Overview - Build System and the Project Arcitecture

2026-06-25T00:00:00+00:00

The Build System</h1>

This project is written in C.

I choose C because it's simple, and you want that when you are trying to do complex things.</li>
The last thing you want is the language coming in your way.</li>
Most of the graphics/font libraries are also written in C, so integration becomes easy.</li> </ul> </li>
The build system is CMake

It "just works" on all the platforms, including Windows</li>
It has really good IDE support</a></li> </ul> </li> </ul>
Project Arcitecture</h1>
Project Structure</h2>

The Engine

The core functionality (like text rendering, windowing, shader code) is implemented in engine.</li>
The external libraries live in the external</code> directory.</li>
The engine does not store any client state, all these modules are just code bundles with a type and a flat API.</li>
The engine code is neither too generic nor too project specific, that's tricky to pull.</li> </ul> </li> </ul> graphics ├── CMakeLists.txt ├── engine │ ├── assets │ ├── CMakeLists.txt │ ├── engine.pc.in │ ├── include │ └── source ├── external │ ├── freetype │ ├── harfbuzz │ └── ⋅⋅⋅ └── projects ├── editor └── game</code></pre> The projects build on top of the engine and contribute back the improvements The text rendering code in the engine implemented by the editor can later be used in a widget toolkit (let's say).</li> The projects manage their own state.</li> Some engine subsystems (like windowing) handle user events in callbacks.</li> Those callbacks are bridged to the client code using a struct bridge</code> instance.</li> </ul> </li> </ul> The Bridge Interface</h2> 1struct bridge { 2 void (*mouse_move)(void *userdata, struct window *window, f64 x, f64 y); 3 void (*mouse_scroll)(void *userdata, struct window *window, f64 x, f64 y); 4 void (*window_resize)(void *userdata, struct window *window, i32 w, i32 h); 5 ... 6}; 7 8struct editor_state { 9 struct bridge bridge; 10 struct window *window; 11 struct font *font; 12 ..... 13};</code></pre> The state type and the bridge interface The engine defines struct bridge</code>, so that's the common known between the engine and the editor</li> The editor defines a struct editor_state</code> type with a struct bridge</code> as the first member.</li> Then we pass the bridge to the engine subsystems when initializing them. They store a pointer to it internally.</li> Note that this pointer to bridge is also the pointer to our editor state, since it's the first member there.</li> </ul> </li> </ul> 1/* projects/editor/source/editor.c */ 2editor->bridge = (struct bridge) { 3 .mouse_move = mouse_move, 4 .mouse_scroll = mouse_scroll, 5 .window_resize = window_resize, 6}; 7 8struct window window_options = { 9 WINDOW_DEFAULTS, 10 .bridge = &editor->bridge, 11}; 12 13if (!(rc = window_init(editor->window, window_options))) { 14 goto cleanup; 15}</code></pre> The bridge in action The windowing subsystem then calls the appropriate callback and passes this bridge pointer to those callbacks.</li> In those callbacks on the editor side, we cast these bridge pointers to struct editor_state *</code>.</li> And there we go! The engine doesn't know of the editor_state</code> and we got the events out nice and tidy.</li> We can reuse this in other projects without modifying the engine, or without making them "editor like".</li> </ul> </li> </ul> 1/* engine/window.c */ 2static void __window_mouse_scroll_callback(GLFWwindow *window, f64 x, f64 y) { 3 struct window *_window = glfwGetWindowUserPointer(window); 4 _window->bridge->mouse_scroll(_window->bridge, _window, x, y); 5} 6 7/* projects/editor/source/editor.c */ 8void mouse_scroll(void *userdata, struct window *window, f64 x, f64 y) { 9 struct editor_state *editor = userdata; 10 ... 11}</code></pre> That's it for now The projects are in their really early stages, so there isn't much to talk about them yet.</li> The purpose of this post is to get started with the devlog process.</li> These are not intuitive things (atleast not for me).</li> So with these devlogs, hopefully I can mark the roads I travel, and the milestones I cross.</li> </ul> </li> </ul>

printfdebugging - arcitecture

Overview - Build System and the Project Arcitecture

Project Arcitecture</h1>