Question

I am learning C and compiling the codes with GTK+. I have a simple GTK+ of

#include <gtk/gtk.h>

int main( int argc, char *argv[])
{
  GtkWidget *window;

  gtk_init(&argc, &argv);

  window = gtk_window_new(GTK_WINDOW_TOPLEVEL);
  gtk_widget_show(window);

  gtk_main();

  return 0;
}

Could you please give me a hint how can I insert C processing codes within this structure? For example, I want to read the content of a file and display within the gtk+ window.

Answer 1

You need to write a “callback” that will respond to some “event”.

This is how all GUI frameworks work – they’re all “event driven”.

The specific GTK+ 2.0 API is “g_signal_connect()”.

Here’s a very simple example:

http://zetcode.com/tutorials/gtktutorial/gtkevents/

Here is a much more extensive tutorial:

http://developer.gnome.org/gtk-tutorial/2.90/

If you work through this tutorial – you’ll learn a lot of useful material about GTK+ – and quite possibly learn a lot of useful information about C, too.

Good luck!