START-INFO-DIR-ENTRY
* GtkAda_Ug: (gtkada_ug).           Ada95 graphical tookit based on GTK+ (User's Guide)
END-INFO-DIR-ENTRY

GtkAda User's Guide
*******************

   GtkAda User's Guide

   GtkAda, the Ada 95 graphical toolkit

   Version 2.4.0

   Date: 2004/07/15 22:23:44

   Copyright (C) 1998-2000, Emmanuel Briot, Joel Brobecker, Arnaud
Charlet

   Copyright (C) 2000-2003, ACT-Europe

   This document may be copied, in whole or in part, in any form or by
any means, as is or with alterations, provided that (1) alterations are
clearly marked as alterations and (2) this copyright notice is included
unmodified in any copy.

Introduction: What is GtkAda ?
******************************

GtkAda is a high-level portable graphical toolkit, based on the gtk+
toolkit, one of the official GNU toolkits. It makes it easy to create
portable user interfaces for multiple platforms, including most
platforms that have a X11 server and Win32 platforms.

   Although it is based on a C library, GtkAda uses some advanced Ada95
features like tagged types, generic packages, access to subprograms,
exceptions, etc... to make it easier to use and design interfaces.  For
efficiency reasons, it does not use controlled types, but takes care of
all the memory management for you in other ways.

   As a result, this library provides a secure, easy to use and
extensible toolkit.

   Compared to the C library, GtkAda provides type safety (especially
in the callbacks area), and object-oriented programming. As opposed to
common knowledge, it requires less type casting than with in C.  Its
efficiency is about the same as the C library through the use of inline
subprograms.

   GtkAda comes with a complete integration to the graphical interface
builder `Glade'(1). This makes it even easier to develop interfaces,
since you just have to click to create a window and all the dialogs.
Ada code can then be generated with a single click.

   GtkAda also has a full support for OpenGL, and comes with a very thin
binding to the OpenGL (`Mesa') libraries. You can thus create graphical
applications that display 3D graphics, and display them in a GtkAda
window, as with any other 2D graphics. This manual does not document
OpenGL at all, see any book on OpenGL, or the specification that came
with your OpenGL library, for more information.

   The following Internet sites will always contain the latest public
packages for `GtkAda', `gtk+' and `Glade'.

   `http://libre.act-europe.fr/GtkAda'

   `http://www.gtk.org'

   `http://glade.gnome.org'

   The scheme used for GtkAda's version numbers is the following: the
major version number is the same as for the underlying gtk+ library
(e.g 1.2 or 1.3). Thus, stable versions of GtkAda will have even major
numbers, and development versions (potentially less stable, although we
are trying to make sure that no big problem exists in those versions)
will have odd version numbers. The minor version numbers depends on
GtkAda's release number.

   This documentation is distributed with GtkAda version 2.4.0. At this
stage, every widget found in gtk+ 2.2 has been implemented, and the
test program found in the gtk release has been fully coded in Ada (have
a look at the `testgtk/' directory in the distribution).

   This toolkit was tested on the following systems:
   * GNU Linux/x86

   * Solaris/sparc

   * Tru64

   * HP/UX

   * NT 4.0

   * Windows 2000

   * Windows XP

   with the latest version of the `GNAT' compiler, developed and
supported by Ada Core Technologies (see `http://www.gnat.com').

   If you manage to use it on other systems (which should probably be
straightforward - just recompile GtkAda), please let us know so that we
can add to the above list.

   This version of GtkAda is known to be compatible with `gtk+' 2.2.1
through 2.4.4.  This release is no longer compatible with older
versions of gtk+.

   This version of GtkAda is compatible with `Glade' version 2.0.0.
Due to some modification in the output format of Glade, this release
will not work with older versions. It is also not guaranteed to work
with more recent versions.

   This document does not describe all the widgets available in GtkAda,
nor does it try to explain all the subprograms. The GtkAda Reference
Manual provides this documentation instead, as well as the GtkAda
sources spec files themselves, whose extension is `.ads'.

   No complete example is provided in this documentation. Instead,
please refer to the examples that you can find in the `testgtk/' and
`examples/' directory in the GtkAda distribution, since these are more
up-to-date (and more extensive).  They are heavily commented, and are
likely to contain a lot of information that you might find interesting.

   If you are interested in getting support for GtkAda (including
priority bug fixes, early releases, help in using the toolkit, help in
designing your interface, on site consulting...), please contact ACT
Europe (`mailto:sales@act-europe.fr') or Ada Core Technologies
(`mailto:sales@gnat.com').

   ---------- Footnotes ----------

   (1) Glade was written by Damon Chaplin

Getting started with GtkAda
***************************

This chapter describes how to start a new GtkAda application. It
explains the basic features of the toolkit, and shows how to compile
and run your application.

   It also gives a brief overview of the extensive widget hierarchy
available in GtkAda.

How to build and install GtkAda
===============================

This section explains how to build and install GtkAda on your machine.
It is Unix-oriented, since GtkAda is distributed in binary format on
Windows machines, and comes with all the dependent packages, including
the gtk+ libraries and `Glade'. If you are a Windows-user, you should
skip this section.

   On Unix systems, you first need to install the glib and gtk+
libraries. Download the compatible packages from the gtk+ web site
(<http://www.gtk.org>, compile and install it.  When compiling glib,
make sure that the support for multithreading is enabled (this is the
default, and can be enforced with the `--enable-threads' and
`--with-threads' command line switches.

   Change your PATH environment variable so that the script
`gtk-config', which indicates where gtk+ was installed and what
libraries it needs is automatically found by GtkAda. You will no longer
need this script once GtkAda is installed, unless you develop part of
your application in C.

   OpenGL support will not be activated in GtkAda unless you already
have the OpenGL libraries on your systems. You can for instance look at
Mesa, which is free implementation.

   Optionally, you can also install the `Glade' interface builder. Get
the compatible package from the Glade web site, compile and install it.
The official version already knows about Ada (at least enough to call
GtkAda's own programs), so no patch is needed.

   You can finally download the latest version of GtkAda from the web
site.  Untar and uncompress the package, then simply do the following
steps:
     > ./configure
     > make install

   As usual with the `configure' script, you can specify where you want
to install the GtkAda libraries by using the `--prefix' switch.

   If you have some OpenGL libraries installed on your system, you can
make sure that `configure' finds them by specifying the
`--with-GL-prefix' switch on the command line. `configure' should be
able to automatically detect the libraries however.

   You must then make sure that the system will be able to find the
dynamic libraries at run time if your application uses them. Typically,
you would do one of the following:
   * run `ldconfig' if you installed GtkAda in one of the standard
     location and you are super-user on your machine

   * edit `/etc/ld.conf' if you are super-user but did not install
     GtkAda in one of the standard location. Add the path that contains
      libgtkada.so (by default `/usr/local/lib' or `$prefix/lib'.

   * modify your `LD_LIBRARY_PATH' environment variable if you are
     not super-user. You should simply add the path to libgtkada.

Organization of the GtkAda package
==================================

   In addition to the full sources, the GtkAda package contains a lot of
heavily commented examples. If you haven't been through those examples,
we really recommend that you look at them and try to understand them,
since they contain some examples of code that you might find
interesting for your own application.

   * `testgtk/' directory:

     This directory contains an application that tests all the widgets
     in GtkAda.  It gives you a quick overview of what can be found in
     the toolkit, as well as some detailed information on the widgets
     and their parameters.

     Each demo is associated with contextual help pointing to aspects
     worth studying.

     It also contains an OpenGL demo, if GtkAda was compiled with
     support for OpenGL.

     This program is far more extensive that its C counterpart, and the
     GtkAda team has added a lot of new examples.

   * `examples/' directory:

     This directory contains some small examples, unrelated to testgtk.
     For instance, this is where you will find some sample XML files
     for `Gate' and `Dgate', as well as some new widgets created
     directly in Ada, as examples of how to create your own callback
     marshallers.

     On the whole these examples are a little more complex than testgtk
     but, since they focus on demonstrating a precise concept, they are
     still quite easy to understand.

   * `docs/' directory:

     It contains the html, info, text and TeX versions of the
     documentation you are currently reading. Note that the
     documentation is divided into two subdirectories, one containing
     the user guide, which you are currently reading, the other
     containing the reference manual, which gives detailed information
     on all the widgets found in GtkAda. The docs directory also
     contains a subdirectory with some slides that were used to present
     GtkAda at various shows.


How to compile an application with GtkAda
=========================================

   This section explains how you can compile your own applications.
The procedure is system-dependent, and thus is divided into two
subsections.

Unix systems
------------

On Unix systems, a script called `gtkada-config' is automatically
created when you build GtkAda. This script is copied in a subdirectory
`bin/' in the installation directory.

   The easiest and recommended way to build a GtkAda application is to
use the `gnatmake' program distributed with GNAT, that takes care of
all the dependencies for you. Use the `gtkada-config' to specify where
GtkAda and gtk+ libraries have been installed.

     > gnatmake <main-file> `gtkada-config`

   Note the use of back-ticks around gtkada-config, which force the
shell to evaluate the script and put the output on the command line.

   However, on complex systems, gnatmake might not be enough. Users
frequently like to create `Makefile's. The script `gtkada-config'
remains useful in that case, since you can call it from your Makefile
(same syntax as above with the back-ticks) to create variables like
FLAGS and LIBS. See the switches of `gtkada-config' below for more
information.

   The script `gtkada-config' understands the following command line
switches (chosen to be compatible with the ones set by `gtk-config'):

   * `--cflags': Output only the compiler flags, i.e the  include
     directories where the GtkAda spec files are found. This should be
     used   if you only want to compile your files, but do not want to
     bind or link   them.

   * `--libs': Output only the switches for the linker. This lists
     the directories where all the GtkAda, gtk+, and dependant
     libraries are   found. For instance, if GtkAda was compiled with
     support for OpenGL,   the OpenGL libraries will automatically be
     present.

   * `--static': Forces linking with the static gtkada library. This
     option will still use the dynamic gtk+ libraries.

Windows systems
---------------

   Things are somewhat easier on Windows systems. You don't have access
to the `gtkada-config' script. On the other hang you also don't have to
specify which libraries to use or where to find them.

   The only thing you should specify on the `gnatmake' command line is
where the GtkAda spec files are found, as in:

     > gnatmake <main-file> -Ic:\gtkada\include\gtkada

   if GtkAda was installed under `c:\gtkada'.

Architecture of the toolkit
===========================

The gtk+ toolkit has been designed from the beginning to be portable.
It is made of three libraries, `gtk', `gdk' and `glib'.

   `Glib' is a non-graphical library, that includes support for lists,
h-tables, threads, etc... It is a highly optimized,
platform-independent library. Since most of its contents are already
available in Ada (or in the `GNAT.*' hierarchy in the GNAT
distribution), GtkAda does not include a binding to it, except for a few
required packages. These are the `Glib.*' packages in the GtkAda
distribution.

   `Gdk' is the platform-dependent part of gtk+. Its implementation is
completely different on win32 systems and X11 systems, although the
interface is of course the same. It provides a set of functions to draw
lines, rectangles and pixmaps on the screen, manipulate colors, etc...
It has a complete equivalent in GtkAda, through the `Gdk.*' packages.

   `Gtk' is the top level library. It is platform independent, and does
all its drawing through calls to Gdk. This is where the high-level
widgets are defined. It also includes support for callbacks. Its
equivalent in the GtkAda libraries are the `Gtk.*' packages. It is made
of a fully object-oriented hierarchy of widgets (see *Note Widgets
Hierarchy::).

   Since your application only calls GtkAda, it is fully portable, and
can be recompiled as-is on other platforms.

     +---------------------------------------------+
     |             Your Application                |
     +---------------------------------------------+
     |                 GtkAda                      |
     |               +-----------------------------+
     |               |            GTK              |
     |       +-------+-----------------------------+
     |       |           GDK                       |
     +-------+--------------+--+-------------------+
     |          GLIB        |  | X-Window / Win32  |
     +----------------------+  +-------------------+

   Although the packages have been evolving a lot since the first
versions of GtkAda, the specs are stabilizing now. We will try as much
as possible to provide backward compatibility whenever possible.

   Since GtkAda is based on gtk+ we have tried to stay as close to it
as possible while using high-level features of the Ada95 language. It is
thus relatively easy to convert external examples from C to Ada.

   We have tried to adopt a consistent naming scheme for Ada
identifiers:
   * The widget names are the same as in C, except that an underscore
     sign (_) is used to separate words, e.g
          Gtk_Button   Gtk_Color_Selection_Dialog

   * Because of a clash between Ada keywords and widget names, there
     are two exceptions to the above general rule:
          Gtk.GEntry.Gtk_Entry   Gtk.GRange.Gtk_Range

   * The function names are the same as in  C, ignoring the leading
     `gtk_' and the widget name, e.g
          gtk_misc_set_padding        =>  Gtk.Misc.Set_Padding
          gtk_toggle_button_set_state =>  Gtk.Toggle_Button.Set_State

   * Most enum types have been grouped in the `gtk-enums.ads' file

   * Some features have been implemented as generic packages. These are
     the timeout functions (see Gtk.Main.Timeout), the idle functions
     (see Gtk.Main.Idle), and the data that can be attached to any
     object (see Gtk.Object.User_Data). Type safety is ensured through
     these generic packages.

   * Callbacks were the most difficult thing to interface with. These
     are extremely powerful and versatile, since the callbacks can have
     any number of arguments, can return values, or not,etc... These
     are once again implemented as generic packages, that require more
     explanation (*note Signal handling::).


   WARNING: all the generic packages allocate some memory for internal
structures, and call internal functions. This memory is freed by gtk
itself, by calling some Ada functions. Therefore the generic packages
have to be instanciated at library level, not inside a subprogram, so
that the functions are still defined when gtk needs to free the memory.

   WARNING Before any other call to the GtkAda library is performed,
`Gtk.Main.Init' must be invoked first. Most of the time, this procedure
is invoked from the main procedure of the application, in which case no
use of GtkAda can be done during the application elaboration.

Widgets Hierarchy
=================

All widgets in `GtkAda' are implemented as tagged types. They all have
a common ancestor, called `Gtk.Object.Gtk_Object'. All visual objects
have a common ancestor called `Gtk.Widget.Gtk_Widget'.

   The following table describes the list of objects and their
inheritance tree. As usual with tagged types, all the primitive
subprograms defined for a type are also known for all of its children.
This is a very powerful way to create new widgets, as will be explained
in *Note Creating new widgets in Ada::.

   Although gtk+ was written in C its design is object-oriented, and
thus GtkAda has the same structure. The following rules have been
applied to convert from C names to Ada names: a widget `Gtk_XXX' is
defined in the Ada package `Gtk.XXX', in the file `gtk-xxx.ads'. This
follows the GNAT convention for file names.  For instance, the
`Gtk_Text' widget is defined in the package `Gtk.Text', in the file
`gtk-text.ads'.

   Note also that most of the documentation for GtkAda is found in the
spec files themselves.

   It is important to be familiar with this hierarchy. It is then
easier to know how to build and organize your windows. Most widgets are
demonstrated in the `testgtk/' directory in the GtkAda distribution.

Gtk_Object
  +-- Gtk_Data
  |     +-- Gtk_Tooltips
  |     \__ Gtk_Adjustment
  \__ Gtk_Widget  @i{(Visual widgets)}
        +-- Gtk_Calendar
        +-- Gtk_Container  @i{(Widgets that have children)}
        |     +-- Gtk_Bin  @i{(Widgets that have a single child)}
        |     |     +-- Gtk_Alignment
        |     |     +-- Gtk_Button @i{(Widgets that you can click)}
        |     |     |     +-- Gtk_Option_Menu
        |     |     |     +-- Gtk_Toggle_Button
        |     |     |     |     \__ Gtk_Check_Button
        |     |     |     |           \__ Gtk_Radio_Button
        |     |     +-- Gtk_Event_Box
        |     |     +-- Gtk_Frame
        |     |     |     \__ Gtk_Aspect_Frame
        |     |     +-- Gtk_Handle_Box
        |     |     +-- Gtk_Invisible
        |     |     +-- Gtk_Item
        |     |     |     +-- Gtk_List_Item
        |     |     |     +-- Gtk_Menu_Item
        |     |     |     |     +-- Gtk_Check_Menu_Item
        |     |     |     |     |     \__ Gtk_Radio_Menu_Item
        |     |     |     |     \__ Gtk_Tearoff_Menu_Item
        |     |     |     \__ Gtk_Tree_Item
        |     |     +-- Gtk_Viewport
        |     |     \__ Gtk_Window  @i{(Have an independent window)}
        |     |           +-- Gtk_Color_Selection_Dialog
        |     |           +-- Gtk_Dialog
        |     |           |     \__ Gtk_Input_Dialog
        |     |           +-- Gtk_File_Selection
        |     |           +-- Gtk_Font_Selection_Dialog
        |     |           \__ Gtk_Plug
        |     +-- Gtk_Box  @i{(Widgets that have one or more children)}
        |     |     +-- Gtk_Button_Box
        |     |     |     +-- Gtk_Vbutton_Box
        |     |     |     \__ Gtk_Hbutton_Box
        |     |     +-- Gtk_Color_Selection
        |     |     +-- Gtk_Combo
        |     |     +-- Gtk_Gamma_Curve
        |     |     \__ Gtk_Status_Bar
        |     +-- Gtk_Clist
        |     |     \__ Gtk_Ctree
        |     +-- Gtk_Fixed
        |     +-- Gtk_Layout
        |     +-- Gtk_List
        |     +-- Gtk_Menu_Shell
        |     |     +-- Gtk_Menu
        |     |     \__ Gtk_Menu_Bar
        |     +-- Gtk_Notebook
        |     |     \__ Gtk_Font_Selection
        |     +-- Gtk_Packer
        |     +-- Gtk_Paned
        |     +-- Gtk_Scrolled_Window
        |     +-- Gtk_Socket
        |     +-- Gtk_Toolbar
        |     +-- Gtk_Table
        |     \__ Gtk_Tree
        +-- Gtk_Drawing_Area
        |     \__ Gtk_Curve
        +-- Gtk_Editable
        |     +-- Gtk_Entry
        |     |     \__ Gtk_Spin_Button
        |     \__ Gtk_Text
        +-- Gtk_Misc
        |     +-- Gtk_Arrow
        |     +-- Gtk_Image
        |     +-- Gtk_Label
        |     |     +-- Gtk_Accel_Label
        |     |     \__ Gtk_Tips_Query
        |     \__ Gtk_Pixmap
        +-- Gtk_Preview
        +-- Gtk_Progress
        |     \__ Gtk_Progress_Bar
        +-- Gtk_Range
        |     +-- Gtk_Scale
        |     \__ Gtk_Scrollbar
        +-- Gtk_Ruler
        \__ Gtk_Separator
                 *Hierarchy of widgets in GtkAda*

Hierarchical composition of a window
************************************

Interfaces in GtkAda are built in layers, as in Motif.  For instance, a
typical dialog is basically a Gtk_Window, that in turn contains a
Gtk_Box, itself divided into two boxes and a Gtk_Separator, and so on.

   Altough this may seem more complicated than setting absolute
positions for children, this is the simplest way to automatically
handle the resizing of windows. Each container that creates a layer
knows how it should behave when it is resized, and how it should move
its children.  Thus almost everything is handled automatically, and you
don't have to do anything to support resizing.

   If you really insist on moving the children to a specific position,
look at the `Gtk_Fixed' widget and its demo in `testgtk/'. But you
really should not use this container, since you will then have to do
everything by hand.

   All the containers are demonstrated in `testgtk/', in the GtkAda
distribution. This should help you understand all the parameters
associated with the containers. It is very important to master these
containers, since using the appropriate containers will make building
interfaces a lot easier.

   If you look at the widget hierarchy (*note Widgets Hierarchy::), you
can see that a Gtk_Window inherits from Gtk_Bin, and thus can have only
one child. In most cases, the child of a Gtk_Window will thus be a
Gtk_Box, which can have any number of children.

   Some widgets in GtkAda itself are built using this strategy, from the
very basic `Gtk_Button' to the more advanced `Gtk_File_Selection'.

   For example, by default a Gtk_Button contains a Gtk_Label, which
displays the text of the button (like "OK" or "Cancel").

   However, it is easy to put a pixmap in a button instead. When you
create the button, do not specify any label. Thus, no child will be
added, and you can give it your own. See `testgtk/create_pixmap.adb'
for an example on how to do that.

Signal handling
***************

In GtkAda, the interaction between the interface and the core
application is done via signals. Most user actions on the graphical
application trigger some signals to be `emitted'.

   A signal is a message that an object wants to broadcast. It is
identified by its name, and each one is associated with certain events
which happen during the widget's lifetime. For instance, when the user
clicks on a Gtk_Button, a "clicked" signal is emitted by that button.
More examples of signals can be found in the GtkAda reference manual.

   It is possible to cause the application to react to such events by
`connecting' to a signal a special procedure called a `handler' or
`callback'.  This handler will be called every time that signal is
emitted, giving the application a chance to do any processing it needs.
More than one handler can be connected to the same signal on the same
object; the handlers are invoked in the order they were connected.

Predefined signals
==================

Widgets, depending on their type, may define zero or more different
signals.  The signals defined for the parent widget are also
automatically inherited; thus every widget answers many signals.

   The easiest way to find out which signals can be emitted by a widget
is to look at the GtkAda reference manual. Every widget will be
documented there. The GtkAda RM explains when particular signals are
emitted, and the general form that their handlers should have (although
you can always add a `User_Data' if you wish, see below).

   You can also look directly at the C header files distributed with
the gtk+ library. Each widget is described in its own C file and has
two C structures associated with it. One of them is the "class"
structure, which contains a series of pointers to functions. Each of
these functions has the same name as the signal name.

   For instance, consider the following extract from gtkbutton.h:
     struct _GtkButtonClass
     {
       GtkBinClass        parent_class;
     
       void (* pressed)  (GtkButton *button);
       void (* released) (GtkButton *button);
       void (* clicked)  (GtkButton *button);
       void (* enter)    (GtkButton *button);
       void (* leave)    (GtkButton *button);
     };

   This means that the Gtk_Button widget redefines five new signals,
respectively called `"pressed"', `"released"', ...

   The profile of the handler can also be deduced from those pointers:
The handler has the same arguments, plus an optional `User_Data'
parameter that can be used to pass any kind of data to the handler.
When the `User_Data' parameter is used, the value of this data is
specified when connecting the handler to the signal. It is then given
back to the handler when the signal is raised.

   Therefore, the profile of a handler should look like:
     procedure Pressed_Handler
       (Button    : access Gtk_Button_Record'Class;
        User_Data : ...);

   The callback does not need to use all the arguments. It is legal to
use a procedure that "drops" some of the last arguments.  There is one
special case, however: if, at connection time, you decided to use
`User_Data', your callback must handle it.  This is checked by the
compiler.

   Any number of arguments can be dropped as long as those arguments are
the last ones in the list and you keep the first one. For instance, the
signal "button_press_event" normally can be connected to a handler with
any of the following profiles:

     --  with a user_data argument
     procedure Handler
       (Widget    : access Gtk_Widget_Record'Class;
        Event     : Gdk.Event.Gdk_Event;
        User_Data : ...);
     procedure Handler
       (Widget    : access Gtk_Widget_Record'Class;
        User_Data : ...);
     
     --  without a user_data argument
     procedure Handler
       (Widget : access Gtk_Widget_Record'Class;
        Event  : Gdk.Event.Gdk_Event);
     procedure Handler (Widget : access Gtk_Widget_Record'Class);

   Beware that adding new arguments is not possible, since no value
would be provided for them. When connecting a handler, GtkAda will not
always verify that your handler does not have more arguments than
expected, so caution is recommended (it only does so if you use the
`Gtk.Marshallers' package, see below).

Connecting signals
==================

All the signal handling work is performed by using the services provided
by the `Gtk.Handlers' package. This package is self-documented, so
please read the documentation for this package either in the GtkAda
Reference Manual or in the specs themselves. The rest of this section
assumes that you have this documentation handy.

   A short, annotated example of connecting signals follows; a complete
example can be found in create_file_selection.adb (inside the testgtk/
directory). In our example, an application opens a file selector to
allow the user to select a file.  GtkAda provides a high-level widget
called Gtk_File_Selection which can be used in this case:

     declare
        Window : Gtk_File_Selection;
     begin
        Gtk.File_Selection.Gtk_New (Window, Title => "Select a file");
     end;

   When the "OK" button is pressed, the application needs to retrieve
the selected file and then close the dialog. The only information that
the handler for the button press needs is which widget to operate upon.
This can be achieved by the following handler:

     procedure OK (Files : access Gtk_File_Selection_Record'Class) is
     begin
        Ada.Text_IO.Put_Line ("Selected " & Get_Filename (Files));
        --  Prints the name of the selected file.
        Destroy (Files);
        --  Destroys the file selector dialog
     end Ok;

   We now need to connect the object we created in the first part with
the new callback we just defined. `Gtk.Handlers' defines four types of
generic packages, depending on the arguments one expects in the
callback and whether the callback returns a value or not. Note that you
can not use an arbitrary list of arguments; this depends on the signal,
as explained in the previous section.

   In our example, since the callback does not return any value and
does not handle any `User_Data' (that is, we don't pass it extra data,
which will be specified at connection time), the appropriate package to
use is `Gtk.Handlers.Callback'. We thus instantiate that package.

   Remember that generic package instantiations in GtkAda must be
present in memory at all times, since they take care of freeing
allocated memory when finished. GtkAda generic package instantiations
must therefore always be performed at the library level, and not inside
any inner block.

     package Files_Cb is new
       Handlers.Callback (Gtk_File_Selection_Record);

   The `Files_Cb' package now provides a set of Connect subprograms
that can be used to establish a tie between a widget and a handler.  It
also provides a set of other subprograms which you can use to emit the
signals manually, although most of the time, the signals are simply
emitted internally by GtkAda. We will not discuss the Emit_By_Name
subprograms here.

   The general form of handler, as used in `Gtk.Handlers', expects some
handlers that take two or three arguments: the widget on which the
signal was applied, an array of all the extra arguments sent internally
by GtkAda, and possibly some user data given when the connection was
made.

   This is the most general form of handler and it covers all the
possible cases. However, it also expects the user to manually extract
the needed values from the array of arguments. This is not always the
most convenient solution. This is why GtkAda provides a second package
related to signals, `Gtk.Marshallers'.

   The `Gtk.Marshallers' package provides a set of functions that can
be used as callbacks directly for GtkAda, and that will call your
application's handlers after extracting the required values from the
array of arguments. Although this might sound somewhat complicated, in
practice it simplifies the task of connecting signals. In fact, the
techniques employed are similar to what is done internally by gtk+ in
C. Because of the similarity of techniques, there is no overhead
involved in using `Gtk.Marshallers' with Ada over the C code in gtk+.

   A set of functions `To_Marshaller' is found in every generic package
in `Gtk.Handlers'. They each take a single argument, the name of the
function you want to call, and return a handler that can be used
directly in `Connect'.

   The connection is then done with the following piece of code. Note
that this can be done just after creating the widget, in the same
block. As soon as it is created, a widget is ready to accept
connections (although no signals will be emitted before the widget is
shown on the screen).

   Note that we use `To_Marshaller' since our handler does not accept
the array of arguments as a parameter, and we use the special
`Object_Connect' procedure. This means that the parameter to our
callback (Files) will be the Slot_Object given in Object_Connect,
instead of being the button itself.

     Files_Cb.Object_Connect
       (Get_Ok_Button (Window),  --  The object to connect to the handler
        "clicked",               --  The name of the signal
        Files_Cb.To_Marshaller (Ok'Access),  --  The signal handler
        Slot_Object => Window);

Handling user data
==================

As described above, it is possible to define some data that is that
passed to the callback when it is called. This data is called
user_data, and is passed to the `Connect' or `Object_Connect'
subprograms.

   GtkAda will automatically free any memory it has allocated internally
to store these user data. For instance, if you instanciated the generic
package `User_Callback' with a String, it means that you want to be
able to have a callback of the form:

        procedure My_Callback (Widget : access Gtk_Widget_Record'Class;
                                User_Data : String);

   and connect it with a call similar to:

        Connect (Button, "Clicked", To_Marshaller (My_Callback'Access),
                 User_Data => "any string");

   GtkAda needs to allocate some memory to store the string (an
unconstrained type). However, this memory is automatically freed when
the callback is destroyed.

   There are a few subtleties in the use of user_data, most importantly
when the user data is itself a widget.

   The following four examples do exactly the same thing, ie create two
buttons, and clicking on the first one will destroy the second one.
They all work fine the first time, while the two buttons exist.
However, some of them will fail if you press on the first button a
second time.

   The code for this example can be found in the distribution, in the
`examples/user_data' directory. The examples below do not include the
creation of the main window, or of the buttons themselves, to emphasize
the important part.

First case: simple user data
----------------------------

   This code will fail: when `Button2' has been destroyed, the Ada type
still points to some random memory, and the second call to `Destroy'
will fail with a Storage_Error.

        package User_Callback is new Gtk.Handlers.User_Callback
          (Gtk_Widget_Record, Gtk_Widget);
     
        procedure My_Destroy2
          (Button : access Gtk_Widget_Record'Class; Data : Gtk_Widget) is
        begin
           Destroy (Data);
        end My_Destroy2;
     
        begin
           User_Callback.Connect
             (Button1, "clicked",
              User_Callback.To_Marshaller (My_Destroy2'Access),
              Gtk_Widget (Button2));
        end;

Second case: using Object_Connect instead
-----------------------------------------

   One of the solutions to fix the above problem is to use
`Object_Connect' instead of `Connect'. In that case, GtkAda
automatically takes care of disconnecting the callback when either of
the two widgets is destroyed.

        procedure My_Destroy (Button : access Gtk_Widget_Record'Class) is
        begin
           Destroy (Button);
        end My_Destroy;
     
        begin
           Widget_Callback.Object_Connect
             (Button1, "clicked",
              Widget_Callback.To_Marshaller (My_Destroy'Access),
              Button2);
        end;

Third case: manually disconnecting the callback
-----------------------------------------------

   Using `Object_Connect' is not always possible. In that case, one of
the possibilities is to store the `Id' of the callback, and properly
disconnect it when appropriate. This is the most complex method, and
very often is not applicable, since you cannot know for sure when the
callback is no longer needed.

        type My_Data3 is record
           Button, Object : Gtk_Widget;
           Id             : Handler_Id;
        end record;
        type My_Data3_Access is access My_Data3;
     
        package User_Callback3 is new Gtk.Handlers.User_Callback
          (Gtk_Widget_Record, My_Data3_Access);
     
        procedure My_Destroy3
          (Button : access Gtk_Widget_Record'Class;
           Data   : My_Data3_Access) is
        begin
           Destroy (Data.Button);
           Disconnect (Data.Object, Data.Id);
        end My_Destroy3;
     
           Id : Handler_Id;
        begin
           Data3 := new My_Data3' (Object => Gtk_Widget (Button1),
                                   Button => Gtk_Widget (Button2),
                                   Id     => (Null_Signal_Id, null));
           Id := User_Callback3.Connect
             (Button1, "clicked",
              User_Callback3.To_Marshaller (My_Destroy3'Access),
              Data3);
           Data3.Id := Id;
        end;

Fourth case: setting a watch on a specific widget
-------------------------------------------------

   GtkAda provides a function `Add_Watch', that will automatically
disconnect a callback when a given widget is destroyed. This is the
function used internally by `Object_Connect'. In the example below, the
callback is automatically disconnected whenever `Button2' is destroyed.

        procedure My_Destroy2
          (Button : access Gtk_Widget_Record'Class; Data : Gtk_Widget) is
        begin
           Destroy (Data);
        end My_Destroy2;
     
           Id : Handler_Id;
        begin
           Id := User_Callback.Connect
             (Button1, "clicked",
              User_Callback.To_Marshaller (My_Destroy2'Access),
              Gtk_Widget (Button2));
           Add_Watch (Id, Button2);
        end;

Starting an application with GtkAda
***********************************

   You need to perform some initializations to start a GtkAda
application:
     --  predefined units of the library
     with Gtk.Rc;
     with Gtk.Main;
     with Gtk.Enums;
     with Gtk.Window;
     ...
     --  My units
     with Callbacks;
     ...
     procedure Application is
        procedure Create_Window is ...
     
     begin
        --  Set the locale specific datas (e.g time and date format)
        Gtk.Main.Set_Locale;
     
        --  Initializes GtkAda
        Gtk.Main.Init;
     
        --  Load the resources. Note that this part is optional.
        Gtk.Rc.Parse ("application.rc");
     
        --  Create the main window
        Create_Window;
     
        --  Signal handling loop
        Gtk.Main.Main;
     end Application;

   the `Create_Window' procedure looks like

        procedure Create_Window is
           Main_Window : Gtk.Window.Gtk_Window;
           ...
        begin
           Gtk.Window.Gtk_New
             (Window   => Main_Window,
              The_Type => Gtk.Enums.Window_Toplevel);
     
           --  From Gtk.Widget:
           Gtk.Window.Set_Title (Window => Main_Window, Title  => "Editor");
     
           --  Construct the window and connect various callbacks
     
           ...
           Gtk.Window.Show_All (Main_Window);
        end Create_Window;

Resource files
**************

   Resource files let you parametrize aspects of the widgets in a GtkAda
application without having to recompile it.

   A resource file needs to be loaded (`Gtk.Rc.Parse') BEFORE setting
the corresponding window.

   In this file, it is possible to specify the visual characteristics
of the widgets (colors, fonts, ...).  Under X, the `xfontsel' command
allows you to easily select a font.  The FontSelection widget is also a
simple way to select fonts.

   Here is an example of a resource file:
     # application.rc
     #
     # resource file for "Application"
     
     # Buttons style
     style "button"
     {
     # BackGround Colors
     #                  Red  Green  Blue
       bg[PRELIGHT] = { 0.0,  0.75, 0.0 } # Green when the mouse is on
                                          # the button
       bg[ACTIVE]   = { 0.75, 0.0,  0.0 } # Red on click
     # ForeGround Colors
     #                  Red  Green  Blue
       fg[PRELIGHT] = { 1.0,  1.0,  1.0 } # White when the mouse is on
                                          # the button
       fg[ACTIVE]   = { 1.0,  1.0,  1.0 } # White on click
     }
     
     # All the buttons will have the style "button"
     widget_class "*GtkButton*" style "button"
     
     # Text style
     style "text"
     {
       font = "-adobe-courier-medium-r-normal-*-15-*-*-*-*-*-*-*"
       text[NORMAL] = { 0.0, 0.0, 0.0 } # black
       fg[NORMAL]   = { 0.0, 0.0, 0.0 } # black
       base[NORMAL] = { 1.0, 1.0, 1.0 } # white : background color
     }
     
     # All Gtk_Text will have the "text" style
     widget_class "*GtkText" style "text"

Memory management
*****************

   GtkAda takes care of almost all the memory management for you.  Here
is a brief overview of how this works, you'll have to check the sources
if you want more detailed information.  Gtk+ (the C library) does its
own memory management through reference counting, i.e. any widget is
destroyed when it is no longer referenced anywhere in the application.

   In GtkAda itself, a "user_data" is associated with each object
allocated by a `Gtk_New' procedure. A "destroy" callback is also
associated, to be called when the object to which the user_data belongs
is destroyed.  Thus, every time a C object is destroyed, the equivalent
Ada structure is also destroyed (see Gtk.Free_User_Data).

   Concerning widgets containing children, every container holds a
reference to its children, whose reference counting is thus different
from 0 (and generally 1). When the container is destroyed, the
reference of all its children and grand-children is decremented, and
they are destroyed in turn if needed. So the deallocation of a widget
hierarchy is also performed automatically.

Tasking with GtkAda
*******************

   Note that Gtk+ under Windows does not interact properly with threads,
so the only safe approach under this operating system is to perform all
your Gtk+ calls in the same task.

   Under other platforms, the Glib library can be used in a task-safe
mode by calling Gdk.Thread.G_Init and Gdk.Thread.Init before making any
other Glib/Gdk calls.  In this mode Gdk automatically locks all
internal data structures as needed. This does not mean that two tasks
can simultaneously access, for example, a single hash table, but they
can access two different hash tables simultaneously. If two different
tasks need to access the same hash table, the application is
responsible for locking itself (e.g by using protected objects).

   When Gdk is initialized to be task-safe, GtkAda is task aware. There
is a single global lock that you must acquire with Gdk.Threads.Enter
before making any Gdk/Gtk call, and which you must release with
Gdk.Threads.Leave afterwards.

   Thus, Gtk.Main.Main should be called with the lock acquired (see
example below), ensuring that all the functions executed in the task
that started the main loop do not need to protect themselves again.

   Beware that the GtkAda main loop (Gtk.Main.Main) can only be be run
inside one specific task. In other words, you cannot call Gtk.Main.Main
from any task other than the one that started the outer level main loop.

   Note that Gdk.Threads assumes that you are using a tasking run time
that maps Ada tasks to native threads.

   A minimal main program for a tasking GtkAda application looks like:

     with Gdk.Threads;
     with Gtk.Main;
     with Gtk.Enums; use Gtk.Enums;
     with Gtk.Window; use Gtk.Window;
     
     procedure GtkAda_With_Tasks is
        Window : Gtk_Window;
     begin
        Gdk.Threads.G_Init;
        Gdk.Threads.Init;
        Gtk.Main.Init;
     
        Gtk_New (Window, Window_Toplevel);
        Show (Window);
     
        Gdk.Threads.Enter;
        Gtk.Main.Main;
        Gdk.Threads.Leave;
     end GtkAda_With_Tasks;

   Callbacks require a bit of attention. Callbacks from GtkAda
(signals) are made within the GtkAda lock. However, callbacks from Glib
(timeouts, IO callbacks, and idle functions) are made outside of the
GtkAda lock. So, within a signal handler you do not need to call
Gdk.Threads.Enter, but within the other types of callbacks, you do.

Object-oriented features
************************

   GtkAda has been designed from the beginning to provide a full Object
oriented layer over gtk+. This means that features such as type
extension, dynamic dispatching, ... are made available through the
standard Ada language.

   This section will describe both how things work and how you can
extend existing widgets or even create your own.

General description of the tagged types
=======================================

Why should I use object-oriented programing ?
---------------------------------------------

   Every widget in GtkAda is a tagged type and has a number of
primitive subprograms which all its children inherit.

   This means that most of the time, as opposed to what you see in C
code, you don't have to explicitly cast types and, even when you have
to, Ada always makes sure that the conversion is valid.

   Thus your programs are much safer and most errors are found at
compile time, as usual with Ada.

   For instance, if you create a table, put some widgets in it, and
then, later in your program, try to access those widgets, then you do
not need to know beforehand what their type is, when and by whom they
were created, ... You simply ask for the children of the table, and you
get in return a tagged type that contains all the information you need.
You can even use dynamic dispatching without ever having to cast to a
known type.

   This makes GtkAda a very powerful tool for designing graphical
interfaces.

   If you think one of the standard widgets is nice, but would be even
better if it was drawing itself in a slighlty different way, or if it
could contain some other data that you need in your application, there
is a very simple way to do it: just create a new type that extends the
current one (see the section *Note Using tagged types to extend Gtk
widgets:: below.

   Maybe you want to create your own brand new widget, that knows how
to draw itself, how to react to events, ... and you want to be able to
reuse it anytime you need ? Once again, using the standard Ada
features, you can simply create a new tagged type and teach it how to
interact with the user.  See the section *Note Creating new widgets in
Ada:: below.

Type conversions from C to Ada widgets
--------------------------------------

   There are basically three kinds of widgets that you can use with
GtkAda:
   * Ada widgets: These are widgets that are written directly in Ada,
     using the object oriented features of GtkAda

   * Standard widgets: These are the widgets that are part of the
     standard gtk+ and GtkAda distributions. This include all the basic
     widgets you need to build advanced interfaces.

   * third party C widgets These are widgets that were created in C,
     and for which you (or someone else) created an Ada binding. This
     is most probably the kind of widgets you will have if you want to
     use third party widgets.

   GtkAda will always be able to find and/or create a valid tagged type
in the first case, no matter if you explicitly created the widget or if
it was created automatically by gtk+. For instance, if you created a
widget in Ada, put it in a table, and later on extracted it from the
table, then you will still have the same widget.

   There are two issues: if the widget was explictly created by you, or
at least by GtkAda, then it will always be and remain associated with a
correct Ada type.

   If the widget was created implicitly (for instance every time you
create a Gtk_Button, a Gtk_Label is also created for the text
displayed), then GtkAda will only be able to create the corresponding
type by default for the following widgets: Gtk_Label, Gtk_Button,
Gtk_Item, Gtk_List_Item, Gtk_Menu_Item, Gtk_Check_Menu_Item,
Gtk_Radio_Menu_Item, Gtk_Tearoff_Menu_Item, Gtk_Tree_Item and Gtk_Entry.
For other widgets, it will instead create a Gtk_Widget, and you will
have to either call Gtk.Unchecked_Cast to convert it back to the type
you expect, or use Gtk.Type_Conversion as described below. Here is an
example of use of Gtk.Unchecked_Cast:

     declare
        Stub : Gtk_Window_Record;
     begin
        Window := Gtk.Unchecked_Cast (Widget, Stub);
     end;

   In the third case (third party C widgets), GtkAda is not, by
default, able to create the corresponding Ada type.

   The solution we suggest to solve the first issue is to 'with' the
Gtk.Type_Conversion unit. In that case, every standard widget, no
matter who created them, will always be correctly converted to an
appropriate Ada type.  So, basically, if you put the following in your
main unit:

     with Gtk.Type_Conversion;
     
     begin
        Gtk.Main.Init;
        ...
     end

   then you can safely get the children of any widget (table, boxes,
...) and be sure you have the right Ada type. You won't need to
explictly convert your widget to something else.

   However, 'with'ing this unit means that your application will depend
on every package of GtkAda, which is a little bit heavier, and explains
why this is not the default. We do recommend you use it if it is not
extremely important whether your application depends on all the
packages of GtkAda.

   The case of third party C widgets is a little bit trickier. Since
GtkAda does not know anything about them when it is built, it can't
magically convert the C widgets to Ada widgets. This is your job to
teach GtkAda how to do the conversion.

   We thus provide a 'hook' function which you need to modify. This
function is defined in the package Gtk.Type_Conversion. This function
takes a string with the name of the C widget (ex/ "GtkButton"), and
should return a newly allocated pointer. If you don't know this type
either, simply return null.

Using tagged types to extend Gtk widgets
========================================

   Since version 0.6 of this toolkit, it is possible to associate your
own data with existing widgets simply by creating new types. This
section will show you a simple example, but you should rather read the
source code in testgtk/ where we used this feature instead of using
`user_data' as is used in the C version.

     type My_Button_Record is new Gtk_Button_Record with record
         --  whatever data you want to associate with your button
     end record;
     type My_Button is access all My_Button_Record'Class;

   With the above statements, your new type is defined. Every function
available for `Gtk_Button' is also available for `My_Button'.  Of
course, as with every tagged type in Ada, you can create your own
primitive functions with the following prototype:

     procedure My_Primitive_Func (Myb : access My_Button_Record);

   To instanciate an object of type `My_Button' in your application, do
the following:

     declare
        Myb : My_Button;
     begin
        Myb := new My_Button_Record;
        Initialize (Myb);   --  from Gtk.Button
     end;

   The first line creates the Ada type, whereas the `Initialize' call
actually creates the C widget and associates it with the Ada type.

Creating new widgets in Ada
===========================

   With GtkAda, you can now create widgets directly in Ada. These new
widgets can be used directly, as if they were part of gtk itself.

   Creating new widgets is a way to create reuseable components. You can
apply to them the same functions as would for any other widget, such as
Show, Hide, ...

   This section will explain how to create two types of widgets:
composite widgets and widgets created from scratch. Two examples are
provided with GtkAda, in the directories `examples/composite_widget' and
`examples/base_widget'. Please also refer to the gtk+ tutorial, which
describes the basic mechanisms that you need to know to create a widget
(even if the Ada code is really different from the C code...)

Creating composite widgets
--------------------------

   A composite widget is a widget that does not do much by itself.
Rather, this is a collection of subwidgets grouped into a more general
entity.  For instance, among the standard widgets, `Gtk_File_Selection'
and `Gtk_Font_Selection' belong to this category.

   The good news is that there is nothing special to know. Just create a
new tagged type, extending one of the standard widgets (or even another
of your own widgets), provide a `Gtk_New' function that allocates
memory for this widget, and call the `Initialize' function that does
the actual creation of the widget and the subwidgets.  There is only
one thing to do: `Initialize' should call the parent class's
`Initialize' function, to create the underlying C widget.

   The example directory `examples/composite_widget' reimplements the
`Gtk_Dialog' widget as written in C by the creators of gtk+.

Creating widgets from scratch
-----------------------------

   First, an important note: please do not read this if this is your
first time using GtkAda or if you don't really understand the signal
mechanism.  Creating a nice and working widget really takes a lot of
messing with the low level signals.

   Creating a widget from scratch is what you want to do if your widget
should be drawn in a special way, should create and emit new signals,
...  The example we give in `examples/base_widget' is a small target on
which the user can click, and that sends one of two signals "bullseye"
or "missed", depending on where the user has clicked.

   See also the example in `examples/tutorial/gtkdial' for a more
complex widget, that implements a gauge where the user can move the
arrow to select a new value.

   Once again, the only two functions that you must create are `Gtk_New'
and `Initialize'.  This time, `Initialize' has to do two things:

     Parent_Package.Initialize (Widget);
     
     --  The above line calls the Initialize function from the parent.
     --  This creates the underlying C widget, which we are going to
     --  modify with the following call:
     
     Gtk.Object.Initialize_Class_Record
       (Widget, Signals, Class_Record);
     --  This initializes the "class record" for the widget and
     --  creates the signals.

   In the above example, the new part is the second call. It takes
three or four arguments:
   * `Widget' This is the widget that you want to initialize

   * `Signals' This is an array of string access containing the name of
     the signals you want to create. For instance, you could create
     Signals with
          Signals : Gtkada.Types.Chars_Ptr_Array := "bullseye" + "missed";
     This will create two signals, named "bullseye" and "missed", whose
     callbacks' arguments can be specified with the fourth parameter.

   * `Class_Record' Every widget in C is associated with two records.
     The first one, which exists only once per widget type, is the
     "class record". It contains the list of signals that are known by
     this widget type, the list of default callbacks for the signals,
     ...; the second record is an "instance record", which contains
     data specific to a particular instance.

     In GtkAda, the "instance record" is simply your tagged type and
     its fields.  The call to `Initialize_Class_Record' is provided to
     initialize the "class record". As we said, there should be only
     one such record per widget type. This parameter "Class_Record"
     will point to this records, once it is created, and will be reused
     for every instanciation of the widget.

   * `Parameters' This fourth argument is in fact optional, and is used
     to specify which kind of parameters each new signal is expecting.
     By default (ie if you don't give any value for this parameter),
     all the signals won't expect any argument, except of course a
     possible user_data.  However, you can decide for instance that the
     first signal ("bullseye") should in fact take a second argument
     (say a Gint), and that "missed" will take two parameters (two
     Gints).

     `Parameters' should thus contain a value of
          (1 => (1 => Gtk_Type_Int, 2 => Gtk_Type_None),
           2 => (1 => Gtk_Type_Int, 2 => Gtk_Type_Int));

     Due to the way arrays are handled in Ada, each component must have
     the same number of signals. However, if you specify a type of
     `Gtk_Type_None', this will in fact be considered as no argument.
     Thus, the first signal above has only one parameter.

     Note also that to be able to emit a signal such a the second one,
     ie with multiple arguments, you will have to extend the packages
     defined in Gtk.Handlers. By default, the provided packages can
     only emit up to one argument (and only for a few specific types).
     Creating your own `Emit_By_Name' subprograms should not be hard if
     you look at what is done in `gtk-marshallers.adb'. Basically,
     something like:

          procedure Emit_With_Two_Ints
            (Object : access Widget_Type'Class;
             Name   : String;
             Arg1   : Gint;
             Arg2   : Gint);
          pragma Import (C, Emit_With_Two_Ints,
              "gtk_signal_emit_by_name");
          
          Emit_With_Two_Ints (Gtk.Get_Object (Your_Widget),
              "missed" & ASCII.NUL, 1, 2);

     will emit the "missed" signal with the two parameters 1 and 2.


   Then of course `Initialize' should set up some signal handlers for
the functions you want to redefine.  Three signals are especially
useful:

   * "size_request"

     This callback is passed one parameter, as in :
          procedure Size_Request
             (Widget      : access My_Widget_Record;
              Requisition : in out Gtk.Widget.Gtk_Requisition);
     This function should modify Requisition to specify the widget's
     ideal size. This might not be the exact size that will be set,
     since some containers might decide to enlarge or to shrink it.

   * "size_allocate"

     This callback is called every time the widget is moved in its
     parent window, or it is resized. It is passed one paramater, as in
     :
          procedure Size_Allocate
             (Widget     : access My_Widget_Record;
              Allocation : in out Gtk.Widget.Gtk_Allocation)
     This function should take the responsability to move the widget,
     using for instance `Gdk.Window.Move_Resize'.

   * "expose_event"

     This callback is called every time the widget needs to be redrawn.
     It is passed one parameter, the area to be redrawn (to speed
     things up, you don't need to redraw the whole widget, just this
     area).


Support for Glade, the Gtk GUI builder
**************************************

Introduction
============

   GtkAda now comes with support for the GUI builder Glade (this is not
the glade released with Gnat for distributed systems).  Using Glade
itself is straightforward: it is an intuitive point and click GUI
builder. The main difference from other builders is that, since GtkAda
builds a UI with blocks by default, you will not be asked to set the
size and position of your windows by default. If you are looking for
this kind of interaction you should consider using the Gtk_Fixed
container. However, please read the GtkAda reference manual before
considering using Gtk_Fixed.

Using Glade
===========

   Note that we only recommend using version 2.0.0 of Glade, as previous
versions are not compatible. Using this version you can directly create
Ada files from Glade by selecting Ada95 as the language under project
options.  Glade saves your interface in a project file whose syntax is
XML based. In the following sections, we will refer to this file as
either `the XML file' or `the project file' interchangeably.

Taking advantage of Glade's options
-----------------------------------

   In this XML file, Glade will save various options that Gate can take
advantage of. In particular, going to the project options window, some
General Options in the `C Options' section will also be used by Gate:
Gettext support, if enabled, will generate an additional package called
<project>_intl that will use Gtkada.Intl; The `Set Widget Names' option
is also recognized and will generate additional calls to Set_Name for
each widget.

Associating icons with buttons
------------------------------

   Up to now, the only way to specify an icon for a button was to
associate a pixmap file to it. As an alternative, if the name specified
in the `Icon' field does not contain any dots, Gate will consider the
name as a variable rather than a file name. It is up to you to provide
the necessary definitions in order to compile properly the generated
code.

Note for GNU/Linux users
------------------------

   Some GNU/Linux systems come with a precompiled version of Glade that
will usually have support for Gnome. Gate currently does not provide
support for Gnome, which means that you should not enable Gnome support
in Glade.

Gate
====

Invoking Gate
-------------

   Gate is a program that is delivered with GtkAda. Gate takes the
Glade XML file as an argument and generates a set of Ada files.  When
compiled, these files will recreate the interface you just designed with
Glade.

   Gate is generally invoked through the `Write source code' button in
Glade's menu bar.

   In addition, you can also invoke it from the command line by
providing a Glade project file. This will generate Ada files in the
directory set as the `Source Directory' project option, or otherwise in
the current working directory.

Structure of the generated files
--------------------------------

The main file
.............

   The main file is the name of the program name specified in the XML
Glade file: `<program name>.adb'. It contains initialization and
creation code for each top level widget contained in the XML file. This
is intended as a convenient default to visualize your GUI, but you will
usually want to modify this initialization.

Top level widget files
......................

   For each top level widget, Gate will generate a package
`<widget>_Pkg' in the files `<widget>_pkg.ads' and `.adb'. These
packages contain all the GtkAda calls needed to create the widgets you
designed within Glade. You will usually not need to modify these files
yourself.

Main handler file
.................

   This file, called `callbacks_<program name>.ads' contains all the
Handler package instantiations needed by your application. You will
usually not need to modify it.

Top level widget signal files
.............................

   These are the most important files created by Gate. Each is called
`<widget_name>_pkg-callbacks.adb'.  They contain stubs for all the
callbacks related to a top level widget you declared in Glade. With the
main file, this the only files you should modify yourself. Note that it
is recommended that you structure your application such that the real
code is put in separate packages (i.e not generated files) as much as
possible, to avoid potential merging problems when your interface is
significantly changed within Glade. See next section for more details.

   Currently, Gate will generate callback stub procedures that can
handle the expected number of arguments for each signal. This is done
using a relatively low level mechanism explained in the reference manual
(package Gtk.Handlers). Basically, callbacks expecting arguments will
take a Gtk_Argument as their only parameter, and Gate will generate the
appropriate variable declaration and conversion calls to provide the
expected GtkAda arguments. You should not modify this code by hand
unless you know what you are doing.

   For example, given a signal `delete_event', Gate will generate the
following procedure body, giving access to the arguments of this
callback: a `Gtk_Window_Record' (Object) and a `Gdk_Event' (Arg1)

     function On_Main_Window_Delete_Event
       (Object : access Gtk_Window_Record'Class;
        Params : Gtk.Arguments.Gtk_Args) return Boolean
     is
        Arg1 : Gdk_Event := To_Event (Params, 1);
     begin
        return False;
     end On_Main_Window_Delete_Event;

Modifying generated files
-------------------------

   Note that you can easily go back to Glade any time, modify your
interface, and have Gate re-generate a set of files. All your
modifications will be kept in the new files. For that, Gate creates a
directory `.gate' in the current directory. Please do not delete it if
you want Gate to be able to keep your changes from one version to the
next.

   Also note that to keep track of your modifications, gate relies on
either `merge', or `patch' and `diff' being available on your system.
If you don't have a working set of `diff/patch', `configure' will
simply replace them by null operations, which means that regenerated
files will override the previous ones.

   Under Win32 based systems, Gate will not attempt to merge changes.
Instead, it will always regenerate and overwrite every file.

   In some cases, due to major changes in the project file, Gate may
not be able to merge all the changes. In this case, it will notify you
so, and will either keep the old and new sections in the files (if you
are using `merge'), or files with a `.rej' extension will be generated
to help you do the merge manually.

Adding Gate support for new widgets
-----------------------------------

   This section is intended for developpers that wish to add support
for new GtkAda widgets in Gate. Note that this section is not complete
yet.

Implementing the `Generate' procedure
.....................................

   To provide support for a new widget, you first need to write a
`Generate' procedure that will take care of generating the piece of
code related to the widget's properties. Note that the parents
properties do not have to be handled by this function.

   * Glib.Glade API The Glib.Glade package contains a self documented
     API that will help you automate most of the work for common
     widgets.

   * Most common mapping
        * Gen_New

        * Gen_Set

        * Gen_Call_Child

        * example

   * Registering `Generate' functions   Gtk.Glade.Register_Generate
     (Widget, Func) This procedure associates a given Generate
     procedure with a given widget C name.

Dynamic loading of XML files
============================

Introduction to Libglade
------------------------

   Libglade is an external library provided by default on some systems
(e.g GNU/Linux, Gnome) that supports dynamic loading of XML files and
creation of widgets at run time. The advantage of using libglade is
that you do not need to recompile your application to change your user
interface. On the other hand, everything is done at run time, meaning
less compile checks, and also the inability to take advantage of the
object oriented features of GtkAda and Ada such as deriving from a
widget creating using the GUI builder, to add fields and properties.
See packages Glade and Glade.XML for more information.

Limitations
===========

   Gate currently support all Gtk+ widgets and properties available
under Glade. But, to help you identify widgets that may not be
supported (e.g Gnome widgets), Gate will generate a warning on the
standard error:

     $ gate warning.glade
     Generating Ada files...
     
     GtkAda-WARNING **: Unsupported widget GnomeCanvas (canvas1)
     The following files have been created/updated in src:
     [...]

   and add a comment in the `<widget>_pkg.adb' file that looks like:

     --  WARNING: Unsupported widget GnomeCanvas (canvas1)

   This means that while generating the file Gate detected an
unsupported widget (in this case GnomeCanvas) whose name is canvas1.
If you get such a warning your file may or may not compile properly, but
you won't get the complete widget hierarchy at run time.

   Feel free to send us (see *Note How to report bugs::) the XML file
that causes this problem. We don't guarantee a rapid fix for each
particular problem but receiving real examples of missing
functionnalities will certainly help implementing them faster.

Binding new widgets
*******************

   GtkAda comes with a Perl script to help you create a binding to a C
widget (this is the script we have used ourselves).  This will not fully
automate the process, although it should really speed things up. You
will probably need less than 15 min to create a new binding once you
will get used to the way GtkAda works. Note that your C file should
have the same format as is used by Gtk+ itself.

   Here are the steps to create a new binding :

   * Give the 'generate.pl' script the C header file

   * The perl script should ask you for every field in the C structure
     if you want to create a function to make it accessible from Ada.
     Answer y or n (the default value is n, just press ENTER).

          $ generate.pl ../include/gtk/gtkbutton.h > temporary
            Create a function for the field child (of type GtkWidget*) [n]?
            Create a function for the field in_button (of type guint) [n]?
            Create a function for the field button_down (of type guint) [n]?

   * If you answered yes to at least one of the above questions, create
     a new C file, and move  the C part   of the temporary file created
     by generate.pl to this C file.

   * Do a gnatchop on the temporary file created by generate.pl

          $ gnatchop temporary

     This should create two Ada files (spec and body)

   * Edit these two files if needed (generally to change some parameters
      from Gint to Boolean for instance). It can be a little bit tricky
      when one of your functions returns a GList* or a GSList*. Please
     have   a look at `gtk-combo.ads' for examples how to do this.

Debugging GtkAda applications
*****************************

This chapter presents a number of technics that can be used when
debugging GtkAda applications. First, the standard tools to debug Ada
applications can be used:

*Compile with -g
     You should almost always include debugging information when
     compiling and linking your code. This gives you the possibility to
     use the debugger. See below the variable GDK_DEBUG for how to
     disable grabs.

*bind with -E
     Using this argument on the `gnatbind' or `gnatmake' command line
     will force the compiler to include backtraces when an exception is
     raised. These backtraces can be converted to symbolic backtraces by
     using the `addr2line' tool.

*Link with -lgmem
     Using this switch gives access to the `gnatmem' tool, that helps
     you to detect memory leaks or doubly-deallocated memory. The latter
     often results in hard-to-fix Storage_Error exceptions. See the GNAT
     User's guide for more information.


   There are also a number of technics specific to GtkAda or gtk+
applications. For most of them, you might need to recompile these
libraries with the appropriate switches to get access to the extended
debugging features.

*Use the `--sync' switch
     All applications compiled with gtk+ automatically support this
     switch, which forces events to be processed synchronously, thus
     making it easier to detect problems as soon as they happen.

*break on g_log
     In the debugger, it is often useful to put a breakpoint on the glib
     function `g_log'. When gtk+ is linked dynamically, you will need
     to first start your application with `begin', then put the
     breakpoint and continue the application with `cont'. This helps
     understand internal errors or warnings reported by gtk+ and glib

*compile glib with `--disable-mem-pools'
     Glib, the underlying layer that provides system-independent
     services to gtk+, has an extensive and optimized system for memory
     allocation. Bigger chunks of Memory are allocated initially, and
     then subdivided by glib itself. Although this is extremely
     performant, this also make the debugging of memory-related
     problems (storage_error) more difficult. Compiling with the above
     switch forces glib to use the standard malloc() and free() system
     calls. On GNU/Linux systems, it might be useful to set the
     variable `MALLOC_CHECK_' to 1 to use error-detecting algorithms
     (see the man page for malloc()).

*compile glib and gtk+ with `--enable-debug=yes'
     It is recommended that you always compile these two libraries by
     specifying this switch on the `configure' command line. In
     addition to giving access to the debugger, this also provides a
     number of environment variables that can be set to visualize
     events, object creation,...

     For these three variables, the possible values are given below.
     These are lists of colon-separated keywords. You can choose to
     remove any of these value from the variable

    -`GOBJECT_DEBUG=objects:signals'
          This sets up the debugging output for glib. The value
          `objects' is probably the most useful, and displays, on exit
          of the application, the list of unfreed objects. This helps
          detect memory leaks. The second value `signals' will display
          all the signals emitted by the objects. Note that this
          results in a significant amount of output.

    -`GDK_DEBUG=updates:nograbs:events:dnd:misc:
          xim:colormap:gdkrgb:gc:pixmap:image:input:cursor'
          This sets up the debugging output for gdk. The most useful
          value is `nograbs', which prevents the application from ever
          grabbing the mouse or keyboards. If you don't set this, it
          might happen that the debugger becomes unusable, since you
          don't have access to the mouse when the debugger stops on a
          breakpoint. Another simpler solution is to debug remotely
          from another machine, in which case the grabs won't affect
          the terminal on which the debugger is running.

    -`GTK_DEBUG=misc:plugsocket:text:tree:updates:keybindings'
          This sets up the debugging output for gtk. Almost all of
          these values are mostly for internal use by gtk+ developpers,
          although `keybindings' might prove useful sometimes.


*Import the C function ada_gtk_debug_get_ref_count
     This function has the following Ada profile:
          function Ref_Count (Add : System.Address) return Guint;
          pragma Import (C, Ref_Count, "ada_gtk_debug_get_ref_count");

     and should be called in a manner similar to

          declare
             Widget : Gtk_Widget;
             Count  : Guint;
          begin
             Count := Ref_Count (Get_Object (Widget));
          end;

     and returns the internal reference counter for the widget. When
     this counter reaches 0, the memory allocated for the widget is
     automatically freed.

     This is mostly a debugging aid for people writting their own
     containers, and shouldn't generally be needed. You shouldn't rely
     on the internal reference counter in your actual code, which is
     why it isn't exported by default in GtkAda.


How to report bugs
******************

GtkAda is becoming more and more stable due to its increasing use, but
you may still find bugs while using it. We have tried to test it as much
as possible, essentially by converting the testgtk.c file found in the
gtk distribution, as well as with generating a significant enumber of
interfaces using the GUI builder and Gate.  We strongly suggest that
you have a look at testgtk, which gives a lot of examples of how to use
this toolkit.

   There are two kinds of problems you can encounter:
   * If the gtk library itself was compiled with warnings turned on, you
     may get some  warnings messages,  mainly because of types problems.
     These warnings should not appear, as we have tried to be as type
     safe as possible  in this package. To know exactly where the
     problem is, compile your program with debug information, run gdb,
     and set a breakpoint on the function `g_log'. Then run your
     program as usual, using the `run' command. Then send us the result
     of the `where' command. Here is a summary:

          $ gnatmake -f -g <your_program_name> `gtkada-config`
          $ gdb <your_program_name>
          (gdb) break main
          (gdb) run
          (gdb) break g_log
          (gdb) continue
          ....
          (gdb) where

   * In  some  (hopefully) rare cases,   you can even get a
     segmentation fault within gtk.  That means there is definitly
     something wrong either in your program or in the toolkit.  Please
     check your program carefully and, if you think this is a problem
     in GtkAda itself, send us an e-mail.

   If you are a supported user of GNAT, send mail to
`mailto:report@gnat.com' to report errors, otherwise send mail to the
authors (`mailto:gtkada@ada.eu.org') explaining exactly what your are
doing,  what  is  the  expected  result  and  what  you actually get.
Please include the required sources to reproduce the problem, in a
format usable  by `gnatchop'  (basically, insert all  the required
sources at  the end of  the mail). Please  try to provide as small as
possible a  subset of your sources.

   Of course, we will  welcome any patch   you can provide, so  that
this toolkit may be as useful as possible.

Bibliography
************

   We recommand the following documents. Most of them were written with
C in mind, but should be easily adapted after you've read the rest of
this document.

   * [1] "Gtk+/Gome Application Development" - Havoc Pennington This
     book, by one of the main authors of the the GNOME environment,
     describes in detail some of the inner mechanisms of gtk+, including
     signal handling, and a complete description of all the widgets and
     all the events found in `Gdk.Event'.

     It is worth noting that this book has been published under the Open
     Publication License. You can get an electronic copy of it at
     <http://www.opencontent.org/>.

Table of Contents
*****************


GtkAda User's Guide

Introduction: What is GtkAda ?

Getting started with GtkAda
  How to build and install GtkAda
  Organization of the GtkAda package
  How to compile an application with GtkAda
    Unix systems
    Windows systems
  Architecture of the toolkit
  Widgets Hierarchy

Hierarchical composition of a window

Signal handling
  Predefined signals
  Connecting signals
  Handling user data
    First case: simple user data
    Second case: using Object_Connect instead
    Third case: manually disconnecting the callback
    Fourth case: setting a watch on a specific widget

Starting an application with GtkAda

Resource files

Memory management

Tasking with GtkAda

Object-oriented features
  General description of the tagged types
    Why should I use object-oriented programing ?
    Type conversions from C to Ada widgets
  Using tagged types to extend Gtk widgets
  Creating new widgets in Ada
    Creating composite widgets
    Creating widgets from scratch

Support for Glade, the Gtk GUI builder
  Introduction
  Using Glade
    Taking advantage of Glade's options
    Associating icons with buttons
    Note for GNU/Linux users
  Gate
    Invoking Gate
    Structure of the generated files
      The main file
      Top level widget files
      Main handler file
      Top level widget signal files
    Modifying generated files
    Adding Gate support for new widgets
      Implementing the `Generate' procedure
  Dynamic loading of XML files
    Introduction to Libglade
  Limitations

Binding new widgets

Debugging GtkAda applications

How to report bugs

Bibliography


