153 lines
7.2 KiB
HTML
153 lines
7.2 KiB
HTML
<!--startcut ==============================================-->
|
|
<!-- *** BEGIN HTML header *** -->
|
|
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN">
|
|
<HTML><HEAD>
|
|
<title>Linux Site O' The Month: Glade LG #52</title>
|
|
</HEAD>
|
|
<BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#000000" LINK="#0000FF" VLINK="#0000AF"
|
|
ALINK="#FF0000">
|
|
<!-- *** END HTML header *** -->
|
|
|
|
<!-- *** BEGIN navbar *** -->
|
|
<A HREF="index.html"><IMG ALT="[ Table of Contents ]"
|
|
SRC="../gx/indexnew.gif" WIDTH=163 HEIGHT=60 ALIGN=bottom ></A>
|
|
<A HREF="../index.html"><IMG ALT="[ Front Page ]"
|
|
SRC="../gx/homenew.gif" WIDTH=163 HEIGHT=60 ALIGN=bottom></A>
|
|
<A HREF="correa.html"><IMG ALT="[ Prev ]" SRC="../gx/back2.gif" WIDTH=41 HEIGHT=60 ALIGN=bottom></A>
|
|
<A HREF="../faq/index.html"><IMG ALT="[ Linux Gazette FAQ ]"
|
|
SRC="./../gx/dennis/faq.gif"WIDTH=163 HEIGHT=60 ALIGN=bottom></A>
|
|
<A HREF="okopnik.html"><IMG ALT="[ Next ]" SRC="../gx/fwd.gif" WIDTH=41 HEIGHT=60 ALIGN=bottom ></A>
|
|
<!-- *** END navbar *** -->
|
|
<P>
|
|
<A HREF="http://www.linuxgazette.com/cgi-bin/talkback/all.py?site=LG&article=http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue52/lamb.html">
|
|
<FONT SIZE="+2"><EM>Talkback:</EM> Discuss this article with peers</FONT></A>
|
|
|
|
<!--endcut ============================================================-->
|
|
|
|
<H4>
|
|
"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"
|
|
</H4>
|
|
|
|
<P> <HR> <P>
|
|
<!--===================================================================-->
|
|
|
|
<center>
|
|
<H1><font color="maroon">Linux Site O' The Month: Glade</font></H1>
|
|
<H4>By <a href="mailto:slambo@linuxstart.com">Sean Lamb</a></H4>
|
|
</center>
|
|
<P> <HR> <P>
|
|
|
|
<!-- END header -->
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
<H2>What's This?</H2>
|
|
|
|
<P> This article is the the current installment in an ongoing series of site
|
|
reviews for the Linux community. Each month, I will highlight a Linux-related
|
|
site and tell you all about it. The intent of these articles is to let you
|
|
know about sites that you might not have been to before, but they will all have
|
|
to do with some aspect of Linux. Now, on with the story...
|
|
|
|
<H2>Glade (<a href="http://glade.pn.org/"><tt>http://glade.pn.org/</tt></a>)</H2>
|
|
|
|
<P>Linux, and UN*X in general, rocks the command line. However, as more users familiar
|
|
with that <i>other</i> operating system migrate to a real operating system, they expect
|
|
to see a graphical interface on almost everything. You may argue that this is a Bad
|
|
Thing, but as a programmer myself, I see this as a Good Thing. It means that more and
|
|
more programs will need to be written, updated and maintained, which translates to job
|
|
security.
|
|
|
|
<P>With users migrating from another windowing system, they expect to find programs that
|
|
have a windowing interface. Even with the advantage that there is almost always more
|
|
than one way to do something in Linux, the choice of windowing libraries to use can very
|
|
quickly generate a religious war, so I'll try not to spread any of my own preferences in
|
|
this area, lest I become a target myself.
|
|
|
|
<P>Until recently, it has been difficult to write a completely windows-driven (note the
|
|
lack of capitalization here) user interface from scratch. Writing an interface with a
|
|
text editor and compiler can be exceedingly time consuming for a programmer who isn't
|
|
intimitely knowledgeable about the windowing library. That's where Glade comes in.
|
|
|
|
<h3>The program...</h3>
|
|
|
|
<P>Glade is an attempt to create an interface builder that uses the GTK+ library to
|
|
create the widgets that the programmer needs for an application. If you have the
|
|
GNOME development libraries installed, Glade can produce native GNOME application
|
|
interfaces as well. Once you get used to creating and placing widgets in Glade, you
|
|
can create some very complex interfaces in a manner of minutes.
|
|
|
|
<P>When the interface is the way that you like, Glade can create the source code for
|
|
you in either C, C++, Ada95, Python and Perl. Glade will also allow you to create a
|
|
dynamically loaded interface that uses libGlade to read and build the screen definitions
|
|
without generating source code (this can be handy for writing quick dialog boxes or
|
|
informational windows).
|
|
|
|
<P>Although Glade is currently still in development, now at version 0.5.7, my testing
|
|
proved this to be a robust application that was able to create the interface that I wanted
|
|
with a minimum of troubles.
|
|
|
|
<h3>The website...</h3>
|
|
|
|
<P>This wouldn't be a Linux Site O' The Month without a look at the website, so let's take
|
|
a closer look...
|
|
|
|
<P>At first glance, the Glade website isn't the most exciting site on the internet. But,
|
|
that's not necessarily a Bad Thing. With a minimum of graphic elements on the main page, it
|
|
is a very fast-loading site, compared to others that I've seen recently. The site is
|
|
frameless, which I am tending to like more as I see frames so misused on other sites.
|
|
|
|
<P>The Features section of this site includes screenshots of the three windows that make up
|
|
the Glade interface as well as some sample images of interfaces that were created with Glade.
|
|
The Download page includes the usual list of source code tarballs and a few prebuilt packages
|
|
for some of the more popular distros. The developer has included both the release history
|
|
and todo list for Glade in the History and ToDo sections, respectively. If your mailbox isn't
|
|
quite full enough yet, you can get your fill under the Mailing Lists link. Finally, in the
|
|
Links section, there are links to information and tools that use or support Glade, while the
|
|
Applications section highlights apps that were built with Glade.
|
|
|
|
<P>This isn't a very big website, but what it lacks in size, it makes up in content. There
|
|
is enough information on this site to help you get Glade installed on your box, get you started
|
|
building applications with it, and get you examples of other programs that were created with
|
|
it. If you've been thinking of building an application for Linux but don't know where to start
|
|
in building your interface, try Glade. You'll be surprised at how easy it can be to get down
|
|
to writing the code that controls your program and not worry about how it connects to the
|
|
user's rodential device pointer.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
<!-- *** BEGIN copyright *** -->
|
|
<P> <hr> <!-- P -->
|
|
<H5 ALIGN=center>
|
|
|
|
Copyright © 2000, Sean Lamb<BR>
|
|
Published in Issue 52 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, April 2000</H5>
|
|
<!-- *** END copyright *** -->
|
|
|
|
<!--startcut ==========================================================-->
|
|
<!-- P --> <HR> <!-- P -->
|
|
<A HREF="http://www.linuxgazette.com/cgi-bin/talkback/all.py?site=LG&article=http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue52/lamb.html">
|
|
<FONT SIZE="+2"><EM>Talkback:</EM> Discuss this article with peers</FONT></A>
|
|
<P>
|
|
<!-- *** BEGIN navbar *** -->
|
|
<A HREF="index.html"><IMG ALT="[ Table of Contents ]"
|
|
SRC="../gx/indexnew.gif" WIDTH=163 HEIGHT=60 ALIGN=bottom ></A>
|
|
<A HREF="../index.html"><IMG ALT="[ Front Page ]"
|
|
SRC="../gx/homenew.gif" WIDTH=163 HEIGHT=60 ALIGN=bottom></A>
|
|
<A HREF="correa.html"><IMG ALT="[ Prev ]" SRC="../gx/back2.gif" WIDTH=41 HEIGHT=60 ALIGN=bottom></A>
|
|
<A HREF="../faq/index.html"><IMG ALT="[ Linux Gazette FAQ ]"
|
|
SRC="./../gx/dennis/faq.gif"WIDTH=163 HEIGHT=60 ALIGN=bottom></A>
|
|
<A HREF="okopnik.html"><IMG ALT="[ Next ]" SRC="../gx/fwd.gif" WIDTH=41 HEIGHT=60 ALIGN=bottom ></A>
|
|
<!-- *** END navbar *** -->
|
|
</BODY></HTML>
|
|
<!--endcut ============================================================-->
|