The Dot Docs

The Dot Application Framework

In the Framework subdirectory of this release, you will find the Dot application framework. The framework is a small but complete skeleton that can be used when developing Dot applications. Just open the project in Delphi, compile it, and you have a fully functional OpenGL application waiting to be modified further.

The framework has the following features:

  • Provides a dialog that allows the user to switch to fullscreen mode, change color depths and pixel formats, and enable FSAA.
  • Initializes a rendering context
  • Offers placeholders for OpenGL extension, 3D scene, texture and shader loading
  • Checks for errors during startup and crashes gracefully if something goes wrong (e.g. a required extension is not supported)
  • Measures the application's framerate
  • Provides a simple camera controller for easy scene navigation
  • Prints progress/status messages to the window during startup

The framework's source code contains comments in all the places where you are expected to insert your own code. It should be self-explanatory, so just make a copy of the framework, rename it, and start coding!

Note that if you'd prefer not to have the display mode dialog at startup, you can use the project in the Framework2 subdirectory. It's identical to the other one except for the dialog, and may be preferable if you're writing applications that are designed to run in a window instead of fullscreen.

The Delphi OpenGL Toolkit was written by Tom Nuydens.
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