles, flat
shaded, gouraud shaded, texture mapped, and z-buffered polygons, circles,
floodfill, bezier splines, patterned fills, masked, run length encoded,
and compiled sprites, blitting, bitmap scaling and rotation,
translucency/lighting, and text output with proportional fonts. Supports
clipping, and can draw directly to the screen or to memory bitmaps of any
size.
DOS graphics drivers for VGA mode 13h, mode-X (twenty three tweaked VGA
resolutions plus unchained 640x400 Xtended mode), and SVGA modes with 8,
15, 16, 24, and 32 bit color depths, taking full advantage of VBE 2.0
linear framebuffers and the VBE/AF hardware accelerator API if they are
available. Additional video hardware support is available from the
FreeBE/AF project (http://www.talula.demon.co.uk/freebe/).
Windows graphics drivers using DirectX in fullscreen and windowed modes,
plus routines for drawing onto GDI device contexts.
Unix graphics drivers for X, DGA, fbcon, SVGAlib, VBE/AF, mode-X, and
standard VGA.
BeOS graphics drivers using BWindowScreen in fullscreen and BDirectWindow
in windowed modes.
Hardware scrolling and triple buffering (where available), mode-X split
screens, and palette manipulation.
FLI/FLC animation player.
Plays background MIDI music and up to 64 simultaneous sound effects, and
can record sample waveforms and MIDI input. Samples can be looped
(forwards, backwards, or bidirectionally), and the volume, pan, pitch,
etc, can be adjusted while they are playing. The MIDI player responds to
note on, note off, main volume, pan, pitch bend, and program change
messages, using the General MIDI patch set and drum mappings. DOS version
currently supports Adlib, SB, SB Pro, SB16, AWE32, MPU-401, ESS
AudioDrive, Ensoniq Soundscape, and Windows Sound System. Windows version
supports WaveOut and DirectSound interfaces and the system MIDI drivers.
Unix version supports OSS, ESD, and ALSA sound drivers. BeOS version
supports BSoundPlayer and BMidiSynth interfaces. All versions provide
software wavetable MIDI playback.
Easy access to the mouse, keyboard, joystick, and high resolution timer
interrupts, including a vertical retrace interrupt simulator in the DOS
version.
Routines for reading and writing LZSS compressed files.
Multi-object data files and a grabber utility.
Math functions including fixed point arithmetic, lookup table trig, and
3d vector/matrix/quaternion manipulation.
GUI dialog manager and file selector.
Built-in support for 16-bit and UTF-8 format Unicode characters.
===================================
============ Copyright ============
===================================
Allegro is gift-ware. It was created by a number of people working in
cooperation, and is given to you freely as a gift. You may use, modify,
redistribute, and generally hack it about in any way you like, and you do
not have to give us anything in return. However, if you like this product
you are encouraged to thank us by making a return gift to the Allegro
community. This could be by writing an add-on package, providing a useful
bug report, making an improvement to the library, or perhaps just
releasing the sources of your program so that other people can learn from
them. If you redistribute parts of this code or make a game using it, it
would be nice if you mentioned Allegro somewhere in the credits, but you
are not required to do this. We trust you not to abuse our generosity.
=======================================
============ Configuration ============
=======================================
Allegro reads information about your hardware from a file called
allegro.cfg. If this file doesn't exist it will autodetect (ie. guess :-)
You can write your config file by hand with a text editor, or you can use
the setup utility program.
Normally the setup program and allegro.cfg will go in the same directory
as the Allegro program they are controlling. This is fine for the end
user, but it can be a pain for a programmer using Allegro because you may
have several programs in different directories and want to use a single
allegro.cfg for all of them. If this is the case you can set the
environment variable ALLEGRO to the directory containing your
allegro.cfg, and Allegro will look there if there is no allegro.cfg in
the current directory.
The mapping tables used to store different keyboard layouts are stored in
a file called keyboard.dat. This must either be located in the same
directory as your Allegro program, or in the directory pointed to by the
ALLEGRO environment variable. If you want to support different
international keyboard layouts, you must distribute a copy of
keyboard.dat along with your program.
Various translations of things like the system error messages are stored
in a file called language.dat. This must either be located in the same
directory as your Allegro program, or in the directory pointed to by the
ALLEGRO environment variable. If you want to support non-English versions
of these strings, you must distribute a copy of language.dat along with
your program.
Under Unix and BeOS, the config file routines also check for ~/allegro.cfg,
~/.allegrorc, /etc/allegro.cfg, and /etc/allegrorc, in that order, and
the keyboard and language files can be stored in your home directory or
in /etc/.
See docs/txt/allegro.txt for details of the config file format.
===========================================
============ Notes about sound ============
===========================================
The DIGMID wavetable driver uses standard GUS format .pat files, and you
will need a collection of such instruments before you can use it. This
can either be in the standard GUS format (a set of .pat files and a
default.cfg index), or a patches.dat file as produced by the pat2dat
utility. You can also use pat2dat to convert AWE32 SoundFont banks into
the patches.dat format, and if you list some MIDI files on the command
line it will filter the sample set to only include the instruments that
are actually used by those tunes, so it can be useful for getting rid of
unused instruments when you are preparing to distribute a game. See the
Allegro website for some links to suitable sample sets.
The DIGMID driver normally only loads the patches needed for each song
when the tune is first played. This reduces the memory usage, but can
result in a longish delay the first time you play each MIDI file. If you
prefer to load the entire patch set in one go, call the
load_midi_patches() function.
The CPU sample mixing code can support between 1 and 64 voices, going up
in powers of two (ie. either 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, or 64 channels). By
default it provides 8 digital voices, or 8 digital plus 24 MIDI voices (a
total of 32) if the DIGMID driver is in use. But the more voices, the
lower the output volume and quality, so you may wish to change this by
calling the reserve_voices() function or setting the digi_voices and
midi_voices parameters in allegro.cfg.
======================================
============ Contact info ============
======================================
The latest version of Allegro can always be found on the Allegro
homepage, http://alleg.sourceforge.net/.
There are three mailing lists for Allegro-related discussion, each with a
slightly different purpose.
[AL] - Allegro main - http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/alleg-main
This list is for any kind of discussion about Allegro, questions about
Allegro, reports of problems with Allegro, suggestions for new
features, announcements of programs written using Allegro, etc.
General rule: if it has to do with Allegro, you can post it here. If
not, go somewhere else (for example comp.os.msdos.djgpp, comp.lang.c,
or the online forums at http://www.allegro.cc .
[AD] - Allegro developers - http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/alleg-developers
This list is for the people currently working on Allegro, who use it to
coordinate their efforts. You can use this address if you need to
contact the developers directly, for example to submit some new code
that you have written or to report a bug.
Unlike the other lists, we will be really rude to people who post
inappropriate material here, so please don't do that! Do not send
tech-support questions to this list. Don't post bug reports here unless
you are 100% certain they aren't your fault (if you are in any doubt,
use the main Allegro list instead, which is read by most of the same
people who are subscribed here).
The Allegro development is a completely open process, and everyone is
welcome to drop by, have a listen, and start contributing code patches.
This list is for working rather than talking, though, so please don't
do anything that might get in our way.
[Alleg5] - Allegro 5 - http://lists.sourceforge.net/mailman/listinfo/alleg-bigfive
Just as described in the future (http://alleg.sourceforge.net/future.html)
section, the next big version of Allegro will feature at least a
complete API rewrite to fix all the quirks it has now. This list is for
discussing the future API, proposing new functions or modifying the
behaviour of actual ones, and posting code with the implementation if
it's possible to do so.
To subscribe to one of the three lists, simply go to it's web page and use
the online forms to subscribe yourself. You can remove yourself from a
list going to the same page above, which can be used to remind you of your
password too, in case you have forgotten it.
To send a message to one of the lists, write to
alleg-main@lists.sourceforge.net, alleg-developers@lists.sourceforge.net,
or alleg-bigfive@lists.sourceforge.net. You don't need to be subscribed to
these mailing lists before you can post there, but it is a good idea to
subscribe in order to see the replies.
Before posting tech-support questions to the Allegro list, please take a
moment to read the guidelines in docs/txt/help.txt. See docs/txt/ahack.txt
for information about the style of code we use, and how to create your
patches.
If you want to search through the archives of any of those mailing lists,
you will have to check the available options at
http://alleg.sourceforge.net/maillist.html .
Please don't send messages in HTML format. The increased size places an
unnecessary load on the server, and many subscribers have a hard time
reading these posts.
Please do not crosspost between these lists. Choose the most appropriate
one for your message, and then send it only to that list.
Please don't send large binary attachments to any of the lists, they will
be rejected by the size limit filter, which is set to 100KB for the
developers mailing list, and 40KB for the others. Upload your files to a
website and then post the URL, or if you can't do that, post an
announcement asking people to write to you privately, and then send the
file by individual email to whoever responded.
Please use English in your messages. You could eventually post messages in
whatever language you prefer, but that would terribly limit the chances of
getting a useful answer.
Remember that the RFC 1855: netiquette guidelines
(http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1855.txt) describes other general
guidelines you should follow as a correct internet user (in mailing lists
and other places as well), and provides more verbose descriptions and
explanations about why you should follow the above guidelines.
My personal address is shawn@talula.demon.co.uk, but please try to avoid
mailing me personally about anything other than personal issues. Use the
main Allegro list for questions about Allegro, and the developers list
for sending code contributions. I read all the lists, and by using them
you are likely to get a response even if I'm not around or am busy with
something else at the moment.
For the ever-shrinking minority of people without net access, my snail
address is Flat 1, 71 Croham Road, Croydon, Surrey, England, CR2 7HG. For
the even smaller minority of people who can't get access to a postal
service, find your way to South Croydon railway station and head off down
Croham Road, away from the Croham Arms pub. Just after the turnoff to
Castlemaine Avenue, it is the first house on the left.
