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🚀 gdx-liftoff 🚀

A setup tool for libGDX Gradle projects.

Screenshot of gdx-liftoff

📥 DOWNLOAD 📥

To generate a project, download the latest application jar and run it (usually double-clicking will do), or run the following command manually (replacing the VERSION appropriately):

java -jar gdx-liftoff-VERSION.jar

You must build with Java 17 or newer! Gradle's current version, as well as current Android tools, now require your installed JDK to be version 17 or higher. Regardless of what platforms you target, Gradle 8.10 and up need a JDK with a version at least 17! You can still target other releases, as low as 8 typically, while building with any of the JDK versions 17 and up. All stable target releases of Java from 8 to 23 work here now. We use Gradle 8.11.1 because it works out-of-the-box with Java 23 (even though it was only recently released!).

If you have any trouble, you can try our 🐛Troubleshooting Guide🐛.

Features

In addition to most features of the original gdx-setup, the gdx-liftoff tool offers:

  • Project templates. You can choose one of many project skeletons highlighting various libGDX features.
  • Instant input validation. Your project data is validated as you type it in.
  • Other JVM languages support. You can choose additional languages for your project, like Kotlin or Scala. Their standard libraries, Gradle plugins, and appropriate source folders will be included.
  • Customization. You have more control over the versions of software used by your application.
  • More third-party extensions. Their versions are fetched from Maven Central or JitPack, so your project is always generated up-to-date.
  • Automatic configuration for tricky extensions. If you're having trouble setting up Artemis-ODB, Lombok, or several other libraries, Liftoff does some extra work, so you don't have to.
  • Preferences support. Basic data of your application is saved, so you don't have to fill it each time you generate a project.
  • Optional Gradle runner. You can optionally execute Gradle tasks after project generation. Gradle doesn't have to run for a project to be created.
  • Supports all libGDX backends. Do you need the LWJGL2, LWJGL3, and/or Headless backends? Liftoff provides simple checkboxes to add any and all official platforms, plus some special other modules.
  • Convenience features. If you have JetBrains Toolbox, you can open a just-generated project in IDEA with one click (it needs "Generate Shell Scripts" set in Toolbox). If you use Eclipse, you can still import Gradle projects normally.
  • Up-to-date. This project prides itself on updating quickly after releases of major external components such as Gradle or libGDX itself.
  • More backends are supported. The headless backend has been part of libGDX for a long time, but wasn't easily accessed in gdx-setup; it is a checkbox here. TeaVM, an increasingly-popular alternative to GWT for browser-based applications, is also here, and works with Kotlin and other JVM languages as well as it does with Java.
  • Build native executables out-of-the-box. The Construo plugin lets you assemble a JDK with your project's JAR and launch it with a native Win64 .exe, MacOS (x64 or AARCH64) .app, or Linux x64 executable. Configuration is also included for Graal Native Image, though this is less likely to "just work" immediately.

Guide

For the video-inclined, @raeleus produced this tutorial video.

Gdx-Liftoff Tutorial Video

If you'd rather read text, then here you go...

Gdx-Liftoff is a relatively straightforward GUI application.

  • Enter a project name/package/main-class-name.
  • Click Project Options.
  • Select options you want (additional platforms, non-Java languages, official extensions, and/or a template).
  • Click Next.
  • Select any third-party extensions you want to add.
  • Click Next.
  • Enter a project path and optionally change Java version (such as to 8 for better iOS support).
  • Click Generate, and let the magic happen.

After that you can open the project in the path you specified, or open it more quickly in IDEA if it's installed how Liftoff can see it (using JetBrains Toolbox, most likely, though a manually installed IDEA can also be used).

If you want to use Kotlin, a Kotlin template is recommended (such as Kotlin Logo); these mention that they use "Kotlin launchers" in their descriptions. The KTX libraries are all available as third-party extensions; these aren't required for Kotlin projects, but they can be helpful. KTX and other Kotlin-based libraries need Kotlin enabled. Currently, projects generated here default to using Kotlin 2.0.21, which may have some incompatibilities with the earlier 1.9.x releases. You could instead set the version to the newest 1.9.x release (currently 1.9.25), in the Languages dialog, when you select Kotlin as an option. The 2.x series of releases claims a number of nice improvements, however, and most libraries appear to be either very close to compatible, or are compatible already. Liftoff itself is built using Kotlin 2.x , as well as substantial Java code (compatible with Java 8).

Some things are structured differently in Liftoff projects, compared to gdx-setup projects. Where gdx-setup puts almost all configuration in /build.gradle (in the project root), including for subprojects like android or html, Liftoff puts only shared configuration in the root build.gradle, keeps all user-configurable version information in /gradle.properties, and moves per-project configuration to /core/build.gradle, /android/build.gradle, /html/build.gradle, etc. Liftoff also calls the project that depends on LWJGL3 lwjgl3, since you can also create a project that depends on LWJGL2, and that's called lwjgl2. You might need to change references to the "desktop" module (as gdx-setup calls LWJGL3) to lwjgl3, since that's the most likely desktop module you would be using.

If you're adding dependencies to build.gradle files, you will probably need to add them to /core/build.gradle rather than /build.gradle in the root. Some dependencies may also need parts added to /lwjgl3/build.gradle, /html/build.gradle, and so on. If a library says to add lines to the dependencies section, that almost always means the block inside dependencies { }, but not inside buildscript { }. There are often two dependencies blocks, and you generally want the last one. Templates selected in Liftoff handle this automatically.

For more details on how to use the application and how it works, see the usage guide. If you would like to contribute to the project, you might find the architecture document helpful.

When submitting a pull request, please format the application with the ktlintFormat Gradle task.

Credits

The project was forked from the czyzby/gdx-setup repository. @czyzby and @kotcrab created the original application, as well as a set of libraries that it depends on (gdx-lml and VisUI respectively). Since then, the project is maintained by @tommyettinger. Graciously, czyzby came back and made a wide variety of improvements, so big thanks there! Thanks also to @metaphore, who now maintains gdx-lml (which this used and may still use).

@raeleus created the Particle Park skin for scene2d.ui, which was adapted to be the default skin added to new projects (if the "Generate UI Assets" option is selected). "Accademia di Belle Arti di Urbino and students of MA course of Visual design" has created the Titillium Web font that the skin uses (under SIL OFL license). Oh yeah, and he did some other stuff starting in version 1.12.1.10, such as almost the entire release. Huge thanks to raeleus for the complete overhaul of the user experience!

Other project contributors include @Mr00Anderson, @lyze237, @metaphore (again!), and @payne911. People who haven't directly contributed code have still helped a lot by spending their time to test on platforms like macOS and iOS; @JojoIce is one of several people who made a difference regarding iOS. And of course, many thanks go to all the early adopters for putting up with any partially-working releases early on!

The randomized icons chopped up and used for Android projects come from the OpenMoji project. If you want to use these icons in a less-mangled format, there's openmoji-atlas to access these emoji from libGDX conveniently.

Thanks also to everyone who has made the various libraries and tools Liftoff depends upon. From the huge team responsible for Graal Native Image, to Construo by pretty much a team of one, some of the best features of Liftoff aren't in Liftoff code at all.

Good luck, and we hope you make something great!