Differences

• Enumerations have dropped their “GLFW_” prefix.

• Functions have dropped their “glfw” prefix.

• {Get|Set}UserPointer is not accessible as it doesn’t make sense for Python.

• The {Get|Set}Time functions are available but Python’s time module should be used in preference.

C Code

#include <GLFW/glfw3.h>
int main(void)
{
    GLFWwindow* window;

    /* Initialize the library */
    if (!glfwInit())
        return -1;

    /* Create a windowed mode window and its OpenGL context */
    window = glfwCreateWindow(640, 480, "Hello World", NULL, NULL);

    if (!window)
    {
        glfwTerminate();
        return -1;
    }

    glfwMakeContextCurrent(window);
    while (!glfwWindowShowClose(window))
    {
        /* Render here */

        /* Display the render buffer */
        glfwSwapBuffers(window);

        /* Pump the message queue */
        glfwPollEvents();
    }

    /* Shutdown */
    glfwTerminate();
    return 0;
}

Python Code

# needed if you're running the OS-X system python
try:
    from AppKit import NSApp, NSApplication
except:
    pass

import cyglfw3 as glfw
if not glfw.Init():
    exit()

window = glfw.CreateWindow(640, 480, 'Hello World')
if not window:
    glfw.Terminate()
    exit()

glfw.MakeContextCurrent(window)
while not glfw.WindowShouldClose(window):
    # Render here

    # Swap front and back buffers
    glfw.SwapBuffers(window)

    # Poll for and process events
    glfw.PollEvents()

glfw.Terminate()

Prefix Compatible Code

A compatibility layer is provided to be 1:1 compatible with other GLFW3 wrappers. Commonly, these don’t drop the GLFW_ prefix from constants, nor the glfw prefix from functions.

To use the compatibility module, use import cyglfw3.compatible as glfw:

# needed if you're running the OS-X system python
try:
    from AppKit import NSApp, NSApplication
except:
    pass

import cyglfw3.compatible as glfw
if not glfw.glfwInit():
    exit()

window = glfw.glfwCreateWindow(640, 480, 'Hello World')
if not window:
    glfw.glfwTerminate()
    exit()

glfw.glfwMakeContextCurrent(window)
while not glfw.glfwWindowShouldClose(window):
    # Render here

    # Swap front and back buffers
    glfw.glfwSwapBuffers(window)

    # Poll for and process events
    glfw.glfwPollEvents()

glfw.glfwTerminate()

Installation

pip install cyglfw3

Manual Building

If you have trouble building CyGLFW3, please raise an issue on Github.

When specifying the include path, ensure that the GLFW directory is a sub-directory of that path. For example: the path /usr/local/include/GLFW would use include /usr/local/include

The lib path should contain the glfw library file.

python setup.py build_ext -i

env CPATH=<include path> LIBRARY_PATH=<lib path> python setup.py build_ext -i

set GLFW_ROOT=<path to include/GLFW/glfw3.h>
python setup.py build_ext -i

Common Problems

• PyOpenGL reports the OpenGL version as None and my GL functions do nothing!

You _must_ set an active context or your OpenGL calls will go no where:

glfw.MakeContextCurrent(window)

This is by design in GLFW3.

Dependencies

• Python 2.7 / 3.4

• Cython

• GLFW 3