libMLV - Simple Graphical library

Note

This library isn't originally made by me. For further information, see the links section.

A repo for an alternative version of libMLV with precompiled binaries

This repo is for reworked and precompiled versions of libMLV. It is based on the MLV library (version 3.1.0). If you find any bugs or have any questions related to the library, please report/ask them in the issues or discussions. DO NOT report them to the official library maintainers.

Description

The MLV (stands for Marne-la-Vallée) library is a simplified multimedia libary.

The library is perfect for beginners in C programming who wants to use graphics and sound effects. The library allows to:

• draw figures, text and boxed text,
• display images,
• play music,
• get keyboard and mouse event
• get informations by input boxes

This tool is a simplified interface of the SDL libraries.

If you are not a beginner, we recommend you to use the SDL libraries (sdl, sdl-gfx, sdl-sound, sdl-ttf) instead of the MLV library.

Usage

Note

Currently, only x86_64 architecture is supported. There's a version for Linux (any linux should be fine, just recompile it from source if the prebuilt version doesn't work, tested on NixOS, Ubuntu, Arch) and for Windows. MacOS will maybe be supported one day...

Go to the releases and download the version you need.

You'll also need to install sdl1.2-compat (cause SDL1.2 is ultra-deprecated), sdl1.2-mixer, sdl1.2-ttf, sdl1.2-image, sdl1.2-gfx and libxml2.

NixOS

You can use the shell.nix file.

Arch

Use the following command:

sudo pacman -S libxml2 sdl12-compat sdl_image sdl_mixer sdl_ttf sdl_gfx

Ubuntu

Use the following command:

sudo apt-get install libsdl1.2-compat-dev libsdl-image1.2-dev libsdl-ttf2.0-dev libsdl-mixer1.2-dev libsdl-gfx1.2-dev libxml2-dev

Windows (MSYS2)

Use the following command:

pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-libxml2 mingw-w64-x86_64-sdl12-compat mingw-w64-x86_64-SDL_gfx mingw-w64-x86_64-SDL_ttf mingw-w64-x86_64-SDL_image mingw-w64-x86_64-SDL_mixer

If you have any questions/issues with the installation, please leave an issue or open a discussion.

Changes compared to the official release

• Working on Windows
• Removed glib2 dependency

Have an idea for the library ?

Start a discussion and explain what feature you want implemented in the library !

Links to official libMLV

• Official Website (outdated) (The latest version is libMLV3 but the site only references libMLV2 and previous versions)
• pkgs.org
• Debian
• Ubuntu

Copyright

This library is released under the GPL-v3 license

This file is part of the MLV Library.

Copyright (C) 2010 2011 2012 Adrien Boussicault, Marc Zipstein
Copyright (C) 2025 OJddJO

This library is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under 
the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software 
Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later 
version.

This library is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT 
ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or 
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU General Public License for more 
details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with 
this Library.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.