How to make config.cmake file of SDL3 and ImGui

Question

Currently I'm trying to add SDL3 and ImGui to my 2D game engine's config.cmake file.

I would like to use that library as below from external project.

find_package(MyEngine REQUIRED)
add_executable(MyGame game.cpp)
target_link_librariess(MyGame PRIVATE MyEngine)
 
// MyEngine will already contain SDL3 and ImGui libraries
// so you don't have to include and compile them by yourselves

Following CMakeLists.txt is a file I wrote to install myEngine without SDL3 and ImGui.

cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.30)
project(MyEngine
        DESCRIPTION "Simple 2D Game Engine"
        VERSION 0.0.1)

include(GNUInstallDirs)

set(CMAKE_CXX_STANDARD 20)
set(CMAKE_CXX_STANDARD_REQUIRED ON)
set(CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX "MyEngine-${CMAKE_PROJECT_VERSION}")

add_library(Engine STATIC src/Engine.cpp)
add_library(Player STATIC src/Player.cpp)
add_library(World STATIC src/World.cpp)

# Set include directories for all libraries
foreach(lib Engine Player World)
    target_include_directories(${lib} PUBLIC
        $<BUILD_INTERFACE:${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/include>
        $<INSTALL_INTERFACE:${CMAKE_INSTALL_INCLUDEDIR}>
    )
endforeach()

install(DIRECTORY ${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/include/MyEngine DESTINATION ${CMAKE_INSTALL_INCLUDEDIR})

install(TARGETS Engine Player World
    EXPORT MotionTargets
    ARCHIVE DESTINATION ${CMAKE_INSTALL_LIBDIR}
    LIBRARY DESTINATION ${CMAKE_INSTALL_LIBDIR}
    RUNTIME DESTINATION ${CMAKE_INSTALL_BINDIR}
    INCLUDES DESTINATION ${CMAKE_INSTALL_INCLUDEDIR}
)

install(EXPORT MyEngineTargets
    FILE MotionTargets.cmake
    NAMESPACE MyEngine::
    DESTINATION ${CMAKE_INSTALL_LIBDIR}/cmake/MyEngine
)

include(CMakePackageConfigHelpers)

configure_package_config_file(
    ${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/MyEngine-config.cmake.in
    ${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR}/MyEngineConfig.cmake
    INSTALL_DESTINATION ${CMAKE_INSTALL_LIBDIR}/cmake/MyEngine
)

install(FILES
    ${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR}/MyEngineConfig.cmake
    DESTINATION ${CMAKE_INSTALL_LIBDIR}/cmake/MyEngine
)

So MyEngine uses SDL3 and ImGui and I want to include them into my project on order to simplify it's integration but I don't know how to include SDL3

How can I include SDL3, SDLRenderer3 and ImGui library with the above CMakeLists.txt?

look into how sdl-ttf packages and installs harfbuzz and maybe do the same yourself. — Ahmed AEK
– Ahmed AEK, Commented Jun 29 at 6:30

Miao Chen · Accepted Answer · 2025-07-08 09:02:11Z

regarding your question, I have provided a simple usage example here.

$ tree . -L 2
.
├── CMakeLists.txt
├── deps
│   └── SDL
└── main.cc

As shown above, this is a very simple file organization: the source code of the SDL3 library you need is stored in deps/SDL. Below is a very simple CMakeLists.txt that I wrote.

cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.10.0)
project(test-sdl VERSION 0.1.0 LANGUAGES C CXX)

# IF YOU DOWNLOAD LIBSDL3 OR YOU INSTALL FROM SOURCE CODE
# find_package(SDL3 REQUIRED)

add_subdirectory(deps/SDL EXCLUDE_FROM_ALL)

add_executable(test-sdl main.cc)

target_link_libraries(test-sdl PRIVATE 
    SDL3::SDL3
)

Here, I assume you need to compile from source code. If you have obtained libsdl3-dev directly from a package management system, please use the commented code above. This is also a simple example from the official documentation: SDL INTRO

As for the ImGUI library, the official recommendation is not to directly produce dynamic or static libraries：ImGUI

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