Hello,
I would like to know if there are some alternatives to libsdl
to do common tasks like handling object like surfaces and do blits.
Are there some lib that is currently under active development?
Thanks,
tano

I'm sure you're aware of OpenGL...

You might also look into "glut":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenGL
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenGL_Utility_Toolkit
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_DirectMedia_Layer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegro_library
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll2D

Pretty much any graphics library is going to support blit operations and contain image data. Of course, SDL is the most simple of all the graphics libraries I have seen, and most widely supported by various add-on libraries. I do not believe anyother library can really replace SDL, but I guess Allegro comes close. GGI is another, but has a few problems/quirks that might make game programming harder (its active I believe, but not exactly feature-rich enough for some purposes).

Why do you want a alternative anyways?

Allegro seems to be a complete game-developing solution.
I check for alternatives only to know if there is something at the horizon.
As I said, libsdl seems not to be under development, and knowing if there is some
api newer than it that handles better hardware/software surfaces mechanism, multiple
monitor support, better font handling and so on..

Newer != better

Microsoft incessantly releases new Versions du Jour. Some are good; some are great .. and most are crap.

For whatever it's worth, for those doing open source game development, OpenGL + SDL seems to be the library many prefer. This buys you two big wins:

a) Stability
b) A common frame of reference, for sharing ideas with other developers

By all means, I encourage you to try any/all libraries to see what suits you best.

But to judge a library based solely on how recently somebody made the last release ... well - good luck with that!

IMHO .. PSM

PS:
I agree - Allegro does look very good. I still urge you to give SDL a fair chance!

Excuse me,
but you are not right about me.
I do not say newer is better, what I think is "Ok, let see if there is something out
of the box". I use sdl, and seems very good for me, even better than the examples I see
for Microsoft DirectX, but I think that on a forum people could even suggest new solutions
(if there are, seems not to be a real alternative) and talk about their pro and contro
in respect of the olds. I am not a over-devote of the newest, just only curious :-)
Bye,
tano