Introduction
Glade is visual programming tool that allows you to create user interfaces by dropping and dragging widgets from a widget palette onto a canvas. Glade creates interfaces that use the GTK+ widget library. By default, Glade creates C code. However, since there are GTK+ bindings for C++, Perl, Ada95, and Python, there are external tools which allow you take the C code that Glade generates and convert it to other languages.
Glade Installation
RPM Version
- rpm -ivvh glade-0.5.7-2.i386.rpm
- glade &
The best way to learn Glade is just to play around and experiment with it. Once you have Glade running, create a project and create a simple interface. Save the project and choose File | Write Source Code.
Once you have written the source code to the hard drive, follow these steps
- Open a terminal and go to the upper level directory of the project. For example, if you saved the project in /home/jed/Projects/Project1, then type cd /home/jed/Projects/Project1.
- ./autogen.sh. (This will create a Makefile for your project)
- make (to compile your project)
/src/executable (where executable is the name of the binary you wish to execute) - A screenshot of Glade in action. Click the image to see a larger view.
Review
I was blown away the first time I saw Glade. If you have a graphical application that needs to be written and written fast, Glade is the perfect tool. For those who are new to Linux programming, or just new to GTK+, Glade is a great place to start. Of course, there’s no substitute for being familiar enough with GTK+ to code it by hand. However, Glade allows you to create the interface to your application quickly and get down to the business of writing the guts of the program.
When you create a new project, Glade creates a directory structure with sample AUTHORS, README, ChangeLog and other files that you are accustomed to seeing. By eliminating these mundane steps, Glade provides you with a headstart on your project. Also, Glade generates a makefile for your new project so that while you are building your project in Glade, you can go to the command line and simply type make to compile your project.
I have never been a fan of Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) in the past. I have always felt that they tried to do too many things and would up not doing anything particularly well. To me, Glade is what an IDE should be. It does one thing and does it well; it creates GTK+ user interfaces. After creating the interface, I can fire up the text editor of my choice and begin writing the code that makes the application functional. Download Glade and give it a try.
