Caleb Cornett's comments:
"A few weeks ago, Alex added a partial Metal API to SDL2:
https://hg.libsdl.org/SDL/rev/22c8e7cd8d38
I noticed it was missing a few features that would help Metal become a
first-class citizen in SDL, so I went ahead and wrote them! Here are the new
APIs:
1. SDL_WINDOW_METAL flag for SDL_CreateWindow(). This allows the programmer
to specify that they intend to create a window for use with SDL_MetalView.
The flag is used to ensure correct usage of the API and to prevent
accidentally defaulting to OpenGL on iOS.
2. SDL_Metal_GetLayer(). This function takes a SDL_MetalView and returns a
pointer to the view's backing CAMetalLayer. This simplifies things
considerably, since in the current version of the SDL_Metal API the
programmer is required to bridge-cast a SDL_MetalView handle to an NSView or
UIView (depending on the platform) and then extract the layer from there.
SDL_Metal_GetLayer automatically handles all of that, making the operation
simple and cross-platform.
3. SDL_Metal_GetDrawableSize(). This function already exists in the current
SDL_Metal API (and is used behind-the-scenes for SDL_Vulkan_GetDrawableSize
on Apple platforms) but was not publicly exposed. My patch exposes this
function for public use. It works just like you'd expect.
Tested on macOS 10.14 and iOS 12.4."
Fixes Bugzilla #4796.
Aaron Barany
I realized I made a minor mistake in my patch: I changed the constructor prototype for SDL_DisplayData, but didn't update the declaration in the .h file. The compiler and linker don't complain, but it would probably be best to fix in case a later change runs into a problem from the mismatch. I have attached a patch to fix this.
Aaron Barany
There appears to be no way to directly access the display DPI on iOS, so as an approximation the DPI for the iPhone 1 is used as a base value and is multiplied by the screen's scale. This should at least give a ballpark number for the various screen scales. (based on https://stackoverflow.com/questions/25756087/detecting-iphone-6-6-screen-sizes-in-point-values it appears that both 2x and 3x are used)
I have updated the patch to use a table of current devices and use a computation as a fallback. I have also updated the fallback computation to be more accurate.
Aaron Barany
Since OpenGL is deprecated on iOS, it is advantageous to be able to remove all OpenGL related code when building SDL for iOS. This patch adds the necessary #if checks to compile in this case.
Caleb Cornett
SDL_ShowMessageBox on UIKit doesn't do anything special with buttons that are marked with the flag SDL_MESSAGEBOX_BUTTON_RETURNKEY_DEFAULT. According to Apple's documentation on UIAlertController, a button can respond to a return key if it's marked as the preferredAction of the controller. SDL doesn't set a preferredAction currently, so I've attached a patch to fix that.
It was originally added to work around an input event problem in the code of a specific app which mixed SDL and native UIViews, but that app solved its problems in a better manner since then.
Dzmitry Malyshau
Current code, search paths, and error messages are written to only consider MoltenVK on macOS as a Vulkan Portability implementation. It's not the only implementation available to the users. gfx-portability [1] has been shown to run a number of titles well, including Dota2, Dolphin Emulator, and vkQuake3, often out-performing MoltenVK in frame rate and stability (see Dolphin benchmark [2]).
There is no reason for SDL to be that specific, it's not using any MVK-specific functions other than the WSI initialization ("VK_MVK_macos_surface"). gfx-portability exposes this extension as well, and a more generic WSI extension is in process. It would be good if SDL was written in a more generic way that expect a Vulkan Portability library as opposed to MoltenVK specifically.
[1] https://github.com/gfx-rs/portability
[2] https://gfx-rs.github.io/2019/03/22/dolphin-macos-performance.html
Caleb Cornett
On iOS 12, creating a window with the SDL_WINDOW_FULLSCREEN flag does not dim the home indicator or defer system gestures. The same goes for setting the SDL_HINT_IOS_HIDE_HOME_INDICATOR to "2" -- it has no effect at all.
I've tracked down the source of this misbehavior to a timing issue. The initial `setNeedsUpdate...` calls were happening too early and getting applied to the launch screen by mistake. In the attached patch, I've added a call to those functions right after the launch screen is hidden so that they apply to the main view controller instead. This appears to fix the issue, at least on my iPhone 6s Plus.
SDL_GetWindowDisplayMode was returning an incorrect result on iPhone Plus devices (tested on iOS 12.1/12.2). The problem was that the value returned by UIScreenMode was assumed to be the physical pixels on the display, rather than the scaled retina pixels. The fix is to use the scale returned by UIScreen.scale rather than the nativeScale.
Touch device types include SDL_TOUCH_DEVICE_DIRECT (a touch screen with window-relative coordinates for touches), SDL_TOUCH_DEVICE_INDIRECT_ABSOLUTE (a trackpad-style device with absolute device coordinates), and SDL_TOUCH_DEVICE_INDIRECT_RELATIVE (a trackpad-style device with screen cursor-relative coordinates).
Phone screens are an example of a direct device type. Mac trackpads are the indirect-absolute touch device type. The Apple TV remote is an indirect-relative touch device type.
