Re: Glade GUI: changing mechanism

[Philippe Bertin <philippe bertin telenet be>]

Hello, Tristan,

Tristan Van Berkom wrote:

> Why would someone want to go from
>  glade file --> generated code --> GUI
> when you can simply go from
>  glade file --> GUI
> with much less code-generators & generated code  to maintain ?
You're right in some sense. Still, how can one statically prove that the 
created .glade file is *statically* correct ? I mean by this, how can 
the (no longer existing, no longer statically compiled) program be 
proven it would link statically ? I have the impression the user 
interface is kind of linked-in dynamically, at runtime, having libglade 
dynamically parsing the .glade file ?

There's another recent thread on this newslist from a certain leoo. Well 
I think his problematic program compiles but doesn't work because all 
callbacks (specified in his .glade file) aren't available in his 
program. Using code generation I could exclude such a suspiction, for 
instance.

Maybe it's just the libglade doumentation which is not clear enough on 
this issue (or I haven't found it in the last 2 days I've been actively 
trying to figure out libglade usage examples ?). Would there be any good 
documentation one could consult on this issue(s) ?

> That being said - I think that distributing the glade file seperately is
> a cleaner design, as it allows not only users but also developers to 
> update
> the UI without recompiling (allowing for some magic at the packaging
> level), also - typicly apps are installed by a super-user into a 
> read-only
> prefix, generally the glade file - being part of the program's 
> distributed
> files is not user writable.

If shit can happen, it will. In other words: if users can mess up, they 
will. Even root users aren't safe from trying to tamper with fiiles, 
even when told not to do so (provided they have read the README 
altogether)...

What I mean by this is that I would feel a lot more comfortable to have 
my program be confirmed to link and run. In other words : those 
code-generating glade plugins which used to exist must still be around 
somewhere. Where are these to be found ? Provided people are no longer 
feeling being forced to have to use them (call me an exception ;) still 
these plugins must be around somewhere. Where could these eventually be 
found ? I think it is unwise (please do not take this personally, it is 
far from being meant personally) to force users into the direct GUI -> 
glade file concept. The former plugins should, to my feeling, be 
continued to be put available (as a libglade submodule, or give it 
another name, that's a detail). So that one can generate oneself the 
code an prove a .glade file to conceptually work... statically.

Apart from that, I also fail to find documentation on another aspect of 
using glade and libglade : what is the API to provide to write a glade 
plugin (e.g. to be able to create custom widgets with glade) ?

I fear I sound like a libglade critics. I myself don't feel like that 
(apart from a 'positive' libglade critics) : on the contrary, I am 
enthousiasted by the concept. But I do have some questions, which can to 
my feeling all be answered by a good documentation set, which I fail to 
find easily (enough)...

Kind regards,

PhB