Access to GTK4 Widgets in C Using Gnome Builder

Question

I'm fairly new to coding for Linux, and haven't done a lot of GUI programming. I've run into problems using Gnome Builder and programmatic access to UI widgets.

How the heck to you access a widget (built in a UI file and instantiated by widget templates in the *-window.c source file) to do anything with the widget? I could use gtk_builder calls in GTK3 to access widgets, but the GTK4 model is completely different, and I haven't found useful information that describes or demonstrates how to do it.

I went overboard with my question initially...I've fixed that and focused on my primary issue. — GlennP, Apr 10 '22 at 23:23

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 11 '22 at 11:55

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There are 2 ways of doing this in GTK (both 3 and 4) with UI files:

Parse the UI definition using something like gtk_builder_new_from_resource(). You can then use API like gtk_builder_get_object() to fetch the widgets you want by their id attribute
Use composite templates like gtk_widget_class_bind_template_child(). You can find an example of how to do this in the second chapter of the GNOME beginners tutorial

Usually, the second option is preferred, as it tends to lead to less boilerplate code

answered Apr 11 '22 at 11:55

nielsdg

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Thanks. That’s very helpful - and more useful than the GTK4 tutorial. The GNOME tutorial parallels the GTK tutorial, but is definitely more accessible. I hadn’t delved into the GNOME tutorial much because it started out looking a lot like the GTK tutorial… – GlennP Apr 11 '22 at 13:45

Access to GTK4 Widgets in C Using Gnome Builder

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