This book is divided into several parts:
-
Right now you're reading Part 1. This chapter gives you
an overview of the Gnome application development
framework. The following two chapters quickly introduce
glib and GTK+ -- if you're already familiar with GTK+
programming, you may want to move directly to Part 2.
-
Part 2 guides you through the development of a skeletal
Gnome application. It starts with the creation of the
source tree, and then explains how to write menus,
dialogs, and other essential application components. At
the end of Part 2, there's a checklist of features
every application should have.
-
Part 3 describes some advanced topics, including the
internals of the GTK+ object and type system, writing a
custom GtkWidget subclass,
and using the GnomeCanvas
widget. It also covers GDK.
-
The appendices include a map of the GTK+ and Gnome
object hierarchy, with a short description of each
object; a map of the GTK+ and Gnome header files; and
some pointers to online programming resources.
This book assumes some knowledge of GTK+ programming;
chapters 2 and 3 will give you a quick overview if your
knowledge is minimal, but they move very quickly. Most of
the specific widgets in GTK+ are not covered. The book is
intended to introduce Gnome programming, and some advanced
GTK+ topics; it is a supplement to an introductory GTK+
book.
Due to time and space limitations, only the central Gnome
libraries are covered; in particular, CORBA, printing, XML,
plugins, and scripting are not covered. Most large
applications will use these features in addition to the
core libraries.
