So I just moved the #SDL3 #vala vapis to @Codeberg migrating from Github was actually pretty easy!

https://codeberg.org/edwood-grant/sdl3-vapi

I also added a new GPU rotating colored cube example. So this makes the whole thing a bit more complete .

I will probably just make the github repo either a mirror or just leave a message on top pointing the the actual repo in codeberg.

I mean it makes sense to have this project outside of big tech. I feel that, at least for me, is important.

I was thinking of moving the #sdl3 #vala vapis onto ether sourcehut or codeberg...

I mean if the main objective is to really divest as much as possible from big tech, github must be one of those.

I was thinking to leave codeberg for public projects and pay of sourcehut for private repos. Makes sense in general.

I would probably leave a github mirror for the vapis for the sake of availability, but in the end just trying to divest as much as possible from US hosted tech.

Muahahaha! Working on the #sdl3 #vala Vapis

So, after changing a bunch of things in the vapis, pulling my hair understanding the SDL3 GPU (is this one of the easy ones? by the gods!), and ensuring things are actually working in the vapi.

But I finally did it. I got the SDL TTF GPU test program work on vala! It needs a ton of cleanup and put in comments, but it works!!! .

It took me a while because Graphics are hard to grasp, and also real life. I'll upload it as soon as I can. #gamedev #sdl

Just made real list widget with ability to reorder items! Animations included! Used #libadwaita Tab widgets as a reference #Gtk #Vala

Share of programming languages used by #GTK3 / #GTK4 applications (2025-03-16):

28% #Python
21% #Vala
20% #Rust
17% #C
06% #C++ #Cplusplus
06% #gjs #Javascript
04% Other: #Csharp #Go #Lua #Haskell #Swift #Typescript #Crystal #Swift #D #Perl

63% use GTK4 (90% of them use #libadwaita), while still 37% use GTK3

Method: Source [1] lists 543 awesome #gtk (3/4) #opensource applications and their #programminglanguage

[1] https://github.com/valpackett/awesome-gtk

#GTK #FLOSS #Linux #Programming #Gnome

@GTK @gnome

Can I get a @vala_lang FLOSS hacker interested in this fine newcomers-difficulty-level UX issue to solve in #gitg?

I tried starting to fix it myself a year ago and couldn't figure out how to get past my initial attempt to check the horizontal vs vertical orientation of the layout. I could try again (if I'm desperate enough), but would need a pair programming session with a #Vala enthusiast… or such an enthusiast could probably solve it by themselves in half an hour: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gitg/-/issues/424#note_2008428

Someone wants to fix a very simple, but really obvious and important issue on our website https://vala.dev? Only little web dev skills required!

Low contrast issues are always so easy to overlook and have a really big impact, but hopefully not so long anymore!

And here is the issue:
https://github.com/vala-lang/vala-www/issues/226

Woot! Managed to compile and run the first GPU sample in #sdl3 and #vala

It took me a while to fix some structs and stuff in the binding and understand better ownership of everything in vala, especially when pasing things like structs to arrays and whatnot.

But at least it works now! Not sure about leaks but oh well, I'll check later.

I'm going to rest now and later clean it all up and upload to the repo, but feel accomplished in making it work.

I'm getting clobbered trying to implement the #sdl3 #vala bindings GPU samples. I'm adapting/stealing them from TheSpyDog's SDL GPU samples github.

Not a graphics programmer and relatively new to vala, so its been interesting.

Was getting a crash and I forgot that I can debug the executables with GDB on terminal, which is nice.

Ran GDB, one look at the stack and the line of code and the solution was obvious lol. This happens because I'm a caveman and I rarely use a debugger.

A bunch of more news! From the #sdl3 #vala bindings workshop!

SDL_ttf has been implemented!

I even added a simple example that shows fallback emoji fonts!

This needs more examples though to really show how to use SDL_ttf on Vala with better feature like test engines, GPU and more.

Check it out here: https://github.com/edwood-grant/sdl3-vapi

What a nice surprise this morning—over ten years ago, I led the team that built Geary as a new lightweight email client for the Linux desktop. Happy to see that it's still going strong and finding new users.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/this-is-the-best-linux-email-client-ive-found-and-ive-tested-them-all/

Ok! Three things about the #SDL3 #vala vapi bindings.

1. I updated it with some fixes and decisions made around some enums that have some aliases and "break" the to_string () method.

2. SDL_Image was released a while ago!

3. It was actually easy to implement in the vapi! This means that SDL3_Image is now implemented as a new vapi file!!

You can use SDL Image by adding the sdl3-image package and use the SDL3.Image namespace.

You can check that out now!

https://github.com/edwood-grant/sdl3-vapi

#Dino 0.4.5 has been released (#XMPP / #GTK / #GTK3 / #Vala / #OMEMO / #VideoCall / #Jingle / #JingleXMPP / #MultipartyJingle / #Muji / #MujiXMPP) https://dino.im/

Folks! Finally! I have published the #sdl3 #vala bindings! I'm a bit scared, I have never released bindings to the public. https://github.com/edwood-grant/sdl3-vapi

There are samples, some tests have been made, and some paltry docs can be generated.

Is this perfect? Not at all, is likely having tons of problems somewhere within many calls I haven't tested at all.

But it's usable, at least for the basic SDL3 samples. Any contributions, issues, PR, whatever your mind can think of are very welcome.

Last week I found this talk, and now I understand what I am actually doing. In #Vala, but also elsewhere: "Glue work"

https://youtu.be/KClAPipnKqw

And this type of work is probably what I can do best. I don't think I am a great coder, documentation writer, or designer. I don't even enjoy these activities that much, most of the time I do them because nobody else is, and I procrastinate them away a lot.

On the other side I enjoy and do a lot of onboarding, user support, discussing new features etc..

You already contributed to #Vala?
- Code
- Bindings
- Documentation
- User Support
- Issue triaging
- Reviewing merge requests
- Testing nightly version
- Social Media and advocacy

Any of the above? (Or something else we forgot) If yes and its more than one time, consider applying for a #GNOME Foundation membership! It is not difficult!

The writing of the whole #sdl3 Vapi for #vala is done!

Now, is it working? Well I started to port the SDL3 examples browser to find out.

There were some snags about truly learning about CCode attributes (oh, so that's why SimpleType and Compact exist! Or my favorite: I forgot to put has_type_id=false everywhere!)

But the goods news is that the render examples are all complete! I need to check more stuff and finish the current samples but it's very close to release!

I'm more and more tired to look for jobs in #software #development for Apple devices. I've been toying with #Vala for a while to develop software for #Linux. It would be really great if there were job offers in this direction that would give me the opportunity to ‘learn by doing’.

Got news! The #sdl3 #vala VAPI is going well!

Only two files left to translate: SDL_audio.h and SDL_gpu.h admittedly the newer stuff. I feel this is getting close to finally release it somewhere.

Is it perfect? No way, it's highly likely borked in places. But it's a start to begin fixing things and receive help from more capable people .

Not sure where to put this... I know Gnome has a GitLab… or maybe just on GitHub? Not sure about it.

Anyway, feeling good about this one.