What’s new with Glade
It’s been a long time since my last post. After doing the last major UI rework which included a new workflow and the use of a headerbar instead of a menu bar I had little free time to work on the project.
Early this year while on quarantine and in between jobs I started working on things I been wanting to but did not had the time
Fix Glade Survey
On January the GNOME infrastructure was migrated to a new server which broke a small web service running at https://people.gnome.org/~jpu/ used to collect Glade’s survey data.
They also added surveys.gnome.org to conduct any GNOME related surveys making my custom service redundant.
So in order to properly fix the survey I made Glade act like a browser and post the data directly to surveys.gnome.org, no need to open a browser!
This means Glade has to download the survey form, parse it to extract a session token and send it as a cookie for it to work!
JavaScript support
A few years ago while working at Endless Mobile I started adding support for JavaScript widgets since we had several widgets implemented in GJS.
Unfortunately back then a really obscure bug made GJS crash so I never added support for JS in Glade. To my surprise this time around GJS did not crash, at least not on Wayland which led me to find a workaround on X11 and move on
So in order for glade to support your JavaScript widgets you will have to:
- specify gladegjs support code as your plugin library.
- set glade_gjs_init as you init function.
- make sure your catalog name is the same as your JavaScript import library since
glade_gjs_init() will use this name to import your widgets into the
interpreter.
gjsplugin.xml
<glade-catalog name="gjsplugin" library="gladegjs" domain="glade" depends="gtk+"> <init-function>glade_gjs_init</init-function> <glade-widget-classes> <glade-widget-class title="MyJSGrid" name="MyJSGrid" generic-name="mygrid"/> </glade-widget-classes> <glade-widget-group name="gjs" title="Gjs"> <glade-widget-class-ref name="MyJSGrid"/> </glade-widget-group> </glade-catalog>
gjsplugin.js
const GObject = imports.gi.GObject; const Gtk = imports.gi.Gtk; var MyJSGrid = GObject.registerClass({ GTypeName: 'MyJSGrid', Properties: { 'string-property': GObject.ParamSpec.string('string-property', 'String Prop', 'Longer description', GObject.ParamFlags.READWRITE | GObject.ParamFlags.CONSTRUCT, 'Foobar'), 'int-property': GObject.ParamSpec.int('int-property', 'Integer Prop', 'Longer description', GObject.ParamFlags.READWRITE | GObject.ParamFlags.CONSTRUCT, 0, 10, 5) }, Signals: {'mysignal': {param_types: [GObject.TYPE_INT]}}, }, class MyJSGrid extends Gtk.Grid { _init(props) { super._init(props); this.label = new Gtk.Label ({ visible: true }); this.add (this.label); this.connect('notify::string-property', this._update.bind(this)); this.connect('notify::int-property', this._update.bind(this)); this._update(); } _update (obj, pspec) { this.label.set_text ('JS Properties\nInteger = ' + this.int_property + '\nString = \'' + this.string_property + '\''); } });
Save these files in a directory added as extra catalog path in the preferences dialog, restart and you should have the new JS classes ready to use.
Composite templates improvements
So far the only way to add custom widgets to glade is by writing a catalog which can be tedious so probably not a feature used by most people.
So to make things easier I made Glade load any template file saved in any extra catalog path automatically.
This means all you have to do to is:
- Create your composite template as usual
- Save it on a directory
- Add the directory to the “Extra Catalog & Templates paths” in preferences
- And use your new composite type!
This features will be included in the next stable release, and are already available in nightly flatpak (wiki instructions)
Better deprecations checks
Glade started before GObject introspection so it keeps version and deprecation information in its catalog files which makes it hard to keep it in sync with Gtk. There was also no way to specify in which Gtk version a property or signal was deprecated.
Unfortunately even tough all this metadata is extracted and stored in Gir files it is not available in typelib which makes using libgirepository not an option for Glade instead I decided to make a small script that will take all this information from Gir files and update Glade’s catalog directly making maintaining versioning information way easier!
This means that Glade should catch almost all deprecations and version mismatches even if you are not targeting the latest Gtk version.
Enjoy!
Juan Pablo
Glade in Libre Application Summit
First of all I would like to thanks the GNOME foundation for sponsoring my trip to Denver to attend Libre Application Summit
As usual, it was a great opportunity to catch up with old friends and make new ones specially outside the GNOME community.
This opportunity I talked about the plans I have to integrate Glade with Gnome Builder and other IDEs
You can find the slides of my talk as PDF here, and the sources here!
Sources you say?
Yes sources, since my talk about custom UI interfaces in 2013 I been making all my slides with Glade and using glade-previewer to present them live
glade-previewer is a tiny application shipped with Glade used mainly to preview UI
It’s relevant options are:
-f, --filename=FILENAME Name of the file to preview --screenshot File name to save a screenshot --css CSS file to use --slideshow Make a slideshow of every toplevel widget by adding them in a GtkStack
Normally to preview a glade file with a custom css file you would use a command like
$ glade-previewer -f talk.glade --css talk.css
Now if you instead want to make a presentation with it all you need to do is add –slideshow option and glade-previewer will pack every toplevel widget in a GtkStack and switch between pages with PageUp/PageDown buttons
As a bonus I extended –screenshot option so that when used in conjunction with –slideshow it will take a screenshot of every toplevel and save them as multiple pages if the format supports it!
GUADEC a la española
Tapas, jamón are the first words that come to my mind after this year GUADEC in Almería
One of the best part of traveling is discovering new customs and trying new things…
Do you want tomato with your toast for breakfast?
– Sure!
– why not!
But more important than food, for me GUADEC is always about the people, meeting new people, people you always respected (still can not believe I meet the legendary JH) or putting a face to an irc nickname or email (albfan, never expected you to be so tall!) and of course catching up with old friends because being able to continue talking with someone like if it was yesterday when in fact it was a year, is priceless.
This GUADEC was special to me because it was the first time I did not talked about Glade, instead I showed a new library called Maxwell I made working at Endless.
What is Maxwell?
Maxwell is a proof of concept library that extends WebKitWebView and lets you embed/pack Gtk widgets in it as a regular Gtk container.
Etymology
The project started inspired by the Broadway Gdk backend which lets you run any Gtk application over HTTP using HTML5 and web sockets which was named after X Consortium’s Broadway release where one of its key features was X-Agent 96.
X Agent 96 => Agent 86 => Maxwell Smart => Maxwell
How does it work?
The introduction of the split process model in WebKit2 made embedding widgets in WebView rather difficult since part of WebKit operates in one process and the rest like WebCore and JS engine in another (UI/Web process).
Maxwell takes a similar approach to Broadway, all it needs is a way to render widgets in the DOM tree and get events from them.
To render widgets we use a CANVAS element the same size of the widget and a custom URI scheme to get the raw image data from each widget.
/* Get image data from widget */ let xhr = new XMLHttpRequest(); xhr.open('GET', 'maxwell:///widget_id', false); xhr.responseType = 'arraybuffer'; xhr.send(); /* Render image data in canvas */ let data = new Uint8ClampedArray(xhr.response); let image = new ImageData(data, canvas.width, canvas.height); canvas.getContext('2d').putImageData(image, 0, 0);
On the Gtk side, each child is rendered in an offscreen window which we use as the source image data to implement the custom URI scheme handler.
Gtk UI process | JavaScript/WebCore |
---|---|
GtkWidget:draw↴ | |
Damage event ⟶ JS child_draw() ⟶ | GET maxwell:// |
URI handler ⟵ | ↲ |
↳[offscreen]⟶[GdkPixbuf]⟶GIOStream ⟶ | [ImageData]↴ |
putImageData() |
For events all we have to do is properly implement GdkWindow::pick-embedded-child and let Gtk know which child widget should get the event. In order to do so we need to keep track of the elements position relative to WebView’s viewport which can be calculated with getBoundingClientRect().
API
The API is pretty straightforward, all you have to do is name the child widget and add it using regular GtkContainer API.
/* Create a Maxwell Web View */
webview = maxwell_web_view_new ();
/* Create a widget to embed */
entry = gtk_entry_new ();
/* Set a unique name on the widget */
gtk_widget_set_name (entry, "myentry");
/* Add widget to web view container */
gtk_container_add (GTK_CONTAINER (webview), entry);
In order for MaxwellWebView to know where to place a child in the DOM tree you need to add a CANVAS element with a “GtkWidget” class and the unique ID you used as the widget’s name.
<canvas class="GtkWidget" id="myentry"></canvas>
Maxwell will also try to honor width and height style properties set on the canvas element. So for example if you want your widget to expand horizontally you can do:
<canvas class="GtkWidget" style="width: 100%;" id="myentry"></canvas>
You can get it at https://github.com/endlessm/maxwell
As usual I would like to thanks the GNOME Foundation for sponsoring my trip to Spain and making all this possible.
Finally some extra pictures…
It’s always fun to be at GUADEC
As usual I would like to thanks the GNOME foundation for sponsoring my trip to Manchester to enjoy such a wonderful conference and give me the opportunity to present to the community the work I been doing on Glade’s UI for the past few months.
You can find the slides at https://people.gnome.org/~jpu/docs/2017-GUADEC/
Obviously they are made with Glade, something which might seems odd, but is it really?
![](https://blogs.gnome.org/xjuan/files/2017/08/Screenshot-from-2017-08-14-18-36-47-1024x640.png)
So besides a PDF you will find a tarball with all the source files. BTW You can use glade-previewer and PgUp and PgDown to switch pages
$ glade-previewer -f talk.glade --css talk.css --slideshow
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0krTtJCJ0Pg
And some random pictures from GUADEC…
Developer Experience Hackfest 2016
First of all I would like to thanks the GNOME Foundation for sponsoring once again my trip to Brussels for the GNOME Developer Experience Hackfest.
Besides hacking on Glade and attending FOSDEM I had a great time meeting with old friends and making new ones, not to mention the amount and variety of beers consumed!
But beer was not the only thing we had!
Back on the hacking, together with Tristan we managed to fix several bugs and add the much needed support for id-less objects! This way Glade is one step closer to support every Gtk+ template file.
I will not go into much details since it was already covered by him in his blog post
Pretty workspace
Besides doing some CSS cleanups in the workspace and user survey window to improve theme compatibility I added the modernized original Glade logo to the workspace background as a tribute to Glade roots!
I also got the chance to work on the Glade User Survey results, the final results will be posted soon on Glade’s website once I finish automating the results from the Data Base.
Glade User Survey Preliminary Results
3114 people took the time to fill the survey since 11-11-2013.
54 % of them use it for commercial purposes and 42 % for personal use.
Most users are from the US and Brazil with Germany, China and France as a close third.
USA | 10.98 % | Italy | 3.44 % |
Brazil | 10.18 % | Spain | 3.37 % |
Germany | 6.29 % | UK | 3.11 % |
China | 5.59 % | Canada | 2.37 % |
France | 4.65 % | Poland | 2.21 % |
Mexico | 4.07 % | Argentina | 1.70 % |
Russia | 3.85 % | Australia | 1.47 % |
India | 3.76 % | Turkey | 1.44 % |
How long have you been programming? (years)
< 1 | 5.17 % | 11 – 20 | 15.83 % |
1 – 2 | 30.72 % | 21 – 30 | 6.26 % |
3 – 5 | 18.49 % | 31 – 40 | 2.95 % |
6 – 10 | 18.33 % | > 40 | 2.21 % |
Not Programmer 16.66 %
Preferred programming languages do you prefer?
Python | 50.32 % | JavaScript | 21.80 % |
C | 47.01 % | C Sharp | 15.25 % |
CPP | 38.59 % | Vala | 9.24 % |
Java | 24.85 % | Perl | 6.96 % |
Other | 25.49 % |
When did you start using Glade? (years ago)
1 | 58.38 % | 4 – 5 | 5.94 % |
2 | 4.94 % | 6 – 10 | 6.48 % |
3 | 2.79 % | > 11 | 2.98 % |
Which version do you normally use?
What is available in my OS | 82.72 % | Master | 1.47 % |
Latest stable from sources | 9.44 % | Other | 0.83 % |
3.8 for Gtk+ 2 | 3.94 % |
On what operating system?
Linux | 58.83 % | OSX | 1.02 % |
Windows | 2.69 % | BSD | 0.96 % |
Other | 1.25 % | Solaris | 0.44 % |
How often do you use it?
Every day | 43.89 % | Few days a week | 10.82 % |
A few times a year | 20 % | Every week | 5.84 % |
A few times a month | 13.96 % | Once a month | 3.94 % |
What level of Glade user would you say you are?
Beginner | 78.29 % |
Intermediate | 16.44 % |
Advanced | 3.78 % |
Under what kind of license(s) do you release the software you used Glade to create?
Free Software | 42.19 % | None | 25.72 % |
Open Source | 34.32 % | Commercial | 9.5 % |
In which field(s) is the software you used Glade to create generally used?
Desktop applications | 42.77 % | Industrial applications | 8.95 % |
Academic | 18.68 % | Embedded applications | 7.35 % |
Educational | 13.48 % | Accounting | 4.56 % |
Scientific | 12.13 % | Medical | 2.92 % |
In your opinion what is the biggest problem with Glade?
Lack of documentation | 66.89 % |
Other | 11.23 % |
Lack of publicity/exposure | 9.79 % |
Lack of official binary releases for other OS (Win32, OSX) | 5.78 % |
Lack of professional training | 2.63 % |
Lack of professional support | 1.5 % |
18 % of users found a bug, 6.9 % reported it and 21.96 % contributed to the project.
Glade User Survey goes live!
Hello everyone! in the past few weeks I been working on a survey for Glade. The idea is that it will help us to better know our user base and thus allow us to take inform decisions to improve Glade users experience.
So please take a few minutes to complete it!
thanks
Juan Pablo
Porting widgets to the new template API… the LAZY way!
First of all I want to thanks everyone involved in GUADEC organization specially to the GNOME foundation for sponsoring me once again.
It is been great meeting with old friends and making new ones!
So after Tristan’s talk UI developer experience with Glade/GtkBuilder where he talked about the new template API some good friend of us, lets see if you can guess who, came and ask:
friend: How do I port my widgets to the new templates stuff? friend: I do not want to redo all of them in glade me: What kind of widgets? friend: “A grid with some s#it in it!” me: hmmm…So we talked about it and told him if that he was that lazy not to redo all widgets in glade manually he could do some function that iterate over containers and spit some xml to get at least the hierarchy right.
As we all know the lazier a programmer is the better, since it will end up writing a program to do its chores!
Anyways I did!
I made a function you can paste in your program and use it together with libgladeui api to dump a runtime GtkWidget to an xml definition.
#include <gladeui/glade.h>
/* Create a Glade project */
GladeProject *project = glade_project_new ();
/* add as many widgets as you want in the project */
glade_project_add_widget_from_object (project, widget, NULL);
/* And then save it to a file */
glade_project_save (project, "myclass.ui", NULL);
And that is all you have to do if the widget is simple enough.
You will have to mark internal children manually since there is no easy way to introspect them, say for example you want to dump a GtkDialog derived widget…
#include <gladeui/glade.h>
/* Create a Glade project */
GladeProject *project = glade_project_new ();
/* We need to mark every internal children manually */
INTERNAL_CHILD (gtk_dialog_get_action_area (GTK_DIALOG (widget)),
"action_area");
INTERNAL_CHILD (gtk_dialog_get_content_area (GTK_DIALOG (widget)),
"vbox");
/* add as many widgets as you want in the project */
glade_project_add_widget_from_object (project, widget, NULL);
/* And then save it to a file */
glade_project_save (project, "myclass.ui", NULL);
Here is the cut&paste code glade_dump.c
This is obviously hacky code, it was not heavily tested and will probably make gladeui and gtk API complain a lot but it works pretty well for what is intended.
BTW you have to link with gladeui-2.0 library for this code to work!
I think that is all, happy porting!
High DPI bug workaround!
Glade Drag & Drop support
New Drag & Drop support in 3.15 development series:![Sponsored by GNOME Foundation](http://blogs.gnome.org/xjuan/files/2012/09/sponsored-by-gnome-foundation.png)
First of all I would like to thanks once again to the foundation for sponsoring my trip to Brussels to attend the Developer Experience Hackhest and Alberto for inviting me in the first place!
After the hackfest we all agreed that Glade needs some love to make it more newbie friendly, nothing we did not already knew, but please do not move along Glade needs your help!
On of the thing that new people find the most difficult to understand about creating GUI with Gtk+/Glade is the container packing paradigm which is very powerful once you get used to it but not as intuitive as one would like.
A way to improve this situation would be to create a new free form layout container similar to Java’s GroupLayout as suggested by Alex in this mail which of course is a lot of work specially in Glade so… help and/or sponsorship is welcome!!
But for now being able to drag & drop widgets around should make thinks easier, right?
[vimeo width=”640″ height=”400″]https://vimeo.com/60841071[/vimeo]
The next thing we want to address is the property editor. Not only does not look good (In its defense the whole thing is autogenerated) but thanks to wide screen displays being ubiquitous nowadays it is wasting some precious vertical space :S
This is how it currently looks like
So… to save some vertical space and make it look more modern this are the changes I made
- New ATK icon
- Replaced toggle buttons with switches
- Fields do not expand by default
- Replaced text field edit button with an entry edit icon
- Removed class field title
- Moved clear and help buttons to the top of the notebook
The last item is definitely not definitive since it might make more sense to move it inside the scrolled window or simply to the toolbar.
As you can see there is lot of room for improvement so if you come up with a good idea help us!