SWCL - Simple Wayland Client Library

Create Wayland clients easily.

This header-only library simplifies creating native Wayland window, receiving mouse or keyboard events and helping with creation of Client-Side Decorations (CSD).

In a few lines of code you will have a window with OpenGL context inside of it that you can use to create whatever you want:

• Applications
• GUI toolkits
• Game engines

You can also port your existing applications to support Wayland with this library.

SWCL is written in C and it's just one header file swcl.h. You can put it directly in your project.

Tutorial

Setup

First you need to clone repository:

git clone https://github.com/mrvladus/swcl

Then install Wayland development dependencies:

For Fedora/RHEL based distros:

sudo dnf install wayland-devel mesa-libGL-devel

For Debian/Ubuntu based distros:

sudo apt install libwayland-dev mesa-common-dev

Creating your project

Copy swcl.h to your project. Then create main.c so your project directory looks like this:

myproject
│── swcl.h
└── main.c

Inside of the main.c file write this:

// Because it's a header-only library - it contains functions declarations AND implementations
// Add this line to include SWCL functions implementations
// You need to add this line ONLY in ONE file
#define SWCL_IMPLEMENTATION
// Then include SWCL header
#include "swcl.h"

// Drawing function that called each frame
void draw(SWCLWindow *win) {
  // Draw white background
  swcl_clear_background((SWCLColor){255, 255, 255, 255});
  // Swap buffers
  swcl_window_swap_buffers(win);
}

int main() {
  // Create basic config
  SWCLConfig cfg = {.app_id = "io.github.mrvladus.Test"};
  // Create application
  SWCLApplication *app = swcl_application_new(&cfg);
  // Create window
  SWCLWindow *win = swcl_window_new(app, "Basic Window", 800, 600, 100, 100,
                                    false, false, draw);
  // Render first frame
  swcl_window_show(win);
  // Run application
  swcl_application_run(app);
  return 0;
}

Now compile it with this command:

gcc main.c -o myapp -lwayland-client -lwayland-egl -lwayland-cursor -lGL -lEGL -lm

• gcc main.c compiles your code
• -o myapp outputs it to executable file myapp
• -lwayland-client -lwayland-egl -lwayland-cursor -lGL -lEGL -lm links our program with needed libraries

And then run it with:

./myapp

Congratulations! You've created your first Wayland window!

Go to the examples directory to learn more.

Examples

To build examples you need:

• Clone this repo
• Run ./build.py -e inside it

This will build examples inside examples directory. You can run them as any other binary.

Documentation

See swcl.h for documentation. All of the functions and structs have comments. It's pretty simple.

Contributions

All contributions are welcome!

Development

TODO™

Donations

If you like SWCL and want to support it, you can send your donations here:

• BTC

14pPYfZohS61PyGyXJyiGQHDFai4JR2q9w

• USDT

TCQn85c3vrRR7yMAfJABZmCXBa7gQvUcX5

• TON

UQBrhmho9259KsNZ8wYx6y_eeOwdcAo9aroOTRWRtnmcUmdr

Thank you!