.png Render Library

[scienceguy8]

So, I proposed an idea recently, and while people do think it is a great idea, it is also currently an extremely large amount of work. I was told that if I wanted any hope of getting my idea into Wesnoth, I would first need to work toward implementing the idea myself. Now, I'm not complaining here. I have told people in the Ideas board this same thing myself. I decided it was time to follow what I had been preaching. A quick look at the Wesnoth source code, however, showed me that I am in way over my head. I understand the code structure, but there are so many commands and user made commands and libraries in the form of .h files that I can't make heads or tails of it. I highly doubt that I can integrate my idea into the game given my relatively little knowledge of C++, but I do think I could pull off a proof-of-concept program completely separate from the Wesnoth engine. From there, I could start to work on other design elements and modifications required for the idea to work.

For this prototype, I need a GPLed C++ library for displaying .png images with transparency. Are there any such libraries you have worked with that you liked? Where would I go to find such a library? Is there some sort of repository of GPLed C++ libraries that I could search?

The original idea can be found here.

[grzywacz]

Take a look at SDL and SDL_image. This should suffice.

[Iris]

There's a repository: Google.

No seriously, SDL_image is a C library but it works perfectly fine with C++ (the language is designed with C interoperability in mind at a certain limit). It is what Wesnoth uses, to be exact.

Of course you need the SDL facilities to use SDL_image. All the documentation you might ever need may be found at http://www.libsdl.org (SDL) and http://www.libsdl.org/projects/SDL_image/ (SDL_image).