I’m studying how to use OpenGL under Delphi. There is a data type called TPixelFormatDescriptor and I want to find it’s specification. I tried to find it on the “Delphi Help” and “Windows SDK” with Delphi. However, I cannot find it.
Can you tell me how to find the specification of TPixelFormatDescriptor or any way to understand what it is?
The reason I check this type is that I’m learning the way of using OpenGL in Delphi by reading sample code.
I read part of a book introducing OpenGL with C, but I need to use Delphi now. There are lot of expressions in the sample code I couldn’t understand right the way (such as HDC, THandle, GLContext). I could just copy and paste and modify, but it is not good for keeping a long run without having deeper understanding. So I just go through the code line by line expression by expression, and check for each word I don’t feel comfortable with.
I know it is some kind of boring job, but I think this is the most safe way to understand things.
if you can speak german, try this tutorial
otherwise you could buy/borrow the book “Delphi Developer guide to OpenGL” it’s not the best book, but the only one about using opengl with Delphi.
I didn’t learn German, but I borrowed the book “Delphi Developer’s Guide to OpenGL” written by Jacobs from professor.
The book’s style is to let user type in the code and run, line by line, section by section, chapter by chapter and then know how to use it. I tried the first half a chapter but feel I cannot understand things well in this way. Then I bought the book “OpenGL Programming Guide Third Edition” to learn OpenGL and understand something, but the thing I learn is only OpenGL, without any relationship with Delphi. So now I go back to learn how to use Open under Delphi, and I will read “Delphi Developer’s Guide to OpenGL” again because I already know something about OpenGL and should be able to understand this book more.
the usage of opengl is nearly the same in every language, because the functions/procedures do not change. the stuff, which is not explained in the book you mentioned is language or os specific. you should become more experienced in delphi before you try opengl, because this knowledge is very important when writing complex programs.