About Glade

only for RuBoard - do not distribute or recompile

About Glade

With a few exceptions,VB and VC++ developers will find it quite easy to adapt to Glade. In terms of parent-child widget relationships, the user interface behaves the way the developer intended.

Many VB and C++ developers may initially be attracted to the GtkFixed or GtkLayout widgets, which are similar to the behavior they are familiar with in forms. Eventually, however (after much weeping and gnashing of teeth), they will move to the parent-child relationship where the window and its child controls resize and reposition automatically. Why? Because this automatic resizing is the default behavior of GTK+, the static widgets like GtkLayout are the exception. Thus, you may find that the static widgets require more attention in the long run, for example, getting them to size and display correctly upon opening. With widgets like GtkTable and the other packing box widgets, such behavior is not normally a concern.

Visual developers should make an extra effort to understand the parent-child widget mechanism wherein a widget may be placed inside of a widget, which then may be placed inside of another widget. This layering of widgets is the key to long- term effective development with Glade and GTK+.

Why You Should Use Glade

Glade is a code builder, that is, it allows you to point and click your way through the user interface (UI), and then it writes for you the code to instantiate your application. It organizes your application into separate files by function, such as interface and callbacks. It can write source code in several languages, but this book will stick with C. You should use Glade for the following reasons:

  • As the GTK+ Web site says (or said when this book was written, anyway), It is very cool.

  • It is very easy to use.

  • Like all good IDEs, it speeds up development time by abstracting the user interface design to a point-and-click operation.

  • Unlike GTK+, it gives you some idea how your program will look without going through a compile and run cycle.

Where to Get Glade and How to Install

First, check to see if perhaps it was installed on your machine. From the command line, type

 % glade 

and see if anything comes up. If it does, you have a version on your machine, even if it is an older one. Check the About box to see what version you are running.You can also check the Glade Web site (http://glade.pn.org/) for the latest edition to see if you want to upgrade. If Glade is not installed on your machine, you will need to get it.

The RedHat FTP site (ftp:// rawhide .redhat.com/pub/redhat/redhat-6.2/i386/RedHat/RPMS/) that s listed for GTK+ is also the place to get an RPM to install Glade. It is always up to date, and as of this writing, the Glade home page did not list RPM files among its downloads. The version listed there at the time of this writing is glade-0.5.5-4.i386.rpm . Remember, to install, you use the following command:

 % rpm -i filename.rpm 

To update, use this command:

 % rpm -U filename.rpm 

So be sure you know whether Glade is already on your system.

Licensing Issues

The Glade GUI builder is licensed under the GNU GPL.This same license is for MySQL; see Chapter 1, MySQL for Access and SQL Server Developers and DBAs, for more information regarding the GPL.

only for RuBoard - do not distribute or recompile


MySQL Building User Interfaces
MySQL: Building User Interfaces (Landmark)
ISBN: 073571049X
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2001
Pages: 119

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