GLFW is an Open Source, multi-platform library for OpenGL, OpenGL ES and Vulkan application development. It provides a simple, platform-independent API for creating windows, contexts and surfaces, reading input, handling events, etc.
GLFW natively supports Windows, macOS and Linux and other Unix-like systems. An experimental implementation for the Wayland protocol is available but not yet officially supported.
GLFW is licensed under the zlib/libpng license.
The latest stable release is version 3.2.1.
See the downloads page for details and
files, or fetch the latest branch, which always points to the latest stable
release. Each release starting with 3.0 also has a corresponding annotated
tag with source and binary archives.
The version history lists all user-visible
changes for every release.
This is a development branch for version 3.3, which is not yet described. Pre-release documentation is available here.
The master branch is the stable integration branch and should always compile
and run on all supported platforms, although details of newly added features may
change until they have been included in a release. New features and many bug
fixes live in other branches until
they are stable enough to merge.
If you are new to GLFW, you may find the tutorial for GLFW 3 useful. If you have used GLFW 2 in the past, there is a transition guide for moving to the GLFW 3 API.
GLFW itself requires only the headers and libraries for your window system. It does not need the headers for any context creation API (WGL, GLX, EGL, NSGL, OSMesa) or rendering API (OpenGL, OpenGL ES, Vulkan) to enable support for them.
GLFW supports compilation on Windows with Visual C++ 2010 and later, MinGW and MinGW-w64, on macOS with Clang and on Linux and other Unix-like systems with GCC and Clang. It will likely compile in other environments as well, but this is not regularly tested.
There are pre-compiled Windows binaries available for all supported compilers.
See the compilation guide for more information about how to compile GLFW yourself.
See the documentation for tutorials, guides and the API reference.
See the contribution guide for more information.
GLFW supports Windows XP and later and macOS 10.7 and later. Linux and other Unix-like systems running the X Window System are supported even without a desktop environment or modern extensions, although some features require a running window or clipboard manager. The OSMesa backend requires Mesa 6.3.
See the compatibility guide in the documentation for more information.
GLFW itself depends only on the headers and libraries for your window system.
The (experimental) Wayland backend also depends on the extra-cmake-modules
package, which is used to generated Wayland protocol headers.
The examples and test programs depend on a number of tiny libraries. These are
located in the deps/ directory.
- getopt_port for examples with command-line options
- TinyCThread for threaded examples
- An OpenGL 3.2 core loader generated by glad for examples using modern OpenGL
- linmath.h for linear algebra in examples
- Nuklear for test and example UI
- stb_image_write for writing images to disk
- Vulkan headers for Vulkan tests
The Vulkan example additionally requires the LunarG Vulkan SDK to be installed, or it will not be included in the build. On macOS you need to provide the path to the SDK manually as it has no standard installation location.
The documentation is generated with Doxygen if CMake can find that tool.
Bugs are reported to our issue tracker. Please check the contribution guide for information on what to include when reporting a bug.
- Added
glfwGetErrorfunction for querying the last error code and its description (#970) - Added
glfwUpdateGamepadMappingsfunction for importing gamepad mappings in SDL_GameControllerDB format (#900) - Added
glfwJoystickIsGamepadfunction for querying whether a joystick has a gamepad mapping (#900) - Added
glfwGetJoystickGUIDfunction for querying the SDL compatible GUID of a joystick (#900) - Added
glfwGetGamepadNamefunction for querying the name provided by the gamepad mapping (#900) - Added
glfwGetGamepadStatefunction,GLFW_GAMEPAD_*andGLFWgamepadstatefor retrieving gamepad input state (#900) - Added
glfwGetWindowContentScale,glfwGetMonitorContentScaleandglfwSetWindowContentScaleCallbackfor DPI-aware rendering (#235,#439,#677,#845,#898) - Added
glfwRequestWindowAttentionfunction for requesting attention from the user (#732,#988) - Added
glfwGetKeyScancodefunction that allows retrieving platform dependent scancodes for keys (#830) - Added
glfwSetWindowMaximizeCallbackandGLFWwindowmaximizefunfor receiving window maximization events (#778) - Added
glfwSetWindowAttribfunction for changing window attributes (#537) - Added
glfwGetJoystickHatsfunction for querying joystick hats (#889,#906,#934) - Added
glfwInitHintfor setting initialization hints - Added
glfwWindowHintStringfor setting string type window hints (#893,#1139) - Added
glfwGetWindowOpacityandglfwSetWindowOpacityfor controlling whole window transparency (#1089) - Added
glfwSetMonitorUserPointerandglfwGetMonitorUserPointerfor per-monitor user pointers - Added
glfwSetJoystickUserPointerandglfwGetJoystickUserPointerfor per-joystick user pointers - Added
glfwGetX11SelectionStringandglfwSetX11SelectionStringfunctions for accessing X11 primary selection (#894,#1056) - Added headless OSMesa backend (#850)
- Added definition of
GLAPIENTRYto public header - Added
GLFW_TRANSPARENT_FRAMEBUFFERwindow hint and attribute for controlling per-pixel framebuffer transparency (#197,#663,#715,#723,#1078) - Added
GLFW_HOVEREDwindow attribute for polling cursor hover state (#1166) - Added
GLFW_CENTER_CURSORwindow hint for controlling cursor centering (#749,#842) - Added
GLFW_FOCUS_ON_SHOWwindow hint and attribute to control input focus on calling show window (#1189) - Added
GLFW_SCALE_TO_MONITORwindow hint for automatic window resizing (#676,#1115) - Added
GLFW_JOYSTICK_HAT_BUTTONS init hint (#889) - Added
GLFW_LOCK_KEY_MODSinput mode andGLFW_MOD_*_LOCKmod bits (#946) - Added macOS specific
GLFW_COCOA_RETINA_FRAMEBUFFERwindow hint - Added macOS specific
GLFW_COCOA_FRAME_NAMEwindow hint (#195) - Added macOS specific
GLFW_COCOA_GRAPHICS_SWITCHINGwindow hint (#377,#935) - Added macOS specific
GLFW_COCOA_CHDIR_RESOURCESinit hint - Added macOS specific
GLFW_COCOA_MENUBARinit hint - Added X11 specific
GLFW_X11_CLASS_NAMEandGLFW_X11_INSTANCE_NAMEwindow hints (#893,#1139) - Added
GLFW_INCLUDE_ES32for including the OpenGL ES 3.2 header - Added
GLFW_OSMESA_CONTEXT_APIfor creating OpenGL contexts with OSMesa (#281) - Added
GenerateMappings.cmakescript for updating gamepad mappings - Made
glfwCreateWindowSurfaceemit an error when the window has a context (#1194,#1205) - Deprecated window parameter of clipboard string functions
- Deprecated charmods callback
- Removed
GLFW_USE_RETINAcompile-time option - Removed
GLFW_USE_CHDIRcompile-time option - Removed
GLFW_USE_MENUBARcompile-time option - Bugfix: Calling
glfwMaximizeWindowon a full screen window was not ignored - Bugfix:
GLFW_INCLUDE_VULKANcould not be combined with the corresponding OpenGL and OpenGL ES header macros - Bugfix:
glfwGetInstanceProcAddressreturnedNULLforvkGetInstanceProcAddrwhen_GLFW_VULKAN_STATICwas enabled - Bugfix: Invalid library paths were used in test and example CMake files (#930)
- Bugfix: The scancode for synthetic key release events was always zero
- Bugfix: The generated Doxyfile did not handle paths with spaces (#1081)
- [Win32] Added system error strings to relevant GLFW error descriptions (#733)
- [Win32] Moved to
WM_INPUTfor disabled cursor mode motion input (#125) - [Win32] Removed XInput circular deadzone from joystick axis data (#1045)
- [Win32] Bugfix: Undecorated windows could not be iconified by the user (#861)
- [Win32] Bugfix: Deadzone logic could underflow with some controllers (#910)
- [Win32] Bugfix: Bitness test in
FindVulkan.cmakewas VS specific (#928) - [Win32] Bugfix:
glfwVulkanSupportedemitted an error on systems with a loader but no ICD (#916) - [Win32] Bugfix: Non-iconified full sreeen windows did not prevent screen blanking or password enabled screensavers (#851)
- [Win32] Bugfix: Mouse capture logic lost secondary release messages (#954)
- [Win32] Bugfix: The 32-bit Vulkan loader library static was not searched for
- [Win32] Bugfix: Vulkan libraries have a new path as of SDK 1.0.42.0 (#956)
- [Win32] Bugfix: Monitors with no display devices were not enumerated (#960)
- [Win32] Bugfix: Monitor events were not emitted (#784)
- [Win32] Bugfix: The Cygwin DLL was installed to the wrong directory (#1035)
- [Win32] Bugfix: Normalization of axis data via XInput was incorrect (#1045)
- [Win32] Bugfix:
glfw3native.hwould undefine a foreignAPIENTRY(#1062) - [Win32] Bugfix: Disabled cursor mode prevented use of caption buttons (#650,#1071)
- [Win32] Bugfix: Returned key names did not match other platforms (#943)
- [Win32] Bugfix: Undecorated windows did not maximize to workarea (#899)
- [Win32] Bugfix: Window was resized twice when entering full screen (#1085)
- [Win32] Bugfix: The HID device notification was not unregistered (#1170)
- [Win32] Bugfix:
glfwCreateWindowactivated window even withGLFW_FOCUSEDhint set to false (#1179,#1180) - [Win32] Bugfix: The keypad equals key was reported as
GLFW_KEY_UNKNOWN(#1315,#1316) - [X11] Moved to XI2
XI_RawMotionfor disable cursor mode motion input (#125) - [X11] Replaced
_GLFW_HAS_XF86VMcompile-time option with dynamic loading - [X11] Bugfix:
glfwGetVideoModewould segfault on Cygwin/X - [X11] Bugfix: Dynamic X11 library loading did not use full sonames (#941)
- [X11] Bugfix: Window creation on 64-bit would read past top of stack (#951)
- [X11] Bugfix: XDND support had multiple non-conformance issues (#968)
- [X11] Bugfix: The RandR monitor path was disabled despite working RandR (#972)
- [X11] Bugfix: IM-duplicated key events would leak at low polling rates (#747)
- [X11] Bugfix: Gamma ramp setting via RandR did not validate ramp size
- [X11] Bugfix: Key name string encoding depended on current locale (#981,#983)
- [X11] Bugfix: Incremental reading of selections was not supported (#275)
- [X11] Bugfix: Selection I/O reported but did not support
COMPOUND_TEXT - [X11] Bugfix: Latin-1 text read from selections was not converted to UTF-8
- [X11] Bugfix: NVidia EGL would segfault if unloaded before closing the display
- [X11] Bugfix: Checking window maximized attrib could crash some WMs (#1356)
- [X11] Bugfix: Update cursor position on enter event (#1366)
- [Linux] Added workaround for missing
SYN_DROPPEDin pre-2.6.39 kernel headers (#1196) - [Linux] Moved to evdev for joystick input (#906,#1005)
- [Linux] Bugfix: Event processing did not detect joystick disconnection (#932)
- [Linux] Bugfix: The joystick device path could be truncated (#1025)
- [Linux] Bugfix:
glfwInitwould fail if inotify creation failed (#833) - [Linux] Bugfix:
strdupwas used without any required feature macro (#1055) - [Cocoa] Added support for Vulkan window surface creation via MoltenVK (#870)
- [Cocoa] Added support for loading a
MainMenu.nibwhen available - [Cocoa] Bugfix: Disabling window aspect ratio would assert (#852)
- [Cocoa] Bugfix: Window creation failed to set first responder (#876,#883)
- [Cocoa] Bugfix: Removed use of deprecated
CGDisplayIOServicePortfunction (#165,#192,#508,#511) - [Cocoa] Bugfix: Disabled use of deprecated
CGDisplayModeCopyPixelEncodingfunction on macOS 10.12+ - [Cocoa] Bugfix: Running in AppSandbox would emit warnings (#816,#882)
- [Cocoa] Bugfix: Windows created after the first were not cascaded (#195)
- [Cocoa] Bugfix: Leaving video mode with
glfwSetWindowMonitorwould set incorrect position and size (#748) - [Cocoa] Bugfix: Iconified full screen windows could not be restored (#848)
- [Cocoa] Bugfix: Value range was ignored for joystick hats and buttons (#888)
- [Cocoa] Bugfix: Full screen framebuffer was incorrectly sized for some video modes (#682)
- [Cocoa] Bugfix: A string object for IME was updated non-idiomatically (#1050)
- [Cocoa] Bugfix: A hidden or disabled cursor would become visible when a user notification was shown (#971,#1028)
- [Cocoa] Bugfix: Some characters did not repeat due to Press and Hold (#1010)
- [Cocoa] Bugfix: Window title was lost when full screen or undecorated (#1082)
- [Cocoa] Bugfix: Window was resized twice when entering full screen (#1085)
- [Cocoa] Bugfix: Duplicate size events were not filtered (#1085)
- [Cocoa] Bugfix: Event polling did not initialize AppKit if necessary (#1218)
- [Cocoa] Bugfix: OpenGL rendering was not initially visible on 10.14 (#1334,#1346)
- [WGL] Added support for
WGL_EXT_colorspacefor OpenGL ES contexts - [WGL] Added support for
WGL_ARB_create_context_no_error - [GLX] Added support for
GLX_ARB_create_context_no_error - [GLX] Bugfix: Context creation could segfault if no GLXFBConfigs were available (#1040)
- [EGL] Added support for
EGL_KHR_get_all_proc_addresses(#871) - [EGL] Added support for
EGL_KHR_context_flush_control - [EGL] Bugfix: The test for
EGL_RGB_BUFFERwas invalid
On glfw.org you can find the latest version of GLFW, as well as news, documentation and other information about the project.
If you have questions related to the use of GLFW, we have a
forum, and the #glfw IRC channel on
Freenode.
If you have a bug to report, a patch to submit or a feature you'd like to request, please file it in the issue tracker on GitHub.
Finally, if you're interested in helping out with the development of GLFW or porting it to your favorite platform, join us on the forum, GitHub or IRC.
GLFW exists because people around the world donated their time and lent their skills.
- Bobyshev Alexander
- Matt Arsenault
- David Avedissian
- Keith Bauer
- John Bartholomew
- Coşku Baş
- Niklas Behrens
- Niklas Bergström
- Denis Bernard
- Doug Binks
- blanco
- Kyle Brenneman
- Rok Breulj
- Martin Capitanio
- David Carlier
- Arturo Castro
- Chi-kwan Chan
- Ian Clarkson
- Michał Cichoń
- Lambert Clara
- Yaron Cohen-Tal
- Omar Cornut
- Andrew Corrigan
- Bailey Cosier
- Noel Cower
- Jason Daly
- Jarrod Davis
- Olivier Delannoy
- Paul R. Deppe
- Michael Dickens
- Роман Донченко
- Mario Dorn
- Wolfgang Draxinger
- Jonathan Dummer
- Ralph Eastwood
- Fredrik Ehnbom
- Robin Eklind
- Siavash Eliasi
- Felipe Ferreira
- Michael Fogleman
- Gerald Franz
- Mário Freitas
- GeO4d
- Marcus Geelnard
- Stephen Gowen
- Kovid Goyal
- Eloi Marín Gratacós
- Stefan Gustavson
- Jonathan Hale
- Sylvain Hellegouarch
- Matthew Henry
- heromyth
- Lucas Hinderberger
- Paul Holden
- Warren Hu
- IntellectualKitty
- Aaron Jacobs
- Erik S. V. Jansson
- Toni Jovanoski
- Arseny Kapoulkine
- Cem Karan
- Osman Keskin
- Josh Kilmer
- Cameron King
- Peter Knut
- Christoph Kubisch
- Yuri Kunde Schlesner
- Konstantin Käfer
- Eric Larson
- Robin Leffmann
- Glenn Lewis
- Shane Liesegang
- Eyal Lotem
- Tristam MacDonald
- Hans Mackowiak
- Дмитри Малышев
- Zbigniew Mandziejewicz
- Célestin Marot
- Kyle McDonald
- David Medlock
- Bryce Mehring
- Jonathan Mercier
- Marcel Metz
- Liam Middlebrook
- Jonathan Miller
- Kenneth Miller
- Bruce Mitchener
- Jack Moffitt
- Jeff Molofee
- Pierre Morel
- Jon Morton
- Pierre Moulon
- Martins Mozeiko
- Julian Møller
- ndogxj
- Kristian Nielsen
- Kamil Nowakowski
- Denis Ovod
- Ozzy
- Andri Pálsson
- Peoro
- Braden Pellett
- Christopher Pelloux
- Arturo J. Pérez
- Anthony Pesch
- Orson Peters
- Emmanuel Gil Peyrot
- Cyril Pichard
- Keith Pitt
- Stanislav Podgorskiy
- Alexandre Pretyman
- przemekmirek
- Philip Rideout
- Eddie Ringle
- Jorge Rodriguez
- Ed Ropple
- Aleksey Rybalkin
- Riku Salminen
- Brandon Schaefer
- Sebastian Schuberth
- Christian Sdunek
- Matt Sealey
- Steve Sexton
- Arkady Shapkin
- Yoshiki Shibukawa
- Dmitri Shuralyov
- Daniel Skorupski
- Bradley Smith
- Patrick Snape
- Erlend Sogge Heggen
- Julian Squires
- Johannes Stein
- Pontus Stenetorp
- Michael Stocker
- Justin Stoecker
- Elviss Strazdins
- Paul Sultana
- Nathan Sweet
- TTK-Bandit
- Sergey Tikhomirov
- Arthur Tombs
- Ioannis Tsakpinis
- Samuli Tuomola
- Matthew Turner
- urraka
- Elias Vanderstuyft
- Stef Velzel
- Jari Vetoniemi
- Ricardo Vieira
- Nicholas Vitovitch
- Simon Voordouw
- Corentin Wallez
- Torsten Walluhn
- Patrick Walton
- Xo Wang
- Jay Weisskopf
- Frank Wille
- Ryogo Yoshimura
- Andrey Zholos
- Santi Zupancic
- Jonas Ådahl
- Lasse Öörni
- All the unmentioned and anonymous contributors in the GLFW community, for bug reports, patches, feedback, testing and encouragement