Add tutorial for building an SDL app from scratch.

docs/markdown/GuiTutorial.md

@@ -0,0 +1,196 @@
+---
+short-description: A simple GUI tutorial
+...
+
+# Building a simple SDL2 app from scratch
+
+This page shows from the ground up how to define and build an SDL2 gui
+application using nothing but Meson. The document is written for
+Windows, as it is the most complex platform, but the same basic ideas
+should work on Linux and macOS as well.
+
+The sample application is written in plain C as SDL 2 is also written
+in C. If you prefer C++ instead, the conversion is fairly simple and
+is left as an exercise to the reader.
+
+This document assumes that you have already installed both Visual
+Studio and Meson.
+
+# Set up the build directory
+
+First you need to create an empty directory for all your stuff. The
+Visual Studio toolchain is a bit unusual in that it requires you to
+run your builds from a specific shell. This can be found by opening
+the application menu and then choosing `Visual Studio <year> -> x86_64
+native tools command prompt`.
+
+It will put you in a weird directory, so you need to go to your home
+directory:
+
+    cd \users\yourusername
+
+Typically you'd type `cd \users\` and then press the tabulator key to
+make the shell autocomplete the username. Once that is done you can
+create the directory.
+
+    mkdir sdldemo
+    cd sdldemo
+
+# Creating the sample program
+
+Now we need to create a source file and a Meson build definition file.
+We're not going to use SDL at all, but instead start with a simple
+program that only prints some text. Once we have it working we can
+extend it to do graphics. The source goes into a file `sdlprog.c` and
+has the following contents:
+
+```c
+#include <stdio.h>
+
+int main(int argc, char **argv) {
+  printf("App is running.\n");
+  return 0;
+}
+```
+
+The build definition goes to a file called `meson.build` and looks
+like this:
+
+```meson
+project('sdldemo', 'c')
+
+executable('sdlprog', 'sdlprog.c')
+```
+
+With this done we can start the build with the following command:
+
+    meson builddir
+
+Here `builddir` is the _build directory_, everything that is generated
+during the build is put in that directory. When run, it should look
+like this.
+
+![Configuring the sample application](images/sdltutorial_01.png)
+
+The program is compiled with this:
+
+    meson compile -C builddir
+
+The `-C` argument tells Meson where the configured build directory is.
+
+The program will be in the build directory and can be run like this:
+
+    builddir\sdlprog
+
+The output should look like this.
+
+![Running the sample application](images/sdltutorial_02.png)
+
+# Upgrading the program to use SDL
+
+The code needed to start SDL is a bit more complicated and we're not
+going to go into how it works. Merely replace the contents of
+`sdlprog.c` with the following:
+
+```c
+#include "SDL.h"
+
+int main(int argc, char *argv[])
+{
+    SDL_Window *window;
+    SDL_Renderer *renderer;
+    SDL_Surface *surface;
+    SDL_Event event;
+
+    if (SDL_Init(SDL_INIT_VIDEO) < 0) {
+        SDL_LogError(SDL_LOG_CATEGORY_APPLICATION, "Couldn't initialize SDL: %s", SDL_GetError());
+        return 3;
+    }
+
+    if (SDL_CreateWindowAndRenderer(320, 240, SDL_WINDOW_RESIZABLE, &window, &renderer)) {
+        SDL_LogError(SDL_LOG_CATEGORY_APPLICATION, "Couldn't create window and renderer: %s", SDL_GetError());
+        return 3;
+    }
+
+    while (1) {
+        SDL_PollEvent(&event);
+        if (event.type == SDL_QUIT) {
+            break;
+        }
+        SDL_SetRenderDrawColor(renderer, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00);
+        SDL_RenderClear(renderer);
+        SDL_RenderPresent(renderer);
+    }
+
+    SDL_DestroyRenderer(renderer);
+    SDL_DestroyWindow(window);
+
+    SDL_Quit();
+
+    return 0;
+}
+```
+
+Let's try to compile this by running `meson compile -C builddir` again.
+
+![Building SDL app fails](images/sdltutorial_03.png)
+
+That fails. The reason for this is that we don't actually have SDL
+currently available. We need to obtain it somehow. In more technical
+terms SDL2 is an _external dependency_ and obtaining it is called
+_dependency resolution_.
+
+Meson has a web service for downloading and building (if needed)
+dependencies called a WrapDB. It provides SDL2 so we can use it
+directly. First we need to create a `subprojects` directory because in
+Meson all subprojects like these must be stored in that directory for
+consistency.
+
+    mkdir subprojects
+
+Then we can install the dependency:
+
+    meson wrap install sdl2
+
+It looks like this:
+
+![Obtaining SDL2 from WrapDB](images/sdltutorial_04.png)
+
+As a final step we need to update our build definition file to use the
+newly obtained dependency.
+
+```meson
+project('sdldemo', 'c',
+        default_options: 'default_library=static')
+
+sdl2_dep = dependency('sdl2')
+
+executable('sdlprog', 'sdlprog.c',
+           win_subsystem: 'windows',
+           dependencies: sdl2_dep)
+```
+
+In addition to the dependency this has a few other changes. First we
+specify that we want to build helper libraries statically. For simple
+projects like these it makes things simpler. We also need to tell
+Meson that the program we are building is a Windows GUI
+application rather than a console application.
+
+This is all we need to do and can now run `meson compile` again. First
+the system downloads and configures SDL2:
+
+![Running the sample application](images/sdltutorial_05.png)
+
+A bit later the compilation exits succesfully.
+
+![Running the sample application](images/sdltutorial_06.png)
+
+# Program is done
+
+Now we can run the application with
+
+    builddir\sdlprog
+
+The end result is a black SDL window.
+
+![Running the sample application](images/sdltutorial_07.png)

docs/sitemap.txt

@@ -5,6 +5,7 @@ index.md
 		Getting-meson_ptbr.md
 	Quick-guide.md
 	Tutorial.md
+	GuiTutorial.md
 	Manual.md
 		Overview.md
 		Running-Meson.md