Since I would like to use FreePascal, among other things, for teaching, it would be great for me to have a simple library of drawing functions, i.e. very simple setup (one function call), cross-platform (but only GNU/Linux is also okay) and pretty high-level overall.

Is the 'graph' unit a candidate for this (I remember it to be easily used from my Turbo Pascal days), or is there a better alternative?

Leslie

I think it's better to use ptc.
It's relatively portable, and better maintained.

Michael.

Is the 'graph' unit a candidate for this (I remember it to be easily used from my Turbo Pascal days), or is there a better alternative?

If you're considering compatibility with other pascal compilers (TP/BP, FPC, Delphi) then the graph unit is the best alternative since it's also available on almost other pascal compilers though sometimes with a little different names but supply similar consts, functions, or procedures. Especially for teaching, graph unit is much less complex and easier to be understood though the performance is poor. Similar case to CRT unit.

But if you require an OOP, full featured, fast, cross platform, graphics library then there are many alternatives. You can use SDL4FPC, PTCPas, AggPas, etc. Study them and pick the most suitable to your requirements.

-Bee-

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Speed is not important. Does it work with X11?

The main problem with the graph unit is that basically no one is maintaining it currently. The poor performance is coupled to that, since a plugin for it which bases it on sdl or any other framework could be written.

Jonas

Speed is not important. Does it work with X11?

AFAIK, no. CMIIW. On Linux, it requires svgalib and root access.

For more info about svgalib, please visit
http://www.svgalib.org/jay/beginners_guide/beginners_guide.html

-Bee-

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The main problem with the graph unit is that basically no one is maintaining it currently. The poor performance is coupled to that, since a plugin for it which bases it on sdl or any other framework could be written.

I think it's becaused not too much people need (direct) graphical console nowadays since OpenGL and DirectX become commons for graphics processing. For GUI app, we can use ready-to-use widget APIs. :)

-Bee-

has Bee.ography at:
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Just like with SDL and others, the graph unit could be implemented on top of OpenGL or DirectX. It's not a replacement for either, just a different API.

Jonas

Op Tue, 6 Mar 2007, schreef

The ggi version (ggigraph) does. It is slightly tricky to use it, but I was able to get it working recently.

Daniël