birdie

A desktop MUD client written in C, with its own retained-mode GUI toolkit (birdie-gui) drawn through a backend-neutral GPU interface. The default backend is ludica (rendering, input, audio, networking); a second backend runs on raw X11/EGL/GLES.

The toolkit is reusable on its own. See src/birdie-gui/README.md for the birdie-gui library, and "Reusing birdie-gui" below to vendor it into another project.

The MUD client

birdie is the desktop client: a menu bar, a session side panel, a terminal output pane, and a command line, running on the ludica backend. The Session menu opens a connect dialog backed by a sortable MUD-list table (add / edit / import from CSV). Networking, triggers, and the scripting VM are wired in; main.c is the shell that ties them to the UI.

birdie-gui

birdie-gui is the retained-mode widget toolkit birdie is built on, reusable as a standalone library. It draws through a small backend-neutral GPU interface, so the same widget code runs on ludica, SDL3, or raw X11/EGL/GLES. The gallery below (make widget-test) exercises the full widget set on the GLES backend, grouped into folder tabs: a libvt terminal and a data table, an inventory grid, rotary knobs and dials, switches and wheels, X-Y pads and sliders, instrument meters (VU, magic eye, pie, liquid vials, level bars) and indicator LEDs, a pressure/tilt sketch pad, and an embedded window manager (MDI) desktop.

Build

make                # debug build
make RELEASE=1      # optimized (-O2, LTO)
make clean

The client links the X11 + EGL + OpenGL ES runtime through ludica, so a debug build needs their development headers:

sudo apt-get install -y libx11-dev libegl-dev libgles-dev   # Debian / Ubuntu

The binary lands at _out/<triplet>/bin/birdie, e.g. _out/x86_64-linux-gnu/bin/birdie. The build stages the fonts and pushpin sprites into _out/<triplet>/bin/ next to the binary, which locates them there at startup, so it runs from any working directory:

_out/x86_64-linux-gnu/bin/birdie

Other make targets

Target	What it does
make test	Headless GUI toolkit test (recording stub backend, no window/X11).
make widget-test	Standalone widget gallery on the raw X11/EGL/GLES backend.
make dist	Bundle the birdie-gui toolkit into a versioned source ZIP.

examples/ is a separate build (it carries its own GNUmakefile) so the main build never depends on example-only libraries; examples/sdl3/ hosts the toolkit on an SDL3 window, and examples/embed/ is a self-contained binary that bakes its fonts and textures in with .incbin and the bd_asset registry. Build them with cd examples && make.

The build system is modular-make: each directory has a module.mk, and the top-level one selects which are built.

Releases

Tagging vX.Y.Z triggers the release workflow (.github/workflows/release.yml), which builds and attaches to the GitHub Release:

• birdie-gui-<version>.zip — the birdie-gui toolkit source bundle.
• birdie-<version>-linux-<arch>.tar.gz — the MUD client, built for x86_64, aarch64, and arm32 (Linux).
• SHA256SUMS — checksums for all of the above.

Each client tarball contains the birdie binary, its runtime assets, and a birdie.sh launcher that starts it from the unpacked directory.

Reusing birdie-gui

birdie-gui is distributed as the tagged source ZIP above. To vendor it into your own project, run the bundled updater (it defaults to this repo's GitHub release assets):

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/OrangeTide/birdie/main/scripts/get-birdie-gui.sh \
    | sh -s -- 0.8.2 third_party/birdie-gui

Commit the script into your repo and re-run it with a newer version to update in place. See scripts/get-birdie-gui.sh --help and the library README for the build recipe.

Source layout

• src/birdie-gui/ — the birdie-gui toolkit (widget core, renderer, backend interface, the ludica and SDL3 backends, extension widgets, assets), built as the birdie_gui library.
• src/birdie/ — the MUD-client app (main.c, networking, telnet, triggers, profiles, scripting VM); links the toolkit.
• src/guitest/ — standalone widget gallery and the raw X11/EGL/GLES backend.
• src/thirdparty/ — vendored dependencies (ludica, lua, lpeg, mbedtls, miniz, stb).
• src/libvt/ — terminal escape-sequence processing for the terminal widget.
• examples/ — separate project hosting the toolkit on other windowing libs.
• doc/ — design documents; concept.md — original requirements.
• scripts/ — vendoring/update helpers (get-birdie-gui.sh, update-*.sh).

Dependencies are vendored rather than linked from sibling repos, and are never symlinked; each has an update script under scripts/. Provenance is recorded in the UPSTREAM file beside each vendored tree.

Target platforms

Linux (x86-64, aarch64, arm32) today. Windows (x86-64) is planned, with an NSIS installer; macOS is a stretch goal.

License

birdie's own source is dedicated to the public domain under CC0 1.0. Vendored third-party components keep their own licenses; see LICENSE.txt for the list and pointers.