Getting started

ClanLib is a cross platform toolkit library with a primary focus on game creation. The library is Open Source and free for commercial use, under the ClanLib License.

The library is split into sub-libraries, each providing different classes of functionality. The library is built so that the modules do not put more external dependencies than they absolutely have to. With the exception of clanCore, you can pretty much cherry pick which libraries and classes you find useful.

## Getting started with the build environment

The first step is to ensure that your build environment is set up and ready. We have the following guides to help you with this:

- Visual C++ on Windows
- GNU C++ on Linux systems

After you have set up your build environment and successfully built ClanLib, you are ready to start creating your applications.

## Creating your applications

ClanLib supports that you use the normal platform specific main functions, such as main or WinMain, but a more common approach is to use the cross platform application main provided by the clanApplication library. We have a few examples here on how simple "Hello World" ClanLib applications may look like. We advise looking at Examples/Display/Basic2D found in the SDK package

## Getting help

If you are having any problems with ClanLib or find some documentation to be limited about a certain topic you can always ask in our forums. These documents might help you as well:

- Breaking changes between versions
- ClanLib class object types overview
- Debugging with MSVC