Re: Graphics with ADA ?

[David Marceau <davidmarceau@sympatico.ca>]

Jim wrote:
> 
> i want to have a go programming a game for ADA, except i dont know how
> to use graphics, i know ADA isnt the best language for games, but its
> the only language i know unfortunately.
> 
> does anyone know where to get tutortials for graphics ?

1)platform independent gtk
gtkada binding
http://libre.act-europe.fr/GtkAda/
This one I tried and it has a lot of components to offer.  Check out the
demos very carefully there are a lot of hidden perls here :)
Tree controls, tables, interconnecting node graphs usable for creating
UML tools :)
It is most likely you would want to use this since it runs on linux/Unix
and windows.

2)platform independent sdl
adasdl binding
http://sourceforge.net/projects/adasdl
I haven't tried this one.

3)Linux 2d/3d graphics with ada
http://www.mysunrise.ch/users/gdm/e3d/engine3d.tgz
You'll need svgalib:  http://www.arava.co.il/matan/svgalib/
This is straight console graphics.  There are no XWindow or windows in
this one.  Potentially embeddable :)  What do I mean potentially?  I
mean you could if you wanted to :)  I'm sure someone has :)

4)proprietary windows95/nt/2000...If you want to do game programming in
ada95 with just MS-Windows in mind, then consider using gnatcom  in
order to reuse direct2d, direct3d, directshow filters.

5)Consider using jgnat/cafe 1815 to connect to JAZZ(an open-source java
zui zoomeable user interface built on top of swing/awt).
http://www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/jazz/download/index.shtml
It's less likely that you use this however the design and JAZZ's
patterns are inspiring source code to rewrite in
ada/svgalib/sdlada/gtkada.  
Again there are many hidden perls in the jazz source code, architecture
and design patterns.  It's worth the look.

Cheers,
David Marceau