Hi Igor -

Igor Stasenko wrote:
> My work which replaces squeak rendering mechanisms to use HW
> accelerated OpenGL instead of memory blitting attained interest of
> more and more people.
> Some of you asking to publish a code to be able to play with it.

Nice job. I'm looking forward to giving this a try.

> There are couple of ways, how i can distribute my code:
> 
> - accompany my code with C source files, so people can build own VM
> with GLPlugin
> - accompany with pre-built DLL as external plugin
> - place pre-built VM executable on some site.

All of them are fine choices. I think you should start with a binary 
that allows people to try out things just for curiosity and also provide 
the source code for those who want to have a closer look.

> Current VM already links GL libraries by default, and already having
> primitives to create GL rendering contexts, but only for new OS
> windows. I wonder why there's no support for main window and i was
> forced to write this code myself. It would be nice (in future maybe)
> to add my code to SurfacePlugin core platform VM files, so no extra
> plugin will be required.

The problem with this approach (and the reason why something like has 
not been supported for generic 3D rendering and likely never will be) is 
that you can't change the pixel format of a window once it is set. In 
other words, the first bit of code that sets a pixel format freezes that 
once and forever. That's a *huge* issue for use in real life situations 
where you need to be able to change pixel formats for different 
rendering targets.

> Also, i tried to plugin build it as external DLL, but since my plugin
> using GL, it requires to be linked with opengl library. And without
> modifications of make files which using for building plugins this is
> not possible.

Oh, but it is. Check out platforms/win32/plugins/FloatMathPlugin and 
platforms/win32/plugins/MPEG3Plugin which both have non-standard 
Makefiles. If you take the MPEG3Plugin as an outline it is trivial to 
add the appropriate libraries to the makedll link target.

Cheers,
   - Andreas