The LWJGL project, which provides the low-level graphics, sound and input bindings required for Java to make great games such as Revenge of the Titans, Titan Attacks, Spiral Knights, Tribal Trouble, Starfarer, Blocks That Matter, and yes, the ubiquitous Minecraft, needs your help. Well, that is, if you’re a reliable, seasoned Mac OS X developer with a fairly deep understanding of the Obj-C display APIs.
The technical issues are discussed here on the lwjgl.org forums. The gist of the problem is, Java on OS X is being replaced by OpenJDK 7, and OpenJDK 7 does not have the ability to bind correctly with the old legacy APIs we used on Mac OS X before; the end result is that LWJGL either will simply stop working on OpenJDK 7 and thus become incompatible with the Mac, or, it will become unacceptably slow. Whatever solution that does emerge also has to work back with legacy Macs back to OS X 10.5 at least.
Please, if you can help, get in touch on the lwjgl.org forums; and please tweet or link to this post where you can, as we really do need to get this fixed as soon as possible.
Really? Surely if you tap Notch on the shoulder he’d hire a consultant and get it fixed.
Mojang have been to date remarkably reluctant to “give back” to LWJGL, considering the vast fortune they have made off of it. Then again I don’t know that they’ve hired any expertise at all in that area. But it would be jolly nice of them wouldn’t it. There are numerous long-standing issues that need sorting that require experts that we just don’t have.
Aha, Mojang have woken up… there is progress inching forward in this area.
Cas what are java librarys for? *Needs to learn java*
“Libraries” are chunks of code that do some stuff, that usually come in a simple package that drops in to your application and lets you use it. Typically when you can’t be bothered or don’t have time or aren’t smart enough to write something yourself, you’ll find someone else has already done it and packaged it up into a library to do it for you, thus saving you all the work.
LWJGL is a library that lets Java use OpenGL (for high performance 2D and 3D graphics), OpenAL (for consistent cross-platform sound and music playback), mouse and keyboard handling, display handling, a few other useful odds and sods, and includes another library known as JInput, which takes care of XBox 360 controllers and such.