OpenAL

Introduction

OpenAL (short for Open Audio Library) is a library for creation of a virtual 3D world of sound. The application programmer can specify the location, the speed and the direction of the sources of sounds and of the listener. This is easily combined with a 3D world created with OpenGL and can very well be used to create games. The sounds must be provided in the form of samples; there is no support for MIDI.

An addition to this library is the OpenAL Utility Toolkit (ALUT). See also the Wikipedia article on OpenAL.

Installation

• Hackage: https://hackage.haskell.org/package/OpenAL
• Repository: git clone https://github.com/haskell-openal/OpenAL

Windows specific actions

Before installing the Haskell package, you need to install the C++ package of OpenAL:

• download http://openal.org/downloads/oalinst.zip
• unzip it
• run oalinst.exe; this installs OpenAL32.dll in your system directory
• to find find out where OpenAL32.dll has gone, give command

where OpenAL32.dll

(You will need this later, when you distribute your application.)

• download the development package from http://www.openal-soft.org/#download
• unzip this to, for example, C:\Libraries
• Set environment variables as follows:

Set LIBRARY_DIR=C:\Libraries
Set C_INCLUDE_PATH=%LIBRARY_DIR%\openal-soft-1.16.0-bin\include
Set LIBRARY_PATH=%LIBRARY_DIR%\openal-soft-1.16.0-bin\libs\Win32

If you need these variables more often, set them permanently.

For all platforms

Give command cabal install OpenAL

Tutorials

There are several OpenAL tutorials for other programming languages:

• OpenAL Tutorial at Edenwaith (C)
• OpenAL on Android (Java)
• The LWJGL Wiki (Java)
• Java OpenAL demos

Examples

• TestDevice.hs

Additional software

• StateVar: This package contains state variables, which are references in the IO monad, like IORefs or parts of the OpenGL state
• ObjectName: Explicitly handled object names. This tiny package contains the class ObjectName, which corresponds to the general notion of explicitly handled identifiers for API objects, e.g. a texture object name in OpenGL or a buffer object name in OpenAL
• Tensor This package contains tensor data types and their instances for some basic type classes.
• OpenGL 3D graphics software

More information

• The API documentation
• OpenAL Soft
• OpenAL.org
• The OpenAL programmer's guide
• Wikipedia
• Delphi OpenAL tutorial
• JOAL OpenAL Tutorials
• Devmaster Forum: OpenAL Lesson 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

For questions

• The Haskell Cafe mailing list
• The OpenAL mailing list (non-Haskell)