Having a hair-pullingly frustrating time trying to install LWJGL

Newbie & Debugging Questions
#1

Hi everyone, I swear I’m 30 minutes from going absolutely ape-%*$^ so im stopping for the night. It took me forever scouring the web getting information on trying to install LWJGL with Eclipse.

Finally I found a website that had an AMAZINGLY SHORT, SIMPLE EASY-TO-FOLLOW guide on installing JOGL with Eclipse, so I went with that and got it going perfectly. Sad thing is, I didn’t want JOGL, it was a last resort effort.

To anyone interested, here’s the link for installing JOGL: https://sites.google.com/site/justinscsstuff/jogl-tutorials (tutorial 1: Environemnt Setup - takes 15 minutes maximum).
Thanks to that tutorial, I now know how to create a new user library and then create new projects and link the user library (in this case JOGL) to the project.

I’m thinking as I type this, but I would still appreciate some help. If I download LWJGL and put the files in [C:\lib\lwjgl], do I do the same procedure in eclipse as I did with the jogl tutorial? Which JAR files do I need to include in my user library?

Any tutorials afterwords to get the basic frame up and running?

I know I know, i’m a huge pest but I seriously spent a lot of time on this and now I need your help! Thanks so much Javagaming!!

#2

This is how to set up LWJGL in eclipse: http://lwjgl.org/installation.php#eclipse

As for getting up a frame, you may want to get the source code from one of the LWJGL Demo examples: http://lwjgl.org/demos.php
maye try the Gears Demo

#3

Instead of setting the -Djava.library.path parameter you can also just drag the dll (or the file for whatever OS you’re using) into the src folder in your project.

Mike

#4

There is no installation for LWJGL really. Here’s the steps to run an app using LWJGL:

  1. Put lwjgl.jar in your project directory somewhere (I use /lib/). Right click your Eclipse project, Properties, Java Build Path, Libraries, Add JAR, add lwjgl.jar.
  2. Click Run menu, Run Configurations, select Java Application, click tiny “new” button, type a name, pick your project and main class.
  3. On the arguments tab, put “-Djava.library.path=/path/to/dir/containing/lwjgl”.

On Windows, if you put the native libs (DLLs) in the root of your project (which is the default working directory when you run your app), then you don’t need step 3.

I don’t bother with the stupid user libraries. :slight_smile:

Only on Windows, and they have to be in the working directory defined on the Arguments tab, not in the src folder.

#5

Topic Creator here:

I’m still confused. The installation linked above for LWJGL in Eclipse follows the same steps as JOGL, but it starts with “after you have installed LWJGL”… but I never did.

Does it mean “download the zip containing LWJGL and extract folder to some location on my harddrive”?

Also, in windows I setup JOGL in C:\lib\jogl2.0, i want to put LWJGL in C:\lib\lwjgl
I really want to program Java on my Ubuntu machine, and I know how to create a lib folder inside home: \home\shadowprotocol\lib, but where do people NORMALLY put files like this on their computer? I don’t really understand the \usr, \var, \etc folders, so I don’t know if I should be putting EVERYTHING inside my \home folder or not.

Sorry, PLEASE clarify a little more how to install this in eclipse on linux. <3 lol thank you

#6

Personally I always like to keep LWJGL in a \Libs directory underneath each project. Otherwise I end up upgrading a shared LWJGL dir and have to check all of my old projects still work ok.

#7

So you create a project, then go to your directory of the project ON YOUR HARD DRIVE and create a ‘libs’ folder and throw every file pertaining to LWJGL in there?
How do you then tell eclipse that you are using the lwjgl files in your program?

I’m way over my head since I don’t know how to make .jar files yet, but how will i include the libs folder inside my project when I compiled and package for end-users?

#8

here is how I setup LWJGL with eclipse.

  1. extract LWJGL somewhere, so you know where lwjgl.jar is and the folder containing the native files (*.so files on linux).

  2. Create a project in eclipse, right click it and click properties. Then click ‘Java Build Path’ and choose the Libraries tab.

  3. click add external jar and select lwjgl.jar, once it appears in the list click the little arrow thing next to the lwjgl.jar name which will bring a drop down list, double click ‘Native Library Location’ and select the folder containing the native files (*.so files).

and your done, no need to mess with VM parameters :).

#9

Thank you Kapta.
Thank you everyone for having patience with a newbie.

Also, I found this link, but it pretty much just summarizes what Kapta has said:

Thanks again!!

#10

Also usually add lwjgl_util.jar as well - bunch of useful stuff in there.

I generally explicitly point at the native libraries in my Eclipse launches as well with something like -Djava.library.path=${workspace_loc:LWJGL/native/windows} passed to the VM. (I keep LWJGL up-to-date, in a separate Eclipse project, and keep everything compiling against it. Or I did until it got moved to Java 5 which I can’t support yet grr)

Cas :slight_smile:

#11

Windows=easy :wink:

I have mine in the src folder and it works great without any adjustments… Maybe it doesn’t matter.

Mike

#12

It does ;), so you either “accidently” have your working directory set to your src dir (unlikely) or a copy (or different version) of the dlls are somewhere else on your PATH (like c:\windows\system32), which can cause serious headaches on lwjgl updates.

#13

Hm doesn’t Eclipse copy everything in the src folder to the bin folder it finds that isn’t a .java file?

Cas :slight_smile:

#14

Maybe, but “bin” is not (by default) the working directory.