z4.html

GTK+_ Gnome Application Development

            libgnomeui</tt></a>
          </h3>
          <p>
            <tt class="APPLICATION">libgnomeui</tt> collects
            GUI-related Gnome code. It consists primarily of
            widgets designed to enhance and extend GTK+. Gnome
            widgets generally impose user interface policy, which
            permits a more convenient API (since there is less for
            the programmer to specify). It also results in
            applications with more consistent interfaces, of
            course.
          </p>
          <p>
            Highlights of <tt class="APPLICATION">libgnomeui</tt>
            include:
          </p>
          <ul>
            <li>
              <p>
                The <tt class="CLASSNAME">GnomeApp</tt> widget,
                which makes it easy to create a nice main window
                for your application. It uses another widget called
                <tt class="CLASSNAME">GnomeDock</tt> which enables
                users to rearrange and "undock" toolbars.
              </p>
            </li>
            <li>
              <p>
                The <tt class="CLASSNAME">GnomeCanvas</tt> widget
                which makes it easy to write intricate,
                flicker-free custom displays.
              </p>
            </li>
            <li>
              <p>
                The Gnome stock pixmaps (icons for open, close,
                save, and other operations).
              </p>
            </li>
            <li>
              <p>
                Convenient routines for creating and using dialogs.
              </p>
            </li>
            <li>
              <p>
                The <tt class="CLASSNAME">GnomePixmap</tt> widget
                which is more versatile than <tt class="CLASSNAME">
                GtkPixmap</tt>.
              </p>
            </li>
          </ul>
        </div>
        <div class="SECT3">
          <h3 class="SECT3">
            <a name="Z13"><tt class="APPLICATION">
            libgnorba</tt></a>
          </h3>
          <p>
            <tt class="APPLICATION">libgnorba</tt> provides
            CORBA-related facilities, including a security
            mechanism and object activation. (Object activation is
            the process of obtaining a reference to an object that
            implements a given interface; it can involve executing
            a server program, loading a shared library module, or
            asking an existing program for a new object instance.)
          </p>
        </div>
        <div class="SECT3">
          <h3 class="SECT3">
            <a name="Z14"><tt class="APPLICATION">libzvt</tt></a>
          </h3>
          <p>
            This small library contains a terminal widget (<tt
            class="CLASSNAME">ZvtTerm</tt>) you can use in your
            Gnome programs.
          </p>
        </div>
        <div class="SECT3">
          <h3 class="SECT3">
            <a name="Z15"><tt class="APPLICATION">
            libart_lgpl</tt></a>
          </h3>
          <p>
            This library contains graphics rendering routines by
            Raph Levien. The routines included here are released
            under the GNU Library General Public License and used
            in the <tt class="CLASSNAME">GnomeCanvas</tt> widget;
            Raph Levien also sells an enhanced proprietary version.
            <tt class="APPLICATION">libart_lgpl</tt> provides
            antialiasing, microtile refresh regions, and other
            magic. In essence it is a vector graphics rasterization
            library, functionally analogous to the PostScript
            language.
          </p>
        </div>
      </div>
      <div class="SECT2">
        <h2 class="SECT2">
          <a name="Z16">Other Libraries</a>
        </h2>
        <p>
          These libraries are commonly used in Gnome applications,
          but are not a part of <tt class="APPLICATION">
          gnome-libs</tt> proper.
        </p>
        <div class="SECT3">
          <h3 class="SECT3">
            <a name="Z17"><tt class="APPLICATION">
            gnome-print</tt></a>
          </h3>
          <p>
            <tt class="APPLICATION">gnome-print</tt> is still
            somewhat experimental, but very promising. It uses <tt
            class="APPLICATION">libart_lgpl</tt> and works nicely
            with <tt class="CLASSNAME">GnomeCanvas</tt>. It
            provides virtual output devices (called "print
            contexts"), so a single codebase can output to a print
            preview widget, to PostScript, and eventually to other
            printer formats. <tt class="APPLICATION">
            gnome-print</tt> also includes printing-related GUI
            elements, like a print setup dialog, and a virtual font
            interface (to deal with the problem that X fonts are
            not printable).
          </p>
        </div>
        <div class="SECT3">
          <h3 class="SECT3">
            <a name="Z18"><tt class="APPLICATION">
            gnome-xml</tt></a>
          </h3>
          <p>
            <tt class="APPLICATION">gnome-xml</tt> is a
            non-validating XML engine written by Daniel Veillard of
            the World Wide Web Consortium. It can parse XML into a
            tree structure, and output a tree structure as XML.
            It's useful for any application that needs to load and
            save structured data; many Gnome applications use it as
            a file format. This library does not depend on any of
            the others, not even glib --- so it is tied to Gnome in
            name only. However, you can expect most Gnome users to
            have it installed, so it should not inconvenience your
            users if your application uses this library.
          </p>
        </div>
        <div class="SECT3">
          <h3 class="SECT3">
            <a name="Z19">Guile</a>
          </h3>
          <p>
            Guile is an implementation of the Scheme programming
            language in a library, so that any application can have
            an embedded Scheme interpreter. It is the official
            extension language of the GNU Project, and is used by
            several Gnome applications. Adding an extension
            language to your application might sound complex, but
            Guile makes it almost trivial. (Several Gnome
            applications support Perl and Python as well; it is
            usually easy to support several languages once you
            implement the first. But Guile has a special place in
            the Gnome developer's hearts.)
          </p>
        </div>
        <div class="SECT3">
          <h3 class="SECT3">
            <a name="Z20">Bonobo</a>
          </h3>
          <p>
            At press time, the Gnome hackers were putting the
            finishing touches on Bonobo. Bonobo is a compound
            document architecture in the tradition of Microsoft's
            OLE; it allows you to embed charts in spreadsheets, for
            example. It will be used pervasively throughout Gnome;
            any application will be able to display MIME-typed data
            such as plain text, HTML, or images by asking the Gnome
            libraries for an appropriate Bonobo component. Look for
            Bonobo technology in the next major Gnome release.
          </p>
        </div>
      </div>
      <div class="SECT2">
        <h2 class="SECT2">
          <a name="Z21">A Word About Header Files</a>
        </h2>
        <p>
          Throughout the book, the exact header file which declares
          each function is given alongside the function prototype.
          This is to facilitate your exploration of the source
          code. However, you probably don't want to manually
          include the hundreds of headers found in GTK+ and Gnome.
          You can include all GTK+ headers <i class="EMPHASIS">en
          masse</i> by including the <tt class="FILENAME">
          gtk/gtk.h</tt> header file. <tt class="FILENAME">
          gtk/gtk.h</tt> also includes <tt class="FILENAME">
          gdk/gdk.h</tt> for you. You can include all Gnome headers
          by including <tt class="FILENAME">gnome.h</tt>; <tt
          class="FILENAME">gnome.h</tt> includes <tt class=
          "FILENAME">gtk/gtk.h</tt> for you. Most Gnome application
          files simply include <tt class="FILENAME">gnome.h</tt>.
        </p>
      </div>
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