Using object bindings with GSettings is generally a snap. However, there are few places where it breaks down. One in particular for us in Builder was with “Flags Types”. A flags type can be thought of as an integer where a bit is either on or off, indicating a feature. You can think of them as a series of booleans.
We use this for the “Draw Spaces” feature in Builder. The data type in memory is a GTypeFlags (GtkSourceDrawSpacesFlags), and the underlying GSettingsSchema reflects that. However, in the schema you define a nickname. The setting is really an array of nicknames, indicating “on”. If the nickname is absent, the flag can be thought of as off. (Each name does map an integer value, which can simplify getting the value as a 32-bit uint). Handy.
We want to bind each item in the flags individually, which to the best of my knowledge cannot be done out of the box with GSettings. So we added a new GAction which can be used to bridge the gap between GtkActionable and GSettings. Simply set the properties to indicate which flag the action should toggle.