Follow Techotopia on Twitter

On-line Guides
All Guides
eBook Store
iOS / Android
Linux for Beginners
Office Productivity
Linux Installation
Linux Security
Linux Utilities
Linux Virtualization
Linux Kernel
System/Network Admin
Programming
Scripting Languages
Development Tools
Web Development
GUI Toolkits/Desktop
Databases
Mail Systems
openSolaris
Eclipse Documentation
Techotopia.com
Virtuatopia.com
Answertopia.com

How To Guides
Virtualization
General System Admin
Linux Security
Linux Filesystems
Web Servers
Graphics & Desktop
PC Hardware
Windows
Problem Solutions
Privacy Policy

  




 

 

Gtk+/Gnome Application Development
Prev Home Next

The Main Loop

The GTK+ main loop's primary role is to listen for events on a file descriptor connected to the X server, and forward them to widgets. the section called Receiving GDK Events in GTK+ in the chapter called GDK Basics describes the main loop's event handling in more detail. This section explains the main loop in general terms, and describes how to add new functionality to the main loop: callbacks to be invoked when the loop is idle, at a specified interval, when a file descriptor is ready for reading or writing, and when the main loop exits.

Main Loop Basics

The main loop is primarily implemented by glib, which has a generic main loop abstraction. GTK+ attaches the glib main loop to GDK's X server connection, and presents a convenient interface (the glib loop is slightly lower-level than the GTK+ loop). The core GTK+ main loop interface is shown in Figure 28.

gtk_main() runs the main loop. gtk_main() will not return until gtk_main_quit() is called. gtk_main() can be called recursively; each call to gtk_main_quit() exits one instance of gtk_main(). gtk_main_level() returns the level of recursion; that is, it returns 0 if no gtk_main() is on the stack, 1 if one gtk_main() is running, etc.

All instances of gtk_main() are functionally identical; they are all watching the same connection to the X server and working from the same event queue. gtk_main() instances are used to block, halting a function's flow of control until some conditions are met. All GTK+ programs use this technique to keep main() from exiting while the application is running. The gnome_dialog_run() function (see the section called Modal Dialogs in the chapter called User Communication: Dialogs) uses a recursive main loop, so it doesn't return until the user clicks a dialog button.

Sometimes you want to process a few events, without handing the flow of control to gtk_main(). You can perform a single iteration of the main loop by calling gtk_main_iteration(). This might process a single event, for example; it depends on what tasks are pending. You can check whether any events need to be processed by calling the gtk_events_pending() predicate. Together, these two functions allow you to temporarily return control to GTK+, so the GUI can "catch up." For example, during a long computation, you will want to display a progress bar; you must allow the GTK+ main loop to run periodically, so GTK+ can redraw the progress bar. Use this code:


  while (gtk_events_pending())
    gtk_main_iteration();
#include <gtk/gtkmain.h>

void gtk_main(void);

void gtk_main_quit(void);

void gtk_main_iteration(void);

gint gtk_events_pending(void);

guint gtk_main_level(void);

Figure 28. Main Loop

Gtk+/Gnome Application Development
Prev Home Next

 
 
  Published under free license. Design by Interspire