GTK+ Forums

wheels53 · Familiar Face Joined: 13 Feb 2007 Posts: 13

I'm debating between writing some native programs using xlib directly or GTK+2. These programs will be packaged with a larger application and used on varying Linux Distributions. The reason to use xlib directly is because I wouldn't need to package any libraries and for the most part, it would work regardless of the distribution. GTK+2 seems to be more suited for rapid development, so my question is how easy would it be to package the required libraries with the application so that the end user wouldn't have to worry about installing the libraries themselves? Minimal user interaction is critical.

openldev · Posted: Tue Feb 13, 2007 12:57 pm Post subject:

I don't really see the point of packaging them because most modern Linux distributions include them by default. Is there something about your audience that you aren't telling us?

wheels53 · Familiar Face Joined: 13 Feb 2007 Posts: 13

A majority of our Audience is in Spain/Europe and 1/3 of their custom distributions are out of date or so customized that I cannot count on them having up to date GTK+ libraries etc. It's very frustrating but, unfortunately we have to design around there distributions instead of requiring them to upgrade.

openldev · Posted: Tue Feb 13, 2007 8:58 pm Post subject:

Hm, well, it shouldn't be too difficult to package them. I would recommend that you check out how they do it for Gaim since the Windows version of that application packages GTK+ as well. You will probably have to include a bunch of dependencies in the distribution. Maybe you could list all of the dependencies and provide one download with GTK+ and one without ... the GTK+ FTP site has packages for the dependencies.

wheels53 · Familiar Face Joined: 13 Feb 2007 Posts: 13

Can you recommend a good GTK+ book? Rumor has it that there aren't any GTK+2 books out yet but, I suspect a good GTK+ book should get me on my way.

openldev · Posted: Tue Feb 13, 2007 10:10 pm Post subject:

Well, as you can see in my signature, I am the author a book called Foundations of GTK+ Development. (Actually, Micah Carrick, the creator of this forum is the technical reviewer for it.) The book will be out April 16th and it is the _only_ book out there on GTK+ 2 development. You can find more information at http://www.gtkbook.com. It's currently available for preorder for $29.69.

Besides that, your only hope is the GTK+ tutorial, although that has been incomplete for years. There are also specific tutorials for things like GtkTreeView and GtkTextView around if you go searching for them.

wheels53 · Familiar Face Joined: 13 Feb 2007 Posts: 13

I just noticed your book. I have no GTK programming experience at all but, I am proficient in many languages so I suspect it shouldn't be too difficult to learn. I'm only looking at writing small programs and apps. for example, a system tray app for our Device Manager. Would you suggest your book for this purpose?

openldev · Posted: Tue Feb 13, 2007 10:38 pm Post subject:

It all depends. If you are just going to be doing very basic things and know C pretty well, you should be able to pick the basics of GTK+ up from the API documentation. With that said, given that I wrote the book, I think it is an valuable resource that will be a great help to developers. It is something that wasn't available to me when I first learned GTK+ development, although I wish it was. I, for obvious reasons, won't discourage you from getting a copy of the book, but my recommendation is to look at how much you will use GTK+. If it is something you are serious about, the book will make the process of learning GTK+ painless. (I had to learn from the API documentation along with trial an error, so trust me when I say it's a pain to do that.)

BTW, for a system tray application, you should check out the GtkStatusIcon widget, although it was just introduced in GTK+ 2.10. I'm also happy to answer any other questions you have along the way, regardless of your decision about the book. :)

wheels53 · Familiar Face Joined: 13 Feb 2007 Posts: 13

Thank you, I appreciate your help. I'm going to go ahead and pre order at the end of the month. My expenses for the month are a bit high. I'm the primary Linux Engineer and our customers in Spain/Europe are growing almost exponentially, so I think learning GTK+ will be invaluable.

hydra · Familiar Face Joined: 23 Jan 2007 Posts: 35

Take a look about this http://www.installjammer.com/
This is Open Source packaging program with comfortable self-installer.
I use it for several applications, just visit this site.http://www.nhydra.org/
There is some package installers for MinGW and GTK+ for Windows and Linux.
InstallJammer can build installer for Linux, Windows, BSD, HPUX and AIX too.

wheels53 · Familiar Face Joined: 13 Feb 2007 Posts: 13

Andrew,

I preordered you book and am anxiously awaiting it's delivery. Can you tell me if it covers the new statustrayicon API?

openldev · Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2007 9:19 pm Post subject:

Yes, it covers GtkStatusIcon in Chapter 12. It also covers the new GtkRecentManager and printing APIs. The final release date is this Monday (April 23), so it should be arriving soon. I actually just received my copies today.

wheels53 · Familiar Face Joined: 13 Feb 2007 Posts: 13

Very cool, and thanks for the quick reply.

wheels53 · Familiar Face Joined: 13 Feb 2007 Posts: 13

Got my book and I already have a question. How do I attach a gtk_menu to a GtkStatusIcon? On example I could find relates to using gtk_menu_attach_to_widget but GtkStatusIcon isn't a widget.

openldev · Posted: Fri Apr 27, 2007 12:51 pm Post subject:

That is correct, GtkStatusIcon is not a widget. Instead, check out the "popup-menu" signal, found at http://developer.gnome.org/doc/API/2.0/gtk/GtkStatusIcon.html#GtkStatusIcon-popup-menu