Re: GTK(--) questions

[Havoc Pennington <rhpennin midway uchicago edu>]

On Sat, 31 Oct 1998, Aaron Lehmann wrote:
> 
> I am interested in beginning to write apps with Gtk--. I am not sure wat 
> version of Gtk I should have installed. Most applications require 1.0.x, 
> but others require 1.1.x. When I try to compile GTK 1.1.2, it does not 
> compile sucesssfully. Is there a place where I can get a binary or RPM?
>

Ask on gtk-list about your compile problem, is your best bet.

Gtk-- is even trickier to compile.
 
> Also, I do not understand what the differences between GTK apps and gnome 
> apps are. Should I write GTK applications or gnome applications?
> 

Gnome apps have a lot more features, basically, with less effort. The
libraries add: session management, internationalization, stock pixmaps
(little pictures for buttons and menu items), user configurability of some
look-and-feel items, standard dialog look, GnomeCanvas (very useful if you
need to draw your own graphics of any kind), imlib (loading, saving, and
scaling of jpeg/png/gif/xpm images), arg parsing, more powerful window
manager hints, and some random utility functions and nice widgets. 

So you should basically be writing Gnome apps when you go production,
unless you are a masochist (or a minimalist, I guess).

However, if you are just learning Gtk, I'd stick to that for now; it's
better documented and simpler. Once you write hello world I recommend
writing a widget in Gtk (there's an example in the tutorial, the tic tac
toe and dial widgets), this is the best way to learn IMO. Write something
simple and goofy, don't worry about it being useful. This will teach you
to read the Gtk source code and understand how things work.

Once you are familiar with Gtk, you just need to learn the Gtk--
conventions for widget wrapping, and you can basically predict the Gtk--
behavior from the Gtk behavior.

Havoc