Update of libopenframeworks to OpenFrameworks 8

[kitylam9]

Hi All
Since OpenFrameworks version already go to 8.2, I would like to know if it is possible to update libopenframeworks to new version of OpenFrameworks? if it is possible, what will need to change?

[echa]

Hey.

It is possible, but it's not straight forward. You should be comfortable with C++, CMake and building static libraries on the command line under Linux/OSX. If you like to give it a try, here's what I did:

I changed the oF directory structure to be more aligned with what you would expect from a C++ library. File names are the same, it's just the directories that differ. I did not copy pre-built binaries, scripts or build-related files (for Eclipse, etc).

I patched some of the core oF files to allow for optional includes of external libraries, fixed some C++ pitfalls and compile problems with OSX 10.7, and to unify line endings to UNIX style (not Windows). I did not track changes in oF or any of the addons after they released 0.7.4. Upgrading this part is all manual work, file by file. Watch out for #define HAVE_XXX macros in the code that include/exclude a feature. A complete list of all features is in ofconfig.in.h. The script under tools/ is a good starting point to get an overview about diffs between OF and libopenframeworks.

The second issue is upgrading external libraries. libopenframeworks uses static linkage and pkgconf whenever possible. Some external libs don't play nice, meaning their build systems break when building a static library or lack code to generate pkgconf files. Both are not maintainers darlings I suppose. Hence, I ended up patching some external libs (see the patches directory). Those patches may or may not work with new versions. Getting all those libs to compile and work across different Linux versions and OSX was where I spent most of my time.

Good luck