Re: [gnome-love] Things that make you go "What in the world is That?!?"

[Elijah Newren <newren math utah edu>]

While Paolo has commented on this, I do have a few extra comments...

On Mon, 2004-05-24 at 17:35, Chris Kelso wrote:
<snip>
> Basic things in glib get me stuck.
  ^^^^^^^^^^^^

>   Such as gobject.
    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

I'm going to have to disagree with you  on gobject being an example of a
basic thing.  It's purpose is to make it easy to create binding to gtk+
in other languages.  Unless you are writing language bindings yourself
or doing something else advanced in gtk+, I think beginners can mostly
ignore gobject (signal connection being the major example that they
can't ignore).

Of course, I'm only a beginner myself (I have told others that my
tutorial was just an attempt by the blind to lead the blind, and have
tried to use that as an excuse to get some experts to review it), so
maybe there really are examples that I'm unaware of...  Any of the
experts on the list want to comment?

> I have yet to 
> see a guide which can explain it to me in terms of c++ or java or 
> what-have-you.  How do interfaces work in the system.  How do I know all 
> the things I should include in a new class.  I have seen two guides on 
> this and neither of the relate to a more familiar OOP langauge.

Is that needed?  As far as I remember, nothing in the gtkmm tutorial
mentions gobject.  (gtkmm is the set of c++ language bindings for gtk,
more info can be found at www.gtkmm.org)  Perhaps you could describe in
more detail what you're trying to do and someone else can help you out. 
:-)    (I would try to help, but I definitely don't know any details
about gobject)

>   Another thing I have been wrestling with lately is GtkListStore.  How 
> the heck do I use these?

If you're thinking in terms of c++, then
http://www.gtkmm.org/docs/gtkmm-2.4/docs/tutorial/html/ch08s07.html also
provides an example that may be of use to you.  Of course, Paolo also
provided another in his email already, aimed at C.

...  I think I should probably add the links Paolo mentioned to my
tutorial as well.  Federico told me he'll be writing up something on
Drag and Drop, and a link to it could go in the same section.

>   Lastly I am still completely bewildered by internationalization , i.e. 
> the _ macro.

Yeah, I was too for a while.  After reading up on it, there's really not
all that much to it.  It (and the N_ and L_ macros) were things I was
planning on adding to my "What in the world is That?" chapter, though
I'm not sure where or how to add it yet.

> I really excited to be working on the gnome project, It is just a pain 
> in the rear to get started.

I couldn't agree more.  If you have any suggestions on how to fix this,
feel free to send them to me.  My tutorial is one attempt to help fix
this, but I'm sure there's more things we need to do as well.


Cheers,
Elijah