Working from sources

Libgdx is truly awesome and it will probably suit your needs perfectly. However, some people might need extra behavior or a slightly different API.

The first thing you should try is to add the desired functionality on top of an official stable Libgdx release. Were that to prove impossible, you would have to modify Libgdx itself to make it behave the way you want.

Throughout this recipe, you will learn how to grab Libgdx's repository, make changes to it, and use it for your game.

Getting ready

You will need a Git client to clone the Libgdx repository. We discussed that topic in the Using source control on a Libgdx project with Git recipe of Chapter 1, Diving into Libgdx.

Libgdx uses Apache Ant, which is an open source Java-based build system, very much like Gradle. You can grab the latest binary distribution from http://ant.apache.org/bindownload.cgi.

Download the latest one, unzip it in the folder of your choice, and add the bin subfolder to your PATH environment variable...