Re: [AD] messy allegro 5.0 stuff

[Bob <ohannessian@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Henrik Stokseth wrote:

> David A. Capello <dacap@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > AL_SCREEN_W


No support for multiple screens. THe more logical way would be to use 
screen->w and screen->h, but that means making screen represent what is 
visible and not the entire video memory. In the end, that's probably the 
most portable way of doing things.
[snip]

> > Common-return value for all routines?
> > AL_OK, AL_ERROR, AL_ENOMEM, etc.


Yes please!


> > Other thing, maybe this will be useful for a lot of people:
> >
> > al_get_input(AL_KEY_LEFT)
> > al_get_input(AL_MOUSE_LEFT)
> > al_get_input(AL_JOY_BUTTON_1)
> > etc.


I don't know about this one. Input devices tend to be *very* different from 
one another. So building a common do-everything API for input is probably a 
bad idea. Making the API consistent is good, but making everything the same 
isn't. Some devices are relative, some are absolute, some have digital 
buttons, some have analogue buttons, some have multiple sticks, some have 
roulettes, and the keyboard has 100+ keys. If someone invents a new device, 
there's a good chance that Allegro won't be able to support it nicely with a 
common API - Unless that API is flexible enough to accomodate just about 
anything IMHO.


--
- Robert J Ohannessian
"Microsoft code is probably O(n^20)" (my CS prof)
http://pages.infinit.net/voidstar/