A batch of newbie questions.

["' '" <tint14 hotmail com>]

Hello,

I'm new to gtk+, new to developing graphical applications under linux, new 
to developing graphical applications in general, and new to programming 
projects with goals other than learning. I've been interested in programming 
for a long time, I've read several books on C, and I'm comfortable with the 
language, but I don't have any practical experience with the "GNU auto*" 
tools for developing software. I've done my fair share of configure, make, 
make install, but I've never used any of the auto* packages to develop my 
own software.

I think I'm finally ready to take the plunge.

I have an idea for a graphical app I'd like to write. It's a frontend for 
another piece of free software called vcdimager, which currently lacks an 
OSS FE that fully exposes all of its capabilities. Several other apps, good 
and bad, have given me a ideas for the UI and I have a few napkin sketches. 
They're in the process of being refined, but before I jump into writing code 
I have a few technical and non-technical questions that I'd like to pose to 
experienced developers.

Here are my goals for the frontend:

Short term goals:
-Expose the advanced features of the underlying command-line software (VCD 
Imager).
-Present those features in a way that's easy for beginners to learn, but 
that doesn't restrict the activities of more advanced users.
-Interoperate with the gnome desktop, at least to some degree (include a 
launcher icon, at least).

Long term goals:
-Port the application to other operating systems that already run VCD 
Imager.
-Add support for non-English languages. I'm familiar enough with Spanish to 
do that translation myself, but I would like to accept user-submitted 
translations for other languages.
-Investigate and utilize whatever accessibility technologies are available.

Non-goals:
-Support DVD creation. This is a VCD-only tool.

---------------------------------
Here are the questions:

I really like glade from what I've seen so far, but does it generate gtk+ 
2.0/2.2 code? A couple answers to unrelated questions in the glade FAQ 
(http://glade.gnome.org/FAQ) hint that it only generates gtk+ 1.0/1.2 code, 
but there isn't a definitive answer as far as I can tell. If it doesn't, is 
there a similar tool out there that does?

I tried out the Anjuta IDE and at first glance it seems adequate for my 
purposes. It has presets for gtk+ projects so that's a plus. However, when I 
start a new project, it generates makefiles, configure scripts, and other 
things that I'm not yet familiar enough with GNU auto* to identify. Glade 
does this as well. Does that mean they won't play nicely together (e.g. 
overwrite each other's files)?

Anjuta has presets for gtk+ projects. It also has presets for gnome 2.0 
projects and "libglade 2.0" projects. What is the difference between a gtk+ 
project, a gnome 2.0 project, and a "libglade 2.0" project? Are they 
mutually exclusive?

Why is it called a _lib_ glade project? I was under the impression that 
glade was a tool for generating skeleton UI code for gtk+ applications that 
would then link against gtk+ libraries. Do apps designed with glade have to 
link against libglade as well as gtk+? If so, what does libglade provide?

Just from playing around with glade, it seems that writing a "gnome" app 
means writing a gtk+ app that uses any number of gnome-specific components. 
Is this correct?

Do any of my software choices (Anjuta, glade, GNU auto*) or library 
dependencies (gtk+ 2.0, gnome2 [?], libglade [?]) limit my ability to write 
a portable/localizable program?

I've downloaded and read the GNOME Human Interface Guidelines. Is there 
anything else along that line that I should read before getting started? Is 
there anything else I should read in general?

Any other suggestions or comments?


Thank you very much for your time,

Eric


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