Process.spawn/poll/kill/free - non-blocking child processes with no shell: posix_spawn on
macOS (process.ll), CreateProcessW with MSVC-quoted arguments and no console window on
Windows (process_win.ll), linked only when a program uses Process.*.
Http.save_to streams a response body into a file (NSURLSession with a run-time delegate
class on macOS, the WinHTTP read loop on Windows); Http.received / Http.expected report
progress while it is pending. Freeing a pending request cancels it and parks the slot
until the worker has finished.
App.window_hide / App.window_show take the game's window off the screen and back without
closing it; the run goes on while hidden. Docs, examples, tests and a changeset.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
The Windows runtime keyed the held set by the character MapVirtualKeyA gave a
virtual key, so a game's WASD belonged to whatever the active layout put there,
and with an input method on every letter arrived as VK_PROCESSKEY. The typing
block is now read from the scancode (the arrows, numpad and F-keys still by
virtual key); macOS reads keyCode the same way. Input.key_label(key) names a key
in the player's own layout (Windows) or as its US character elsewhere.
Verified on Windows with SendInput into a live window: VK_Z carrying W's scancode
holds 'w', VK_PROCESSKEY carrying A's holds 'a', Caps Lock changes nothing.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
win_native_window / win_native_instance hand a Vulkan swapchain what it is created on: the
HWND and module instance on Windows (VkWin32SurfaceCreateInfoKHR), the game's view on macOS.
Headless builds define both as null (weak on macOS, so a windowed link keeps cocoa.ll's), so
code that asks for them links everywhere and simply finds no window.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
AppKit gives kVK_Delete (51) the character NSDeleteCharacter, 127, which is
what both ev_keyval (the held-key set) and win_poll (the per-frame key)
received, so Key.Backspace, which folds to 8, never matched. Both now map key
code 51 to 8.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
`ludic bundle` builds an AppIcon.icns and macOS reads it out of the .app, so a
shipped game has an icon. `ludic build` produces a bare executable: no bundle, no
CFBundleIconFile, and so no icon at all - macOS draws the generic green "exec"
tile. That is the build a developer runs every day, which is why "the game has no
icon" can be true for months while the bundle is perfect. It was here: the .app's
icns validated against iconutil, the plist was right, the signature was right,
and NSWorkspace rendered the artwork - and the binary beside it still had the
exec tile.
App.set_icon(path) takes the bytes through lp_pak_open, so a packed path and a
loose one both work and this does not repeat Audio.load's trick of taking a
filesystem path only. NSData copies them, so the buffer goes straight back. A
missing or undecodable image leaves the existing icon alone rather than clearing
it; a bundled app is unaffected; headless links no AppKit and compiles it away.
Verified the Cocoa sequence against an ObjC twin doing the same message sends:
before, a bare binary's applicationIconImage is the generic 128x128 tile; after,
it is the 1024x1024 artwork.
Backend change, so selfhost/ludicc.seed.ll is reseeded: the bootstrap fixpoint
and the C-free rebuild from the seed both pass.
`ludic build` produces a program. Double-clicked it opens a Terminal window, it
wears the generic executable icon, it calls itself whatever the file is called,
and it carries none of its assets. `ludic bundle` produces an application.
Everything it needs is in package.ludic, so the command takes no arguments: an
Info.plist and PkgInfo from `app` lines, an .icns built by sips and iconutil at
all ten sizes macOS asks for from a single source PNG, the asset pack in
Contents/Resources, and an ad-hoc signature - which is not optional on Apple
silicon, where an unsigned binary is killed rather than warned about. The bundle
identifier falls back to the package path reversed, so a project that never
thinks about it still gets a defensible one instead of two apps sharing a key
Launch Services hangs the Dock, saved state and permissions off.
A bundled game is moved to ~/Library/Application Support/<name> before main,
because Finder starts a .app with its working directory at "/" where no save
could ever be written. Reads come out of the pack, writes land somewhere real
and per-user, and the game's save code needs no change and no platform
knowledge.
The splash is the other half of looking like an application. A game that loads
165 MB spends a visible moment doing it with nothing on screen, which from the
outside is indistinguishable from a launch that failed. splash_show puts a
borderless window up from the same constructor that mounts the pack - before
main, so it appears while the process is still starting rather than after the
slow part it exists to cover - and reads the artwork out of the pack like any
other asset. It turns the run loop enough times to be mapped and composited
there and then; once composited the backing store survives a busy main thread,
so it stays up for the whole load.
Nothing hides it automatically. Only the game knows when its first real frame is
ready, and a splash that vanishes before that leaves the same black gap it was
covering, so the game calls App.splash_hide(). Headless there is no splash and
the call lowers to nothing.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
`Gl.*` binds the whole OpenGL 4.1 core API — every entry point of the
platform gl3.h with every GL_* constant, generated by `ludic-dev glgen`
with per-call ABI thunks. Windowed builds get an NSOpenGLContext on the
existing window at Retina resolution; headless builds render into an
offscreen CGL context, so a program that uses Gl.* renders and
screenshots identically under the test harness. It links gl.ll, the
thunks and OpenGL.framework only when used; every other build stays
byte-identical.
packages/ludic.render3d is a physically based renderer written on that
surface: HDRI image-based lighting, GPU-generated terrain with scanned
PBR materials, CDLOD, cascaded shadows, glTF with skinning, instanced
vegetation with impostors, procedural grass, water, SSAO, and an HDR
pipeline with bloom, auto-exposure and ACES.
It also carries this session's work on it: the terrain at half its cost
(10.3 -> 5.4 ms of frame), the streaming hitch that got worse the longer
you played, a resize that emptied the world, and the packaging that lets
a game use the renderer from its own repository — `ludic assets`, the
material manifest shipping with the package, and shader lookup falling
back to the install root. See changes/ for each, with its numbers.
The camping game that drove all of it has moved out to its own
repository, Maroon Lake; examples/rendering/smooth.ludic stays as the
renderer's example here.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Closes the two open issues and lands the pending unreleased batch:
- #90: `Sprite { atlas: 1 }` routes esys_sprite through atlas_draw_ex
(scale/flip/tint), so cell / cell_span / strip ids of any size draw
through the engine sprite-render system. examples/library/sprite_atlas
is the pixel-readback regression.
- #91: `become` from an @On(Event) listener / global handler / plain
function no longer segfaults the compiler; it emits @L_scene_leave()
(a dispatch on the live scene id) so the leaving scene's on-exit runs.
UI_* handles are readable from any code (widget table built on first
use). examples/library/scene_menus covers it.
- fix: a windowed `ludicc -o` build that reaches the audio runtime only
through the atlas/Assets preload import now links audio.ll +
AVFoundation (the audio backend link was gated on a game-level
Audio.* call, so any windowed game declaring Sprite failed to link).
- the hand-written "Unreleased" CHANGELOG section is converted to
changesets under changes/ so `x release` generates it.
- plus the batch: engine-driven retained UI + UiClicked event, Overlay
phase, TileSkin tilemap-render system, Key.* constants, Font/Ui/File
namespaces, Sprite.strip, prefabs, managers, countdown fields,
enum-typed machines, layer @Queries, ludic.prefs / ludic.dungeon
packages, Ai.seek pathing, Solids.solid2, cursor confine (mode 3)
fix, shooter centre-aim fix, reserved-word function diagnostic.
Verified: x test (124/124), x test-tools, check-impl, check-vocabulary,
check-docs, docs-gen + docs-check, bootstrap-cfree (seed is a fixpoint).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>
A windowed action game can hide the OS cursor and lock/confine the mouse to the
window. Input.cursor_mode(mode): 0 normal, 1 hidden (draw your own reticle),
2 locked (hidden + dissociated — the mouse feeds relative motion via
Input.mouse_dx/dy and Input.mouse_x/y is a clamped virtual cursor, FPS/twin-stick
aim), 3 confined (dissociated but visible; the mouse can't leave the window).
The platform auto-releases (shows + reconnects) while the window is not key
(Cmd-Tab) and on close, so the cursor is never left captured. Headless it is a
no-op (DCE'd).
Native macOS impl in cocoa.ll: [NSCursor hide]/[unhide] (ref-counted, toggled
only on change so the count stays balanced across focus changes),
CGAssociateMouseAndMouseCursorPosition, and CGGetLastMouseDelta for the relative
virtual cursor, behind a new win_cursor_mode intrinsic. Windowed-only behaviour
(not in the headless golden suite); example compiles headless and links
windowed. Full suite 115/0, fixpoint holds.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
cocoa.ll win_poll hard-coded Escape (keycode 53) and 'q' as quit (W_running=0),
so a shipped windowed game died the instant a player pressed Esc (pause) or
typed 'q'. Remove the dev-loop quit keys for windowed builds: Escape is
delivered as key 27 and 'q' is an ordinary key, consistently across the
single per-frame @W_key and the #50 held-key set (ev_keyval maps Esc->27, not
'q'). A windowed game owns Esc/pause and quits via quit() or the window close
button (still ends the run). The headless rt_poll keeps its own 'q'=quit for
scripted golden tests, so nothing headless changes. Also stops forwarding
consumed key events to -sendEvent:, which rang AppKit's system beep per key.
Windowed-only behavior (not exercised by the headless suite); verified a
windowed build links and assembles cleanly.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Wire the macOS platform side of the #50 device layer, feeding the same state
buffers the read APIs consume — no API changes, purely OS glue.
- mouse: cocoa.ll reads the live cursor via mouseLocationOutsideOfEventStream,
converted to framebuffer pixels and y-flipped, so windowed games get
Input.mouse_x/y without injection (W_mx/W_my were never written before).
- gamepad: win_pad polls GCController.controllers each frame, packing extended-
gamepad buttons (SDL_GameControllerButton order) and thumbsticks (16.16 fixed,
Y negated for SDL convention) into in_pad_*. Windowed builds now load
GameController via -needed_framework (its classes are reached by name, so a
plain -framework link dead-strips it); DCE'd in headless builds.
- touch: the view's NSTouch phase handlers snapshot the touching set into
in_touch_* (normalizedPosition -> framebuffer pixels).
Web platform.js gains zero-fill stubs for win_held/mouse/pad/touch so a windowed
wasm build resolves the device-layer imports. New test asserts the windowed link
loads GameController. Reseeded; full + selfhost suites green (79 + 29).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
The raw device layer the input proposal sketched, over the action maps +
record/replay of #7. Beyond one key per frame, gameplay can read:
- Multiple simultaneous held keys: Input.key_down / key_pressed / key_released,
with clean rising/falling edges (hold left AND jump).
- Analog from keys: Input.axis(neg, pos) and a normalized Input.vector(l,r,u,d)
(diagonals scaled by 1/sqrt(2)), plus Input.strength(action).
- Mouse: Input.mouse_x/y, mouse_dx/dy (per-frame delta), mouse_down(btn), wheel.
- Gamepads: Input.pad_connected/pad_button/pad_axis (SDL-order buttons, -1..1
sticks); touch: Input.touch_count/touch_x/touch_y.
The held set is fed by the platform when windowed — cocoa.ll now tracks
keyDown/keyUp into a 256-bit held-key bitset (win_held) and the mouse
buttons/wheel (win_mouse), gated so headless builds DCE the native calls — and
by the Input.press / Input.set_mouse / Input.set_pad / Input.set_touch injection
on every target (Godot-style action injection: replays, AI, network-fed input).
Input.record / replay now snapshot the full per-frame device state (held set +
mouse), extending #7's single-key tape.
Everything is integer and deterministic, so the same inputs reproduce the same
frame on every run and headless. The gamepad/touch native hardware bindings
(GameController.framework / NSTouch) feed the same injected state and are the one
remaining platform-glue follow-up; the software layer, semantics and replay are
complete and driven deterministically today.
Worked example + regression: examples/library/input_device.ludic
(1 1 0 1 0 1 71 -71 5 1 3 1 2 1 0 0 1, injection-driven headless). 23 new
docs/language/input pages. Full suite 78 passed, self-host C-free fixpoint
intact, no golden drift; cocoa.ll assembles and a windowed build links.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Self-hosted compiler (selfhost/*.ludic), runtime, examples, editor tooling,
and docs. Phase 1 of the syntax-redesign cohesion pass has landed:
edge-system fix, signature-query, when-alias, and the documentation truth-pass.
Suite green (14/14), C-free bootstrap fixpoint holds.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
