shylexx/sdl2_template

CMake Project Template for SDL2 and OpenGL

SDL2 CMake Template

A quickstart template for a CMake project intended for games/graphics

Includes Git Submodules for

• ImGui (defaults to OpenGL3 Backend)
• GLM
• SDL2

Also includes stb_image header

To use a different graphical API, just edit the CMakeLists in lib to use a different ImGui backend

SDL2

SDL2 is a bit messy to 'get' unless you use the provided submodule (and checkout a release version)

Currently the below method, using SDL2_DIR on Windows is not working correctly, so use the Git Submodule to grab SDL2, this should be done by default as long as the repository is cloned with --recursive, if not theres a lot of posts on how to init and clone submodules. Just remember that if you need a specific commit (you probably will for SDL2 as it defaults to cloning the main branch (SDL3) so make sure to grab a release that you want.)

If you enable the USE_SDL_SYS CMake Variable, it will use system SDL2 libs (on Linux devices) or use the directory specified by 'SDL2_DIR' (see Sample Commands for CMake syntax :D )

On Windows, it is recommended to use the 'devel' libs, in a local folder as the source for your SDL2 libraries, for release its a little different, at some point I will set up automatic downloading of development/release libraries and scripts to automatically wrap up release versions with their dlls, but I've not done that before so I'll have to experiment a bit

Sample commands

Use something like this for a Ninja build project on Windows/MSVC

Specifying an SDL dir is not needed if using the Git Submodule method to getting SDL

cmake ../ -G Ninja -DCMAKE_EXPORT_COMPILE_COMMANDS=1 -DSDL2_DIR=C:\SDL2\cmake

In case you add more SDL2 libraries, use these variables to specify their locations:

-DSDL2_mixer_DIR=C:\SDL2_Mixer\cmake -DSDL2_image_DIR=C:\SDL2_Image\cmake -DSDL2_ttf_DIR=C:\SDL2_TTF\cmake

On Linux, it should be as simple as specifying your project file to be generated (Ninja, Make, etc) and hitting go as long as you have the SDL2 libs installed that you need