Requirements: macOS 10.9 or later and the iOS 9.0 or newer SDK.
Instructions:
TODO: Add information regarding App Store requirements such as icons, etc.
Window and display mode sizes in SDL are in points rather than in pixels. On iOS this means that a window created on an iPhone 6 will have a size in points of 375 x 667, rather than a size in pixels of 750 x 1334. All iOS apps are expected to size their content based on points rather than pixels, as this allows different iOS devices to have different pixel densities (Retina versus non-Retina screens, etc.) without apps caring too much.
SDL_GetWindowSize() and mouse coordinates are in points rather than pixels, but the window will have a much greater pixel density when the device supports it, and the SDL_GetWindowSizeInPixels() can be called to determine the size in pixels of the drawable screen framebuffer.
The SDL 2D rendering API will automatically handle this for you, by default providing a rendering area in points, and you can call SDL_SetRenderLogicalPresentation() to gain access to the higher density resolution.
Some OpenGL ES functions such as glViewport expect sizes in pixels rather than sizes in points. When doing 2D rendering with OpenGL ES, an orthographic projection matrix using the size in points (SDL_GetWindowSize()) can be used in order to display content at the same scale no matter whether a Retina device is used or not.
On iOS the application goes through a fixed life cycle and you will get notifications of state changes via application events. When these events are delivered you must handle them in an event callback because the OS may not give you any processing time after the events are delivered.
e.g.
int HandleAppEvents(void *userdata, SDL_Event *event)
{
switch (event->type)
{
case SDL_EVENT_TERMINATING:
/* Terminate the app.
Shut everything down before returning from this function.
*/
return 0;
case SDL_EVENT_LOW_MEMORY:
/* You will get this when your app is paused and iOS wants more memory.
Release as much memory as possible.
*/
return 0;
case SDL_EVENT_WILL_ENTER_BACKGROUND:
/* Prepare your app to go into the background. Stop loops, etc.
This gets called when the user hits the home button, or gets a call.
*/
return 0;
case SDL_EVENT_DID_ENTER_BACKGROUND:
/* This will get called if the user accepted whatever sent your app to the background.
If the user got a phone call and canceled it, you'll instead get an SDL_EVENT_DID_ENTER_FOREGROUND event and restart your loops.
When you get this, you have 5 seconds to save all your state or the app will be terminated.
Your app is NOT active at this point.
*/
return 0;
case SDL_EVENT_WILL_ENTER_FOREGROUND:
/* This call happens when your app is coming back to the foreground.
Restore all your state here.
*/
return 0;
case SDL_EVENT_DID_ENTER_FOREGROUND:
/* Restart your loops here.
Your app is interactive and getting CPU again.
*/
return 0;
default:
/* No special processing, add it to the event queue */
return 1;
}
}
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
SDL_SetEventFilter(HandleAppEvents, NULL);
... run your main loop
return 0;
}Note that if you are using main callbacks instead of a standard C main() function, your SDL_AppEvent() callback will run as these events arrive and you do not need to use SDL_SetEventFilter.
The SDL keyboard API has been extended to support on-screen keyboards:
void SDL_StartTextInput() -- enables text events and reveals the onscreen keyboard.
void SDL_StopTextInput() -- disables text events and hides the onscreen keyboard.
bool SDL_TextInputActive() -- returns whether or not text events are enabled (and the onscreen keyboard is visible)
iOS now supports Bluetooth mice on iPad, but by default will provide the mouse input as touch. In order for SDL to see the real mouse events, you should set the key UIApplicationSupportsIndirectInputEvents to true in your Info.plist
From iOS 17 onward, the key now defaults to true.
Each application installed on iPhone resides in a sandbox which includes its own Application Home directory. Your application may not access files outside this directory.
Once your application is installed its directory tree looks like:
MySDLApp Home/
MySDLApp.app
Documents/
Library/
Preferences/
tmp/When your SDL based iPhone application starts up, it sets the working directory to the main bundle (MySDLApp Home/MySDLApp.app), where your application resources are stored. You cannot write to this directory. Instead, I advise you to write document files to "../Documents/" and preferences to "../Library/Preferences".
More information on this subject is available here: http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/iPhone/Conceptual/iPhoneOSProgrammingGuide/Introduction/Introduction.html
The SDL.xcodeproj file now includes a target to build SDL3.xcframework. An xcframework is a new (Xcode 11) uber-framework which can handle any combination of processor type and target OS platform.
In the past, iOS devices were always an ARM variant processor, and the simulator was always i386 or x86_64, and thus libraries could be combined into a single framework for both simulator and device. With the introduction of the Apple Silicon ARM-based machines, regular frameworks would collide as CPU type was no longer sufficient to differentiate the platform. So Apple created the new xcframework library package.
The xcframework target builds into a Products directory alongside the SDL.xcodeproj file, as SDL3.xcframework. This can be brought in to any iOS project and will function properly for both simulator and device, no matter their CPUs. Note that Intel Macs cannot cross-compile for Apple Silicon Macs. If you need AS compatibility, perform this build on an Apple Silicon Mac.
This target requires Xcode 11 or later. The target will simply fail to build if attempted on older Xcodes.
In addition, on Apple platforms, main() cannot be in a dynamically loaded library. However, unlike in SDL2, in SDL3 SDL_main is implemented inline in SDL_main.h, so you don't need to link against a static libSDL3main.lib, and you don't need to copy a .c file from the SDL3 source either. This means that iOS apps which used the statically-linked libSDL3.lib and now link with the xcframwork can just #include <SDL3/SDL_main.h> in the source file that contains their standard int main(int argc; char *argv[]) function to get a header-only SDL_main implementation that calls the SDL_RunApp() with your standard main function.
Using an xcFramework is similar to using a regular framework. However, issues have been seen with the build system not seeing the headers in the xcFramework. To remedy this, add the path to the xcFramework in your app's target ==> Build Settings ==> Framework Search Paths and mark it recursive (this is critical). Also critical is to remove "*.framework" from Build Settings ==> Sub-Directories to Exclude in Recursive Searches. Clean the build folder, and on your next build the build system should be able to see any of these in your code, as expected:
#include "SDL_main.h" #include <SDL.h> #include <SDL_main.h>
Windows: Full-size, single window applications only. You cannot create multi-window SDL applications for iPhone OS. The application window will fill the display, though you have the option of turning on or off the menu-bar (pass SDL_CreateWindow() the flag SDL_WINDOW_BORDERLESS).
Textures: The optimal texture formats on iOS are SDL_PIXELFORMAT_ABGR8888, SDL_PIXELFORMAT_ABGR8888, SDL_PIXELFORMAT_XBGR8888, and SDL_PIXELFORMAT_RGB24 pixel formats.
Loading Shared Objects: This is disabled by default since it seems to break the terms of the iOS SDK agreement for iOS versions prior to iOS 8. It can be re-enabled in SDL_config_ios.h.
SDL_JOYSTICK_HIDAPI is disabled by default. It can give you access to a lot more game controller devices, but it requires permission from the user before your app will be able to talk to the Bluetooth hardware. "Made For iOS" branded controllers do not need this as we don't have to speak to them directly with raw bluetooth, so many apps can live without this.
You'll need to link with CoreBluetooth.framework and add something like this to your Info.plist:
Game Center integration might require that you break up your main loop in order to yield control back to the system. In other words, instead of running an endless main loop, you run each frame in a callback function, using:
bool SDL_SetiOSAnimationCallback(SDL_Window * window, int interval, SDL_iOSAnimationCallback callback, void *callbackParam);This will set up the given function to be called back on the animation callback, and then you have to return from main() to let the Cocoa event loop run.
e.g.
extern "C"
void ShowFrame(void*)
{
... do event handling, frame logic and rendering ...
}
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
... initialize game ...
#ifdef SDL_PLATFORM_IOS
// Initialize the Game Center for scoring and matchmaking
InitGameCenter();
// Set up the game to run in the window animation callback on iOS
// so that Game Center and so forth works correctly.
SDL_SetiOSAnimationCallback(window, 1, ShowFrame, NULL);
#else
while ( running ) {
ShowFrame(0);
DelayFrame();
}
#endif
return 0;
}Note that if you are using main callbacks instead of a standard C main() function, your SDL_AppIterate() callback is already doing this and you don't need to use SDL_SetiOSAnimationCallback.
SDL supports deploying to older versions of iOS than are supported by the latest version of Xcode, all the way back to iOS 8.0
In order to do that you need to download an older version of Xcode: https://developer.apple.com/download/more/?name=Xcode
Open the package contents of the older Xcode and your newer version of Xcode and copy over the folders in Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/iPhoneOS.platform/DeviceSupport
Then open the file Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/iPhoneOS.platform/Developer/SDKs/iPhoneOS.sdk/SDKSettings.plist and add the versions of iOS you want to deploy to the key Root/DefaultProperties/DEPLOYMENT_TARGET_SUGGESTED_VALUES
Open your project and set your deployment target to the desired version of iOS
Finally, remove GameController from the list of frameworks linked by your application and edit the build settings for "Other Linker Flags" and add -weak_framework GameController