OpenGL glClearColor always make a black screen - c++

Question

I'm trying to run my first opengl program in C++, which opens a window, sets a background color, and gives a title, from Terminal on Mac OS X.
The code compiles and links fine. When I run the program the window and title open fine but the background color is always black.
It is my understanding that the function glClearColor sets the background color. However, no matter what parameters I pass to the function, the background color of the window is always black.
If anyone can explain to me what errors I'm making, I would very much appreciate it. Thanks and below is the code:
#include <iostream>
#define GLEW_STATIC
#include <GL/glew.h>
#include <GLFW/glfw3.h>
const GLint WIDTH = 800, HEIGHT = 600;
int main()
{
glfwInit();
glfwWindowHint(GLFW_CONTEXT_VERSION_MAJOR, 3);
glfwWindowHint(GLFW_CONTEXT_VERSION_MINOR, 3);
glfwWindowHint(GLFW_OPENGL_PROFILE, GLFW_OPENGL_CORE_PROFILE);
glfwWindowHint(GLFW_OPENGL_FORWARD_COMPAT, GL_TRUE);
glfwWindowHint(GLFW_RESIZABLE, GL_FALSE);
GLFWwindow* window = glfwCreateWindow(WIDTH, HEIGHT, "Learn OpenGL", nullptr, nullptr);
int screenWidth, screenHeight;
glfwGetFramebufferSize(window, &screenWidth, &screenHeight);
if(nullptr == window)
{
std::cout << "Failed to create GLFW window" << '\n';
glfwTerminate();
return -1;
}
glewExperimental = GL_TRUE;
GLenum err=glewInit();
if(err != glewInit())
{
std::cout << "Failed to initialize GLEW" << '\n';
return -1;
}
glViewport(0, 0, screenWidth, screenHeight);
while(!glfwWindowShouldClose(window))
{
glfwPollEvents();
glClearColor(0.2f, 0.2f, 0.9f, 0.5f);
glClear(GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT);
glfwSwapBuffers(window);
}
glfwTerminate();
return 0;
}

Answer 1

glClearColor, like all OpenGL functions, works on the current OpenGL context.
You're not setting your window's context as current for your calling thread, so your call to glClearColor does nothing here. Add:
glfwMakeContextCurrent(window);
before your loop.
From glfwMakeContextCurrent docs:
This function makes the OpenGL or OpenGL ES context of the specified window current on the calling thread. A context can only be made current on a single thread at a time and each thread can have only a single current context at a time.

Answer 2

For those of you crazy enough to use pure WIN32 programming:
If your PIXELFORMATDESCRIPTOR has the flag:
PFD_DOUBLEBUFFER
Then all draw calls target the back buffer.
You need to use the windows GDI32 call "SwapBuffers( HDC )" to show the results of your OpenGL calls.
wlgMakeCurrent()
glClearColor( R, G, B, 1.0 ); //: <--Make sure alpha isn't transparent.
glClear( GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT )
SwapBuffers( your_window_HDC ); //: from GDI32.dll
To get access to SwapBuffers I use LoadLibrary and GetProcAddress and
put the function pointer in my Win32 functions library.
Also notworthy:
Call SwapBuffers on the same thread as your OpenGL calls.
One more thing. I used multiple threads. So this might be helpful to know:
My window was created in thread "B"
My Context was created in thread "A" using HDC from thread "B"
My openGL draw calls are in thread "A".
I mention this because before I found out about SwapBuffers I thought the problem was because of my multi threading. OpenGL wasn't giving me any errors though, so I had to guess around and experiment and read.