GLFW alternatives and similar libraries
Based on the "Graphics" category.
Alternatively, view GLFW alternatives based on common mentions on social networks and blogs.
-
bgfx
Cross-platform, graphics API agnostic, "Bring Your Own Engine/Framework" style rendering library. -
Atomic Game Engine
DISCONTINUED. The Atomic Game Engine is a multi-platform 2D and 3D engine with a consistent API in C++, C#, JavaScript, and TypeScript -
DirectXTK
The DirectX Tool Kit (aka DirectXTK) is a collection of helper classes for writing DirectX 11.x code in C++ -
Horde3D
Horde3D is a small 3D rendering and animation engine. It is written in an effort to create an engine being as lightweight and conceptually clean as possible. -
Partio
C++ (with python bindings) library for easily reading/writing/manipulating common animation particle formats such as PDB, BGEO, PTC. https://wdas.github.io/partio -
Visualization Library
Visualization Library is a C++ middleware for high-performance 2D and 3D graphics applications based on OpenGL 1.x-4.x supporting Windows, Linux and Mac OS X.
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* Code Quality Rankings and insights are calculated and provided by Lumnify.
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README
GLFW
Introduction
GLFW is an Open Source, multi-platform library for OpenGL, OpenGL ES and Vulkan application development. It provides a simple, platform-independent API for creating windows, contexts and surfaces, reading input, handling events, etc.
GLFW natively supports Windows, macOS and Linux and other Unix-like systems. On Linux both X11 and Wayland are supported.
GLFW is licensed under the zlib/libpng license.
You can download the latest stable release
as source or Windows binaries, or fetch the latest
branch from GitHub. Each
release starting with 3.0 also has a corresponding annotated
tag with source and binary archives.
The documentation is available online and is included in all source and binary archives. See the release notes for new features, caveats and deprecations in the latest release. For more details see the version history.
The master
branch is the stable integration branch and should always compile
and run on all supported platforms, although details of newly added features may
change until they have been included in a release. New features and many bug
fixes live in other branches until
they are stable enough to merge.
If you are new to GLFW, you may find the tutorial for GLFW 3 useful. If you have used GLFW 2 in the past, there is a transition guide for moving to the GLFW 3 API.
GLFW exists because of the contributions of [many people](CONTRIBUTORS.md) around the world, whether by reporting bugs, providing community support, adding features, reviewing or testing code, debugging, proofreading docs, suggesting features or fixing bugs.
Compiling GLFW
GLFW itself requires only the headers and libraries for your OS and window system. It does not need the headers for any context creation API (WGL, GLX, EGL, NSGL, OSMesa) or rendering API (OpenGL, OpenGL ES, Vulkan) to enable support for them.
GLFW supports compilation on Windows with Visual C++ 2010 and later, MinGW and MinGW-w64, on macOS with Clang and on Linux and other Unix-like systems with GCC and Clang. It will likely compile in other environments as well, but this is not regularly tested.
There are pre-compiled Windows binaries available for all supported compilers.
See the compilation guide for more information about how to compile GLFW yourself.
Using GLFW
See the documentation for tutorials, guides and the API reference.
Contributing to GLFW
See the contribution guide for more information.
System requirements
GLFW supports Windows XP and later and macOS 10.8 and later. Linux and other Unix-like systems running the X Window System are supported even without a desktop environment or modern extensions, although some features require a running window or clipboard manager. The OSMesa backend requires Mesa 6.3.
See the compatibility guide in the documentation for more information.
Dependencies
GLFW itself needs only CMake 3.1 or later and the headers and libraries for your OS and window system.
The examples and test programs depend on a number of tiny libraries. These are
located in the deps/
directory.
- getopt_port for examples with command-line options
- TinyCThread for threaded examples
- glad2 for loading OpenGL and Vulkan functions
- linmath.h for linear algebra in examples
- Nuklear for test and example UI
- stb_image_write for writing images to disk
The documentation is generated with Doxygen if CMake can find that tool.
Reporting bugs
Bugs are reported to our issue tracker. Please check the contribution guide for information on what to include when reporting a bug.
Changelog
- Added
GLFW_PLATFORM
init hint for runtime platform selection (#1958) - Added
GLFW_ANY_PLATFORM
,GLFW_PLATFORM_WIN32
,GLFW_PLATFORM_COCOA
,GLFW_PLATFORM_WAYLAND
,GLFW_PLATFORM_X11
andGLFW_PLATFORM_NULL
symbols to specify the desired platform (#1958) - Added
glfwGetPlatform
function to query what platform was selected (#1655,#1958) - Added
glfwPlatformSupported
function to query if a platform is supported (#1655,#1958) - Added
glfwInitAllocator
for setting a custom memory allocator (#544,#1628,#1947) - Added
GLFWallocator
struct andGLFWallocatefun
,GLFWreallocatefun
andGLFWdeallocatefun
types (#544,#1628,#1947) - Added
glfwInitVulkanLoader
for using a non-default Vulkan loader (#1374,#1890) - Added
GLFW_RESIZE_NWSE_CURSOR
,GLFW_RESIZE_NESW_CURSOR
,GLFW_RESIZE_ALL_CURSOR
andGLFW_NOT_ALLOWED_CURSOR
cursor shapes (#427) - Added
GLFW_RESIZE_EW_CURSOR
alias forGLFW_HRESIZE_CURSOR
(#427) - Added
GLFW_RESIZE_NS_CURSOR
alias forGLFW_VRESIZE_CURSOR
(#427) - Added
GLFW_POINTING_HAND_CURSOR
alias forGLFW_HAND_CURSOR
(#427) - Added
GLFW_MOUSE_PASSTHROUGH
window hint for letting mouse input pass through the window (#1236,#1568) - Added
GLFW_CURSOR_CAPTURED
cursor mode to confine the cursor to the window content area (#58) - Added
GLFW_POSITION_X
andGLFW_POSITION_Y
window hints for initial position (#1603,#1747) - Added
GLFW_ANY_POSITION
hint value for letting the window manager choose (#1603,#1747) - Added
GLFW_PLATFORM_UNAVAILABLE
error for platform detection failures (#1958) - Added
GLFW_FEATURE_UNAVAILABLE
error for platform limitations (#1692) - Added
GLFW_FEATURE_UNIMPLEMENTED
error for incomplete backends (#1692) - Added
GLFW_WAYLAND_APP_ID
window hint string for Wayland app_id selection (#2121,#2122) - Added
GLFW_ANGLE_PLATFORM_TYPE
init hint andGLFW_ANGLE_PLATFORM_TYPE_*
values to select ANGLE backend (#1380) - Added
GLFW_X11_XCB_VULKAN_SURFACE
init hint for selecting X11 Vulkan surface extension (#1793) - Added
GLFW_NATIVE_INCLUDE_NONE
for disabling inclusion of native headers (#1348) - Added
GLFW_BUILD_WIN32
CMake option for enabling Win32 support (#1958) - Added
GLFW_BUILD_COCOA
CMake option for enabling Cocoa support (#1958) - Added
GLFW_BUILD_X11
CMake option for enabling X11 support (#1958) - Added
GLFW_LIBRARY_TYPE
CMake variable for overriding the library type (#279,#1307,#1497,#1574,#1928) - Added
GLFW_PKG_CONFIG_REQUIRES_PRIVATE
andGLFW_PKG_CONFIG_LIBS_PRIVATE
CMake variables exposing pkg-config dependencies (#1307) - Made joystick subsystem initialize at first use (#1284,#1646)
- Made
GLFW_DOUBLEBUFFER
a read-only window attribute - Updated the minimum required CMake version to 3.1
- Updated gamepad mappings from upstream
- Disabled tests and examples by default when built as a CMake subdirectory
- Renamed
GLFW_USE_WAYLAND
CMake option toGLFW_BUILD_WAYLAND
(#1958) - Removed
GLFW_USE_OSMESA
CMake option enabling the Null platform (#1958) - Removed CMake generated configuration header
- Bugfix: The CMake config-file package used an absolute path and was not relocatable (#1470)
- Bugfix: Video modes with a duplicate screen area were discarded (#1555,#1556)
- Bugfix: Compiling with -Wextra-semi caused warnings (#1440)
- Bugfix: Built-in mappings failed because some OEMs re-used VID/PID (#1583)
- Bugfix: Some extension loader headers did not prevent default OpenGL header inclusion (#1695)
- Bugfix: Buffers were swapped at creation on single-buffered windows (#1873)
- Bugfix: Gamepad mapping updates could spam
GLFW_INVALID_VALUE
due to incompatible controllers sharing hardware ID (#1763) - Bugfix: Native access functions for context handles did not check that the API matched
- Bugfix:
glfwMakeContextCurrent
would access TLS slot before initialization - Bugfix:
glfwSetGammaRamp
could emitGLFW_INVALID_VALUE
before initialization - Bugfix:
glfwGetJoystickUserPointer
returnedNULL
during disconnection (#2092) - [Win32] Added the
GLFW_WIN32_KEYBOARD_MENU
window hint for enabling access to the window menu - [Win32] Added a version info resource to the GLFW DLL
- [Win32] Made hidden helper window use its own window class
- [Win32] Disabled framebuffer transparency on Windows 7 when DWM windows are opaque (#1512)
- [Win32] Bugfix:
GLFW_INCLUDE_VULKAN
plusVK_USE_PLATFORM_WIN32_KHR
caused symbol redefinition (#1524) - [Win32] Bugfix: The cursor position event was emitted before its cursor enter event (#1490)
- [Win32] Bugfix: The window hint
GLFW_MAXIMIZED
did not move or resize the window (#1499) - [Win32] Bugfix: Disabled cursor mode interfered with some non-client actions
- [Win32] Bugfix: Super key was not released after Win+V hotkey (#1622)
- [Win32] Bugfix:
glfwGetKeyName
could access out of bounds and return an invalid pointer - [Win32] Bugfix: Some synthetic key events were reported as
GLFW_KEY_UNKNOWN
(#1623) - [Win32] Bugfix: Non-BMP Unicode codepoint input was reported as UTF-16
- [Win32] Bugfix: Monitor functions could return invalid values after configuration change (#1761)
- [Win32] Bugfix: Initialization would segfault on Windows 8 (not 8.1) (#1775)
- [Win32] Bugfix: Duplicate size events were not filtered (#1610)
- [Win32] Bugfix: Full screen windows were incorrectly resized by DPI changes (#1582)
- [Win32] Bugfix:
GLFW_SCALE_TO_MONITOR
had no effect on systems older than Windows 10 version 1703 (#1511) - [Win32] Bugfix:
USE_MSVC_RUNTIME_LIBRARY_DLL
had no effect on CMake 3.15 or later (#1783,#1796) - [Win32] Bugfix: Compilation with LLVM for Windows failed (#1807,#1824,#1874)
- [Win32] Bugfix: The foreground lock timeout was overridden, ignoring the user
- [Win32] Bugfix: Content scale queries could fail silently (#1615)
- [Win32] Bugfix: Content scales could have garbage values if monitor was recently disconnected (#1615)
- [Win32] Bugfix: A window created maximized and undecorated would cover the whole monitor (#1806)
- [Win32] Bugfix: The default restored window position was lost when creating a maximized window
- [Win32] Bugfix:
glfwMaximizeWindow
would make a hidden window visible - [Win32] Bugfix:
Alt+PrtSc
would emitGLFW_KEY_UNKNOWN
and a different scancode thanPrtSc
(#1993) - [Win32] Bugfix:
GLFW_KEY_PAUSE
scancode fromglfwGetKeyScancode
did not match event scancode (#1993) - [Win32] Bugfix: Instance-local operations used executable instance (#469,#1296,#1395)
- [Win32] Bugfix: The OSMesa library was not unloaded on termination
- [Win32] Bugfix: Right shift emitted
GLFW_KEY_UNKNOWN
when using a CJK IME (#2050) - [Cocoa] Added support for
VK_EXT_metal_surface
(#1619) - [Cocoa] Added locating the Vulkan loader at runtime in an application bundle
- [Cocoa] Moved main menu creation to GLFW initialization time (#1649)
- [Cocoa] Changed
EGLNativeWindowType
fromNSView
toCALayer
(#1169) - [Cocoa] Changed F13 key to report Print Screen for cross-platform consistency (#1786)
- [Cocoa] Disabled macOS fullscreen when
GLFW_RESIZABLE
is false - [Cocoa] Removed dependency on the CoreVideo framework
- [Cocoa] Bugfix:
glfwSetWindowSize
used a bottom-left anchor point (#1553) - [Cocoa] Bugfix: Window remained on screen after destruction until event poll (#1412)
- [Cocoa] Bugfix: Event processing before window creation would assert (#1543)
- [Cocoa] Bugfix: Undecorated windows could not be iconified on recent macOS
- [Cocoa] Bugfix: Touching event queue from secondary thread before main thread would abort (#1649)
- [Cocoa] Bugfix: Non-BMP Unicode codepoint input was reported as UTF-16 (#1635)
- [Cocoa] Bugfix: Failing to retrieve the refresh rate of built-in displays could leak memory
- [Cocoa] Bugfix: Objective-C files were compiled as C with CMake 3.19 (#1787)
- [Cocoa] Bugfix: Duplicate video modes were not filtered out (#1830)
- [Cocoa] Bugfix: Menu bar was not clickable on macOS 10.15+ until it lost and regained focus (#1648,#1802)
- [Cocoa] Bugfix: Monitor name query could segfault on macOS 11 (#1809,#1833)
- [Cocoa] Bugfix: The install name of the installed dylib was relative (#1504)
- [Cocoa] Bugfix: The MoltenVK layer contents scale was updated only after related events were emitted
- [Cocoa] Bugfix: Moving the cursor programmatically would freeze it for a fraction of a second (#1962)
- [Cocoa] Bugfix:
kIOMasterPortDefault
was deprecated in macOS 12.0 (#1980) - [Cocoa] Bugfix:
kUTTypeURL
was deprecated in macOS 12.0 (#2003) - [Cocoa] Bugfix: A connected Apple AirPlay would emit a useless error (#1791)
- [Cocoa] Bugfix: The EGL and OSMesa libraries were not unloaded on termination
- [Cocoa] Bugfix:
GLFW_MAXIMIZED
was always true whenGLFW_RESIZABLE
was false - [Cocoa] Bugfix: Changing
GLFW_DECORATED
in macOS fullscreen would abort application (#1886) - [Cocoa] Bugfix: Setting a monitor from macOS fullscreen would abort application (#2110)
- [Cocoa] Bugfix: The Vulkan loader was not loaded from the
Frameworks
bundle subdirectory (#2113,#2120) - [X11] Bugfix: The CMake files did not check for the XInput headers (#1480)
- [X11] Bugfix: Key names were not updated when the keyboard layout changed (#1462,#1528)
- [X11] Bugfix: Decorations could not be enabled after window creation (#1566)
- [X11] Bugfix: Content scale fallback value could be inconsistent (#1578)
- [X11] Bugfix:
glfwMaximizeWindow
had no effect on hidden windows - [X11] Bugfix: Clearing
GLFW_FLOATING
on a hidden window caused invalid read - [X11] Bugfix: Changing
GLFW_FLOATING
on a hidden window could silently fail - [X11] Bugfix: Disabled cursor mode was interrupted by indicator windows
- [X11] Bugfix: Monitor physical dimensions could be reported as zero mm
- [X11] Bugfix: Window position events were not emitted during resizing (#1613)
- [X11] Bugfix:
glfwFocusWindow
could terminate on older WMs or without a WM - [X11] Bugfix: Querying a disconnected monitor could segfault (#1602)
- [X11] Bugfix: IME input of CJK was broken for "C" locale (#1587,#1636)
- [X11] Bugfix: Termination would segfault if the IM had been destroyed
- [X11] Bugfix: Any IM started after initialization would not be detected
- [X11] Bugfix: Xlib errors caused by other parts of the application could be reported as GLFW errors
- [X11] Bugfix: A handle race condition could cause a
BadWindow
error (#1633) - [X11] Bugfix: XKB path used keysyms instead of physical locations for non-printable keys (#1598)
- [X11] Bugfix: Function keys were mapped to
GLFW_KEY_UNKNOWN
for some layout combinations (#1598) - [X11] Bugfix: Keys pressed simultaneously with others were not always reported (#1112,#1415,#1472,#1616)
- [X11] Bugfix: Some window attributes were not applied on leaving fullscreen (#1863)
- [X11] Bugfix: Changing
GLFW_FLOATING
could leak memory - [X11] Bugfix: Icon pixel format conversion worked only by accident, relying on undefined behavior (#1986)
- [X11] Bugfix: Dynamic loading on OpenBSD failed due to soname differences
- [X11] Bugfix: Waiting for events would fail if file descriptor was too large (#2024)
- [X11] Bugfix: Joystick events could lead to busy-waiting (#1872)
- [X11] Bugfix:
glfwWaitEvents*
did not continue for joystick events - [X11] Bugfix:
glfwPostEmptyEvent
could be ignored due to race condition (#379,#1281,#1285,#2033) - [X11] Bugfix: Dynamic loading on NetBSD failed due to soname differences
- [X11] Bugfix: Left shift of int constant relied on undefined behavior (#1951)
- [X11] Bugfix: The OSMesa libray was not unloaded on termination
- [X11] Bugfix: A malformed response during selection transfer could cause a segfault
- [X11] Bugfix: Some calls would reset Xlib to the default error handler (#2108)
- [Wayland] Added dynamic loading of all Wayland libraries
- [Wayland] Added support for key names via xkbcommon
- [Wayland] Added support for file path drop events (#2040)
- [Wayland] Added support for more human-readable monitor names where available
- [Wayland] Removed support for
wl_shell
(#1443) - [Wayland] Bugfix: The
GLFW_HAND_CURSOR
shape used the wrong image (#1432) - [Wayland] Bugfix:
CLOCK_MONOTONIC
was not correctly enabled - [Wayland] Bugfix: Repeated keys could be reported with
NULL
window (#1704) - [Wayland] Bugfix: Retrieving partial framebuffer size would segfault
- [Wayland] Bugfix: Scrolling offsets were inverted compared to other platforms (#1463)
- [Wayland] Bugfix: Client-Side Decorations were destroyed in the wrong order (#1798)
- [Wayland] Bugfix: Monitors physical size could report zero (#1784,#1792)
- [Wayland] Bugfix: Some keys were not repeating in Wayland (#1908)
- [Wayland] Bugfix: Non-arrow cursors are offset from the hotspot (#1706,#1899)
- [Wayland] Bugfix: The
O_CLOEXEC
flag was not defined on FreeBSD - [Wayland] Bugfix: Key repeat could lead to a race condition (#1710)
- [Wayland] Bugfix: Activating a window would emit two input focus events
- [Wayland] Bugfix: Disable key repeat mechanism when window loses input focus
- [Wayland] Bugfix: Window hiding and showing did not work (#1492,#1731)
- [Wayland] Bugfix: A key being repeated was not released when window lost focus
- [Wayland] Bugfix: Showing a hidden window did not emit a window refresh event
- [Wayland] Bugfix: Full screen window creation did not ignore
GLFW_VISIBLE
- [Wayland] Bugfix: Some keys were reported as wrong key or
GLFW_KEY_UNKNOWN
- [Wayland] Bugfix: Text input did not repeat along with key repeat
- [Wayland] Bugfix:
glfwPostEmptyEvent
sometimes had no effect (#1520,#1521) - [Wayland] Bugfix:
glfwSetClipboardString
would fail if set to result ofglfwGetClipboardString
- [Wayland] Bugfix: Data source creation error would cause double free at termination
- [Wayland] Bugfix: Partial writes of clipboard string would cause beginning to repeat
- [Wayland] Bugfix: Some errors would cause clipboard string transfer to hang
- [Wayland] Bugfix: Drag and drop data was misinterpreted as clipboard string
- [Wayland] Bugfix: MIME type matching was not performed for clipboard string
- [Wayland] Bugfix: The OSMesa library was not unloaded on termination
- [Wayland] Bugfix:
glfwCreateWindow
could emitGLFW_FEATURE_UNAVAILABLE
- [Wayland] Bugfix: Lock key modifier bits were only set when lock keys were pressed
- [Wayland] Bugfix: A window leaving full screen mode would be iconified (#1995)
- [Wayland] Bugfix: A window leaving full screen mode ignored its desired size
- [Wayland] Bugfix:
glfwSetWindowMonitor
did not update windowed mode size - [Wayland] Bugfix:
glfwRestoreWindow
would make a full screen window windowed - [Wayland] Bugfix: A window maximized or restored by the user would enter an inconsistent state
- [Wayland] Bugfix: Window maximization events were not emitted
- [Wayland] Bugfix:
glfwRestoreWindow
assumed it was always in windowed mode - [Wayland] Bugfix:
glfwSetWindowSize
would resize a full screen window - [Wayland] Bugfix: A window content scale event would be emitted every time the window resized
- [Wayland] Bugfix: If
glfwInit
failed it would close stdin - [Wayland] Bugfix: Manual resizing with fallback decorations behaved erratically (#1991,#2115,#2127)
- [Wayland] Bugfix: Size limits included frame size for fallback decorations
- [Wayland] Bugfix: Updating
GLFW_DECORATED
had no effect on server-side decorations - [Wayland] Bugfix: A monitor would be reported as connected again if its scale changed
- [Wayland] Bugfix:
glfwTerminate
would segfault if any monitor had changed scale - [Wayland] Bugfix: Window content scale events were not emitted when monitor scale changed
- [Wayland] Bugfix:
glfwSetWindowAspectRatio
reported an error instead of applying the specified ratio - [Wayland] Bugfix:
GLFW_MAXIMIZED
window hint had no effect - [Wayland] Bugfix:
glfwRestoreWindow
had no effect before first show - [Wayland] Bugfix: Hiding and then showing a window caused program abort on wlroots compositors (#1268)
- [Wayland] Bugfix:
GLFW_DECORATED
was ignored when showing a window with XDG decorations - [Wayland] Bugfix: Connecting a mouse after
glfwInit
would segfault (#1450) - [POSIX] Removed use of deprecated function
gettimeofday
- [POSIX] Bugfix:
CLOCK_MONOTONIC
was not correctly tested for or enabled - [Linux] Bugfix: Joysticks without buttons were ignored (#2042,#2043)
- [WGL] Disabled the DWM swap interval hack for Windows 8 and later (#1072)
- [NSGL] Removed enforcement of forward-compatible flag for core contexts
- [NSGL] Bugfix:
GLFW_COCOA_RETINA_FRAMEBUFFER
had no effect on newer macOS versions (#1442) - [NSGL] Bugfix: Workaround for swap interval on 10.14 broke on 10.12 (#1483)
- [NSGL] Bugfix: Defining
GL_SILENCE_DEPRECATION
externally caused a duplicate definition warning (#1840) - [EGL] Added platform selection via the
EGL_EXT_platform_base
extension (#442) - [EGL] Added ANGLE backend selection via
EGL_ANGLE_platform_angle
extension (#1380) [EGL] Added loading of glvndlibOpenGL.so.0
where available for OpenGL - [EGL] Bugfix: The
GLFW_DOUBLEBUFFER
context attribute was ignored (#1843) - [GLX] Added loading of glvnd
libGLX.so.0
where available - [GLX] Bugfix: Context creation failed if GLX 1.4 was not exported by GLX library
Contact
On glfw.org you can find the latest version of GLFW, as well as news, documentation and other information about the project.
If you have questions related to the use of GLFW, we have a
forum, and the #glfw
IRC channel on
Libera.Chat.
If you have a bug to report, a patch to submit or a feature you'd like to request, please file it in the issue tracker on GitHub.
Finally, if you're interested in helping out with the development of GLFW or porting it to your favorite platform, join us on the forum, GitHub or IRC.
*Note that all licence references and agreements mentioned in the GLFW README section above
are relevant to that project's source code only.