Re: GTK help for newbie noob

["Adam Bloom" <admanb edmondsforum com>]

Hey,

This is the opinion of a fellow newb, but I think it may help.

Looking at GTK as it if were C can be very confusing, because GTK
doesn't make much sense from a pure-C perspective. GTK is a pseudo-OO
language, so thinking of the syntax as a very mangled form of Python
or C++ may help.

So a call such as (from the GTK tutorial: http://www.gtk.org/tutorial/c39.html)

window = gtk_window_new (GTK_WINDOW_TOPLEVEL);

Can be thought of as an object creator. A signal:

g_signal_connect (G_OBJECT (window), "delete_event",
		      G_CALLBACK (delete_event), NULL);
		
Is sort of like a dynamic method creator. Give the object (window) a
new method that activates on a "delete_event" and calls the function
delete_event.

You said:

> I am trying to work my way through the pygtk tutorial but I feel like I am
> just memorizing bit and pieces of information without understand the
> underlying rules.

Honestly, that's fine. As you memorize bits and pieces, the underlying
rules will start to come into focus. You'll start to see patterns, and
once you know a few patterns you'll be able to look at something
unfamiliar and say, "We'll, I know what this bit means, and this looks
like that other thing." Anything you still don't recognize is just an
API document away.

That's my two cents.

-Adam

> Thanks for your time Mariano.
>
> I am not sure if I am using the correct terminology here. By syntax I mean
> the grammar of the language. Since GTK is written in C I tried reading
> through some tutorials on C syntax to get an understanding of how the
> language is laid out. I was not really able to see the correlation between
> the C syntax and GTK's.
>
> I am trying to work my way through the pygtk tutorial but I feel like I am
> just memorizing bit and pieces of information without understand the
> underlying rules.
>
> The problem here may be that I am a dumbass. I will try to continue
> studying.
>
> Thanks again-Patrick
>
>
>
> Mariano Suárez-Alvarez-2 wrote:
> >
> > On Mon, 2007-02-19 at 09:55 -0800, NewbieNoob wrote:
> >> Hi There
> >>
> >> I am just learning GTK.
> >>
> >> I don't quite get the basic "building blocks" of GTK.
> >>
> >> Is there a reference or tutorial out there that focuses on the syntax in
> >> a
> >> systematic way?
> >
> > I don0t really understand what you mean by syntax here, but...
> >
> > There is a tutorial oriented to C at <http://www.gtk.org/tutorial/> and
> > another one, oriented towards python, at
> > <http://www.pygtk.org/pygtk2tutorial/index.html>.
> >
> > (If you google for "gtk tutorial" you get these two links, and the ones
> > for Perl, Ruby, and Ocaml among tyhe first few results. Remember: Google
> > is your friend)
> >
> > -- m
> >
> >
> > --
> > Mariano Suárez-Alvarez
> > http://www.gnome.org/~mariano
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > gtk-list mailing list
> > gtk-list gnome org
> > http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gtk-list
> >
> >
>
> --
> View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/GTK-help-for-newbie-noob-tf3254228.html#a9047223
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>
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