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103 lines
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<!DOCTYPE chapter PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.2//EN"
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"http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.2/docbookx.dtd" [
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<!ENTITY appurl "http://www.clutter-project.org">
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<!ENTITY docurl "http://docs.clutter-project.org/docs/clutter-cookbook">
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]>
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<chapter id="introduction">
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<title>Preface</title>
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<epigraph>
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<attribution>The Perl Cookbook</attribution>
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<para>Let me show you that easy way, so others may easily follow.</para>
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</epigraph>
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<para>There is a wonderful simile in the preface of the <emphasis>Perl
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Cookbook</emphasis>: approaching a programming problem is oftentimes
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similar to balancing Columbus's egg. The initial difficulties of dealing
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with, and more importantly solving, problems in the computer programming
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field sometimes can only be overcome if somebody shows you how to use a
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new tool. This is true for programming languages but also for programming
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libraries.</para>
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<para>This book has been written to try and give you a reference on
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how to solve common issues that you might have to face when using
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the Clutter toolkit.</para>
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<para>This book is not meant to be a replacement for the API reference,
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even though there will be descriptions of how Clutter works and how
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its API looks like. We will require knowledge of the Clutter API, but
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we will also point out where to find more information on the API that
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examples have used.</para>
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<para>Indeed, this book should be used as a companion to the API reference,
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expanding the examples and showing how to achieve a specific result.</para>
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<para>This is not a book for learning Clutter. This is also not a book
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for learning C, or GObject or even GUI development.</para>
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<para>Above all, this is a book for learning <emphasis>more</emphasis>
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about Clutter, and about how to use it in the most efficient and easiest
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way. It is meant to help you move past the basic usage of Clutter.</para>
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<para>This book is divided into chapters. Each chapter is dedicated to
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a specific class, like ClutterTexture, or a specific area, like animations.
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Each chapter starts with a short introduction, followed by different
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<emphasis>recipes</emphasis>. Each recipe starts with a problem, or a short
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statement describing what we want to achieve; a solution, containing the
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source code; and a discussion section, where the code is explained, where
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alternative approaches might be useful, caveats and references to the
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Clutter API for furher studying.</para>
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<para>This book, in the cookbook spirit, can be accessed mostly at
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random.</para>
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<section>
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<title>About Clutter</title>
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<para>Clutter is an free and open source software library for creating
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portable, dynamic, compelling and fast graphical user interfaces.</para>
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<para>Clutter uses OpenGL (and, optionally, OpenGL ES on mobile and
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embedded platforms) for rendering the user interface elements, but
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at the same time it exposes an application program interface that hides
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the underlying complexity of the OpenGL state machine from the
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developer.</para>
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<para>The program interface of Clutter is intended to be easy to use,
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efficient, flexible and as self-documenting as possible.</para>
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</section>
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<section>
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<title>About this document</title>
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<para>This document is available in various formats like HTML, and
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PDF.</para>
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<para>The latest version is always available at
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<ulink url="&docurl;">&docurl;</ulink>.</para>
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</section>
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<section>
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<title>Acknowledgments</title>
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<para>This book has been written taking the inspiration from the Perl
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Cookbook, authored by Tom Christiansen and Nathan Torkington.</para>
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</section>
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<section>
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<title>Where to get Clutter</title>
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<para>You can obtain Clutter from <ulink url="&appurl;">&appurl;</ulink>.</para>
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<para>Clutter is also available on all major GNU/Linux distributions,
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in various package formats.</para>
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<para>On OSX, Clutter is available with both Fink and MacPorts.</para>
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<para>Binaries for Microsoft Windows are also available.</para>
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</section>
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</chapter>
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