Considering you have read the previous article on GUI programming, this article will give an insight about GTK.

When starting learning Glade, it is essential to learn the basic concepts of GTK+. Unfortunately there is a misconception that it’s enough to learn Glade for learning GUI designing rather than learning GTK+. Glade is definitely an easier way to implement GTK but it is impossible to create interface for your application with only Glade knowledge.

Official GTK+ tutorial is the best place to learn the Basic things about GTK+. Though reading the entire documentation may seem to be a herculean task, it would good to cover important topics like packing of widgets. After having a basic knowledge about GTK+, next step is having a look at the official Glade3 manual. Version that is supplied with Glade3 is outdated,you can find a simpler and more updated one here.

Now if you think, you are well and comfortable with GTK+ Basics, you will definitely want to try a real world example. Many authors provide tutorials with real world examples. I managed to find out two such, one by Micah carrick and other by Tadej Borovšak. It would be better to follow Tadej’s Tutorial as the former one does not use Glade3-3.6.7 which is latest version. Anyway you can also give a look at the tutorial by Micah. Now when you start seriously with GTK programming, never forget to visit GTK Forum for getting your doubts cleared.

Now if you are ready to spend a few bucks try to get a copy of  Foundations Of GTK development.

Here are a few other resources which would with worth giving a look though I haven’t tried them personally.

Tutorial for How to set the colour of a widget in GTK+
Tutorial

Gtk+ 2.0 Tree View tutorial
Tutorial Pdf

Gtk+ 2.0 Text View tutorial
Tutorial Pdf

Gtk+ 2.0 GtkComboBox Widget Tutorial
Part1
Part 2
Part 3

GtkDialog tutorial
Part 1
Part 2

Wrapping and resizing GtkLabel dynamically
Tutorial

Using pop-up windows
Tutorial

Gtk memory management in a nutshell
Tutorial
Gtk Menu Tutorial
Tutorial

It’s a dream of every noob that even before coding the first “Hello World” program, student want to know how to code an OS. Dreams are good but this is harder than one can image. If you are so strong with your dream, rather than thinking of coding your OS from scratch better you try building your own Arch. Arch Linux is a fully customizable, light weight operating system. The CD image can be downloaded. But this is actually a very slim installation and it’s not at all usable. You will have to install the window manager, desktop environment and everything else you see on a full fledged operating system.

One of the main disadvantage of Arch Linux is it’s cryptic text based installer. So better you watch some video and get familiarised with the instalation procedure.

Here are a few video tutorials for the installation and customization of Arch Linux.

Here you have a very simple javascript code that enables you to reveal typed-in or saved passwords in a webpage that are hidden under asterix.

This a cool code which unlike other password revealing softwares require no installation and can be typed in directly into the address bar of your web browser.

Copy the entire code as it is

javascript:(
function()
{
var F,f,i;
F = document.forms;
f = F[0];
for (i=0; i<f.length; ++i)
{
if (f[i].type.toLowerCase() == "password")
alert(f[i].value);
}
}
)
();


Checkout the following Screenshot

PS :

1.In line 7, it is F[0] (zero)

2.This will only work if you have not disabled javascript in your browser.

Wikipedia defines man pages as “extensive documentation that comes preinstalled with almost all substantial Unix and Unix-like operating systems”. Just as the definition goes sometimes the documentation is so extensive that you are unable to find the data you need.

Actually it’s not a big deal to find a particular word. You would have noticed that the usual Ctrl+F won’t work here.

For finding a particular word just access the man pages by man command.

Then for finding a particular ‘word’ type /word followed by Enter.

Now the first word will be highlighted. For the finding the instances of that word in next pages of the man page press Space and the ‘word’ in the next page will be highlighted. That’s it.

This same method also  can also  be used in vi for searching words.

Here is an example.

Weeks ago when I was trying to setup Ubuntu in my pc for the first time, installing new software you need in your new pc would be a impossible process without internet or any Repository DVDs. I managed to get a few resources from net and here I will explain it as a step by step procedure. First you should have another computer which is well connected to the internet or you should have an APTonCD created by someone. Once you install the required softwares with the help of internet connected PC, you could backup all the packages into a CD for using next time.

When do you think you are ready for creating your own application? You have to be good enough with coding but obviously that is not enough. The applications which you are creating for your targeted users, be it commercially or just for fun sake, need not be professional coders but are mere end users. The users want the developers to build applications that meet their needs and also help with it the easiest way. You needn’t be an artist for creating the best interfaces but should be able to deliver what the users want the easiest way.

GTK and Qt ,the same toolkits behind GNOME and KDE, are the best graphical toolkits fit for this job. Providing the same functionality they have their own advantages and disadvantages.

The GTK+ toolkit, otherwise known as the GIMP toolkit is coded in C but has got bindings for just all of the favourite languages programmers speak nowadays. Ruby-gtk2, PyGTK, Gtk# are just a few to name. The GNOME desktop utilities are built on GTK+ libraries. The popular music player – Banshee, Photo Organizer – F-spot, Evolution – official personal information manager and workgroup information management tool for GNOME, popular IM client – Pidgin are just a few of the popular Linux Based applications built with GTK+ libraries and it’s various bindings. The code for the interface of your application actually consists of pages of codes but now the coding the interface has been simplified with various tools like Glade for GTK+. These GUI builders help in easily designing the interface without having it code it manually. Glade gives output as what is referred to as a “glade file” which is actually an XML file which describes the heirachy of the widgets comprising the interface. The most interesting aspect of GTK is the GNU LGPL 2.1 which binds it ( not GPL ). This allows development of both free and proprietary software with GTK+ without any license fees or royalties.

Qt is another popular cross-platform application development framework, widely used for the development of GUI programs. Originally released by Trolltech now it’s development is controlled by Nokia’s Qt Development Frameworks division after Nokia’s recent acquisition.Google Earth, KDE, Opera, OPIE, VoxOx, Skype, VLC media player and VirtualBox are a few of the popular applications with Qt. Qt is implemented in C++  and it has got full fledged support libraries  for database manipulation, multimedia operations, OpenGL graphics, scripting, Web-based programming through WebKit and not just GUI construction. Qt comes with a load of developer tools in it’s kitty including Qt Designer GUI designer, Qt Linquist, Qt Assistant and QMake for building and distribution of software packages.

In my next post I will be discussing about getting started in GUI development with GTK and Glade.