C++/Gtkmm/XML compared to C#/WPF/XAML

[Bill William <wm2015email gmail com>]

I'm wondering if there are any examples online somewhere on how to code XML describing the GUI objects in an gtkmm program, similar to the way that WPF/XAML with C#. 

C#/WPF example:

<Grid>
  <Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
    <ColumnDefinition Width="2*" />
    <ColumnDefinition Width="1*" />
    <ColumnDefinition Width="1*" />
  </Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
  <Grid.RowDefinitions>
    <RowDefinition Height="2*" />
    <RowDefinition Height="1*" />
    <RowDefinition Height="1*" />
  </Grid.RowDefinitions>
  <Button>Button 1</Button>
  <Button Grid.Column="1">Button 2</Button>
  <Button Grid.Column="2">Button 3</Button>
  <Button Grid.Row="1">Button 4</Button>
  <Button Grid.Column="1" Grid.Row="1">Button 5</Button>
  <Button Grid.Column="2" Grid.Row="1">Button 6</Button>
  <Button Grid.Row="2">Button 7</Button>
  <Button Grid.Column="1" Grid.Row="2">Button 8</Button>
  <Button Grid.Column="2" Grid.Row="2">Button 9</Button>
</Grid>

I really like the way you can just code WPF XAML in C# without needing the GUI tool to draw the gui similar to a gnome "glade tool" tool... really wish gtkmm would specific an XML language for specifying the instantiation of gtkmm GUI objects without the need of glade,  I'm think the way that Adobe Dreamweaver works, and the way SharpDeveloper works,  you get an HTML or XAML code window and you can directly code the XML code describing your gui and then switch back and forth bewteen preview and XML code to see how your GUI is rendering... I find this way of developing GUI's workers really well,it makes your code inherently easier to maintain because its similar to HTML...Really wish glade and GTKMM would get together and clone this aspect of C#/WPF in a way similar to SharpDeveloper.

The problem I have with all these GUI automation tools like glade, etc... is that they are all based on the old winforms model ofdragging and dropping everything with a graphical tool with X,Y coordinates...  which I think just is messy and makes your code turn into spagetti...epecially the old win32/winforms approach in C#....  I think glade and gtkmm needs to move beyond that and adopt a SharpDeveloper/WPF/C#/XAML approach to defining the GUI.