Re: [Java-gnome-developer] GUI Building Differences

[Darko O. <dob...@gm...>]

Am 09.11.2003 20:46 schrieb(en) ACJT:
> Hi,
> This might seem like a dumb question, but I thought it would clarify
> things for me :)

Asking never hurts. ;)

> Now I've not much experience with gnome development at all, but I =20
> have
> been poking about in glade. So with glade, you can create a gnome
> project, or a gtk project. Is this related to the differences in =20
> java-gnome?

Gnome extends GTK in several ways, the main one regarding your question =20
being libgnomeui, where you get some more widgets. Glade and Java-Gnome =20
both offer you:
- to use strictly and only GTK+ (some people don't like gnome-=20
dependencies for their application) or
- to use the full spectrum of the gnome-libs. For Glade you'll notice =20
the extra set of widgets you can use then, especially the GnomeApp, =20
which should be the base widget of any Gnome-Application.

> I thought it was excellent to be able to build interfaces with glade.
> However it appears as though (based on the documentation on java-=20
> gnome
> web site) that using glade is not the main method - or even that =20
> using
> glade will not tie in with development based on java-gnome.
>=20
> I guess I'm asking if there are really two distinct and separate
> approaches - plain gtk using glade for example, and gnome that has to =20
> be
> coded completely by hand?

Above I've talked about GTK+-only vs. Gnome, your next question has =20
nothing to do with that. For "programming" an app, you have the choice =20
to code the GUI by hand or to use glade, for both, gtk and gnome.
Java-Gnome uses GladeXML, which is quite language-independent, so it =20
basicly ties to java-gnome as well as to C or C++.
Code generation is not supported, but that's ugly anyways. ;)

> One of the things that I thought was great (and missing from java dev
> land) is a good gui builder, and glade provides that, lets you define
> your signals etc. But I get a feeling that java-gnome is down a
> different path than what is provided by libglade??

So no, it's using libglade appropriately. Although I don't think auto-=20
connecting signals is possible, it's quite C(++)-specific, but I might =20
be wrong here.

Hope that helps a little, bye,

Darko Obradovic