GLFW

Introduction

GLFW is an Open Source, multi-platform library for OpenGL, OpenGL ES and Vulkan application development. It provides a simple, platform-independent API for creating windows, contexts and surfaces, reading input, handling events, etc.

GLFW is licensed under the zlib/libpng license.

The latest stable release is version 3.2.1.

See the downloads page for details and files, or fetch the latest branch, which always points to the latest stable release. Each release starting with 3.0 also has a corresponding annotated tag with source and binary archives. The version history lists all user-visible changes for every release.

This is a development branch for version 3.3, which is not yet described.

If you are new to GLFW, you may find the tutorial for GLFW 3 useful. If you have used GLFW 2 in the past, there is a transition guide for moving to the GLFW 3 API.

Compiling GLFW

GLFW itself requires only the headers and libraries for your window system. It does not need the headers for any context creation API (WGL, GLX, EGL, NSGL) or rendering API (OpenGL, OpenGL ES, Vulkan) to enable support for them.

GLFW supports compilation on Windows with Visual C++ 2010 and later, MinGW and MinGW-w64, on macOS with Clang and on Linux and other Unix-like systems with GCC and Clang. It will likely compile in other environments as well, but this is not regularly tested.

There are also pre-compiled Windows binaries available for all compilers supported on that platform.

See the compilation guide in the documentation for more information.

Using GLFW

See the building application guide guide in the documentation for more information.

System requirements

GLFW supports Windows XP and later, OS X 10.7 Lion and later, and Linux and other Unix-like systems with the X Window System. Experimental implementations for the Wayland protocol and the Mir display server are available but not yet officially supported.

See the compatibility guide in the documentation for more information.

Dependencies

GLFW itself depends only on the headers and libraries for your window system.

The examples and test programs depend on a number of tiny libraries. These are located in the deps/ directory.

• getopt_port for examples with command-line options
• TinyCThread for threaded examples
• An OpenGL 3.2 core loader generated by glad for examples using modern OpenGL
• linmath.h for linear algebra in examples
• Nuklear for test and example UI
• stb_image_write for writing images to disk
• Vulkan headers for Vulkan tests

The Vulkan example additionally requires the Vulkan SDK to be installed, or it will not be included in the build.

The documentation is generated with Doxygen. If CMake does not find Doxygen, the documentation will not be generated when you build.

Reporting bugs

Bugs are reported to our issue tracker. Please check the contribution guide for information on what to include when reporting a bug.

Changelog

• Added glfwGetKeyScancode function that allows retrieving platform dependent scancodes for keys (#830)
• Added glfwSetWindowMaximizeCallback and GLFWwindowmaximizefun for receiving window maximization events (#778)
• Added glfwSetWindowAttrib function for changing window attributes (#537)
• Added headless OSMesa backend (#281,#850)
• Added definition of GLAPIENTRY to public header
• Added macOS specific GLFW_COCOA_RETINA_FRAMEBUFFER window hint
• Added macOS specific GLFW_COCOA_FRAME_AUTOSAVE window hint (#195)
• Added GLFW_INCLUDE_ES32 for including the OpenGL ES 3.2 header
• Removed GLFW_USE_RETINA compile-time option
• Bugfix: Calling glfwMaximizeWindow on a full screen window was not ignored
• Bugfix: GLFW_INCLUDE_VULKAN could not be combined with the corresponding OpenGL and OpenGL ES header macros
• Bugfix: glfwGetInstanceProcAddress returned NULL for vkGetInstanceProcAddr when _GLFW_VULKAN_STATIC was enabled
• Bugfix: Invalid library paths were used in test and example CMake files (#930)
• [Win32] Added system error strings to relevant GLFW error descriptions (#733)
• [Win32] Bugfix: Undecorated windows could not be iconified by the user (#861)
• [Win32] Bugfix: Deadzone logic could underflow with some controllers (#910)
• [Win32] Bugfix: Bitness test in FindVulkan.cmake was VS specific (#928)
• [X11] Replaced _GLFW_HAS_XF86VM compile-time option with dynamic loading
• [X11] Bugfix: glfwGetVideoMode would segfault on Cygwin/X
• [Cocoa] Added support for Vulkan window surface creation via MoltenVK (#870)
• [Cocoa] Bugfix: Disabling window aspect ratio would assert (#852)
• [Cocoa] Bugfix: Window creation failed to set first responder (#876,#883)
• [Cocoa] Bugfix: Removed use of deprecated CGDisplayIOServicePort function (#165,#192,#508,#511)
• [Cocoa] Bugfix: Disabled use of deprecated CGDisplayModeCopyPixelEncoding function on macOS 10.12+
• [Cocoa] Bugfix: Running in AppSandbox would emit warnings (#816,#882)
• [Cocoa] Bugfix: Windows created after the first were not cascaded (#195)
• [EGL] Added support for EGL_KHR_get_all_proc_addresses (#871)
• [EGL] Bugfix: The test for EGL_RGB_BUFFER was invalid

Contact

On glfw.org you can find the latest version of GLFW, as well as news, documentation and other information about the project.

If you have questions related to the use of GLFW, we have a forum, and the #glfw IRC channel on Freenode.

If you have a bug to report, a patch to submit or a feature you'd like to request, please file it in the issue tracker on GitHub.

Finally, if you're interested in helping out with the development of GLFW or porting it to your favorite platform, join us on the forum, GitHub or IRC.

Acknowledgements

GLFW exists because people around the world donated their time and lent their skills.

• Bobyshev Alexander
• artblanc
• arturo
• Matt Arsenault
• Keith Bauer
• John Bartholomew
• Niklas Behrens
• Niklas Bergström
• Doug Binks
• blanco
• Kyle Brenneman
• Martin Capitanio
• Chi-kwan Chan
• Lambert Clara
• Andrew Corrigan
• Noel Cower
• Jason Daly
• Jarrod Davis
• Olivier Delannoy
• Paul R. Deppe
• Michael Dickens
• Роман Донченко
• Mario Dorn
• Jonathan Dummer
• Ralph Eastwood
• Siavash Eliasi
• Michael Fogleman
• Gerald Franz
• Mário Freitas
• GeO4d
• Marcus Geelnard
• Eloi Marín Gratacós
• Stefan Gustavson
• Sylvain Hellegouarch
• Matthew Henry
• heromyth
• Lucas Hinderberger
• Paul Holden
• Warren Hu
• IntellectualKitty
• Aaron Jacobs
• Erik S. V. Jansson
• Toni Jovanoski
• Arseny Kapoulkine
• Osman Keskin
• Cameron King
• Peter Knut
• Christoph Kubisch
• Eric Larson
• Robin Leffmann
• Glenn Lewis
• Shane Liesegang
• Eyal Lotem
• Дмитри Малышев
• Martins Mozeiko
• Tristam MacDonald
• Hans Mackowiak
• Zbigniew Mandziejewicz
• Kyle McDonald
• David Medlock
• Bryce Mehring
• Jonathan Mercier
• Marcel Metz
• Jonathan Miller
• Kenneth Miller
• Bruce Mitchener
• Jack Moffitt
• Jeff Molofee
• Jon Morton
• Pierre Moulon
• Julian Møller
• Kamil Nowakowski
• Ozzy
• Andri Pálsson
• Peoro
• Braden Pellett
• Arturo J. Pérez
• Orson Peters
• Emmanuel Gil Peyrot
• Cyril Pichard
• Pieroman
• Philip Rideout
• Jorge Rodriguez
• Ed Ropple
• Aleksey Rybalkin
• Riku Salminen
• Brandon Schaefer
• Sebastian Schuberth
• Matt Sealey
• SephiRok
• Steve Sexton
• Systemcluster
• Yoshiki Shibukawa
• Dmitri Shuralyov
• Daniel Skorupski
• Bradley Smith
• Patrick Snape
• Julian Squires
• Johannes Stein
• Michael Stocker
• Justin Stoecker
• Elviss Strazdins
• Nathan Sweet
• TTK-Bandit
• Sergey Tikhomirov
• Arthur Tombs
• Ioannis Tsakpinis
• Samuli Tuomola
• Matthew Turner
• urraka
• Elias Vanderstuyft
• Jari Vetoniemi
• Ricardo Vieira
• Nicholas Vitovitch
• Simon Voordouw
• Torsten Walluhn
• Patrick Walton
• Xo Wang
• Jay Weisskopf
• Frank Wille
• yuriks
• Santi Zupancic
• Jonas Ådahl
• Lasse Öörni
• All the unmentioned and anonymous contributors in the GLFW community, for bug reports, patches, feedback, testing and encouragement