LablGTK2 2.18.10 : an interface to the GIMP Tool Kit Needed: ocaml-4.05 or more gtk+-2.x (gtk+-2.16.x for full functionality) findlib 1.2.1 or more (for default install) GNU make (there is no standard for conditionals) Info/upgrades: http://lablgtk.forge.ocamlcore.org/ https://github.com/garrigue/lablgtk Status: LablGtk2 is now pretty stable. An important change in gtk-2 is the use of unicode (utf8) for all strings. If you use non-ascii strings, you must imperatively convert them to unicode. This can be done with the [Glib.Convert.locale_to_utf8] function. If your input is already in utf8, it is still a good idea to validate it with Glib.Utf8.validate, as malformed utf8 strings may cause segmentation faults. Note that setlocale is now always called (except if you set GTK_SETLOCALE to 0 in the environment), but LC_NUMERIC is reverted to "C" to avoid problems with floating point conversion in Caml. Note that some widgets are only supported in newer versions of GTK+. If you use them in older versions, you will get a runtime error: Failure "Gobject.unsafe_create : type GtkActionGroup is not yet defined" For unsupported methods, the error message is a bit clearer: Failure "gdk_pixbuf_get_file_info unsupported in Gtk 2.x < 2.4" How to compile: You should normally not need to modify Makefiles. In case you are using the SVN version you may have to first type "aclocal && autoconf". Type ./configure && make world to compile with all supported options enabled (libgl, libglade, libgnomecanvas, librsvg, native compilation, thread support). You may use "./configure --help" to check for the different configuration options. Lablgtk2 specific options are: --with-libdir=/path: install libs in /path/lablgtk2 and /path/stublibs --with-gl --without-gl: override autodetected GtkGLArea support. Requires LablGL --with-glade --without-glade: override autodetected libglade support --with-rsvg --without-rsvg: override autodetected librsvg support --with-gnomecanvas --without-gnomecanvas: override autodetected libgnomecanvas support --with-gnomeui --without-gnomeui: override autodetected libgnomeui support --with-panel --without-panel: override autodetected libpanelapplet support --with-gtkspell --without-gtkspell: override autodetected gtkspell support --with-gtksourceview --without-gtksourceview: override autodetected gtksourceview support --with-gtksourceview2 --without-gtksourceview2: override autodetected gtksourceview2 support --enable-debug: enable debug mode Type "make install" to install using findlib. The commands lablgtk2, gdk_pixbuf_mlsource, and lablgladecc2, are copied directly to the configured executable directory. The following findlib packages are provided (according to configuration): lablgtk2 lablgtk2.auto-init lablgtk2.gl lablgtk2.glade lablgtk2.gnomecanvas lablgtk2.gnomehtml lablgtk2.gnomeui lablgtk2.gtkspell lablgtk2.panel lablgtk2.rsvg lablgtk2.sourceview lablgtk2.sourceview2 You can alternatively use "make old-install" or "make old-install DESTDIR=/my/prefix" to use the old installation procedure, which does not rely on findlib. By default, the library is installed at +lablgtk2. All installation paths are prefixed by DESTDIR when given. Contents: gdk.ml low-level interface to the General Drawing Kit gtk.ml low-level interface to the GIMP Tool Kit gtkThread.ml main loop for threaded version g[A-Z]*.ml object-oriented interface to GTK gdkObj.ml object-oriented interface to GDK lablgtk2 toplevel examples/*.ml various examples applications/browser an ongoing port of ocamlbrowser applications/camlirc an IRC client (by Nobuaki Yoshida) How to run the examples: In the examples directory just type: lablgtk2 ???.ml If you want to run them before installing lablgtk2 you have to use -localdir: ../src/lablgtk2 -localdir ???.ml How to link them: The lablgtk2 script loads an extra module GtkInit, whose only contents is: let locale = GtkMain.Main.init () You must either add this line, or add this module to your link, before calling any Gtk function. With ocamlfind, use ocamlfind ocamlc -package lablgtk2.auto-init -linkpkg -w s ???.ml -o ??? Otherwise, use something similar to: ocamlc -I +lablgtk2 -w s lablgtk.cma gtkInit.cmo ???.ml -o ??? How to use the threaded toplevel: % lablgtk2 -thread Objective Caml version 3.09 # let w = GWindow.window ~show:true ();; # let b = GButton.button ~packing:w#add ~label:"Hello!" ();; You should at once see a window appear, and then a button. The GTK main loop is running in a separate thread. Any command is immediately reflected by the system. For Windows and OSX/Quartz, there are restrictions on which commands can be used in which thread. See the windows port section lower for how to use them. When using threads in a stand-alone application, you must link with gtkThread.cmo and call GtkThread.main in place of GMain.main. Since 2.16.0, busy waiting is no longer necessary with systems threads. (I.e., CPU usage is 0% if nothing occurs.) If you use VM threads, you have to enable busy waiting by hand, otherwise other threads won't be executed (cf. gtkThread.mli). Beware that with VM threads, you cannot switch threads within a callback. The only thread related command you may use in a callback is Thread.create. Calling blocking operations may cause deadlocks. On the other hand, all newly created threads will be run outside of the callback, so they can use all thread operations. Structure of the (raw) Gtk* modules: These modules are composed of one submodule for each class. Signals specific to a widget are in a Signals inner module. A setter function is defined to give access to set_param functions. Structure of the G[A-Z]* modules: These modules provide classes to wrap the raw function calls. Here are the widget classes contained in each module: GPango Pango font handling GDraw Gdk pixmaps, etc... GObj gtkobj, widget, style GData data, adjustment, tooltips GContainer container, item_container GWindow window, dialog, color_selection_dialog, file_selection, plug GPack box, button_box, table, fixed, layout, packer, paned, notebook GBin scrolled_window, event_box, handle_box, frame, aspect_frame, viewport, socket GButton button, toggle_button, check_button, radio_button, toolbar GMenu menu_item, tearoff_item, check_menu_item, radio_menu_item, menu_shell, menu, option_menu, menu_bar, factory GMisc separator, statusbar, calendar, drawing_area, misc, arrow, image, pixmap, label, tips_query, color_selection, font_selection GTree tree_item, tree, view (also tree/list_store, model) GList list_item, liste, clist GEdit editable, entry, spin_button, combo GRange progress, progress_bar, range, scale, scrollbar GText view (also buffer, iter, mark, tag, tagtable) While subtyping follows the Gtk widget hierarchy, you cannot always use width subtyping (i.e. #super is not unifiable with all the subclasses of super). Still, it works for some classes, like #widget and #container, and allows subtyping without coercion towards these classes (cf. #container in examples/pousse.ml for instance). Practically, each widget class is composed of: * a coerce method, returning the object coerced to the type widget. * an as_widget method, returning the raw Gtk widget used for packing, etc... * a destroy method, sending the destroy signal to the object. * a get_oid method, the equivalent of Oo.id for Gtk objects. * a connect sub-object, allowing one to widget specific signals (this is what prevents width subtyping in subclasses.) * a misc sub-object, giving access to miscellanous functionality of the basic gtkwidget class, and a misc#connect sub-object. * an event sub-object, for Xevent related functions (only if the widget has an Xwindow), and an event#connect sub-object. * a drag sub-object, containing drag and drop functions, and a drag#connect sub-object. * widget specific methods. Here is a diagram of the structure (- for methods, + for sub-objects) - coerce : widget - as_widget : Gtk.widget obj - destroy : unit -> unit - get_oid : int - ... + connect : mywidget_signals | - after | - signal_name : callback:(... -> ...) -> GtkSignal.id + misc : misc_ops | - show, hide, disconnect, ... | + connect : misc_signals + drag : drag_ops | - ... | + connect : drag_signals + event : event_ops | - add, ... | + connect : event_signals You create a widget by [. options ... ()]. Many optional arguments are admitted. The last two of them, packing: and show:, allow you respectively to call a function on your newly created widget, and to decide wether to show it immediately or not. By default all widgets except toplevel windows (GWindow module) are shown immediately. Default arguments: For many constructor or method arguments, default values are provided. Generally, this default value is defined by GTK, and you must refer to GTK's documentation. For ML defined defaults, usually default values are either false, 0, None or `NONE, according to the expected type. Important exceptions are ~show, which default to true in all widgets except those in GWindow, and ~fill, which defaults to true or `BOTH. Note about unit as method argument: O'Caml introduces no distinction between methods having side-effects and methods simply returning a value. In practice, this is confusing, and awkward when used as callbacks. For this reason all methods having noticeable side-effects should take arguments, and unit if they have no argument. ML-side signals: The GUtil module provides two kinds of utilities: a memo table, to be able to dynamically cast widgets to their original class, and more interesting ML-side signals. With ML-side signals, you can combine LablGTK widgets into your own components, and add signals to them. Later you can connect to these signals, just like GTK signals. This proved very efficient to develop complex applications, abstracting the plumbing between various components. Explanations are provided in GUtil.mli. Contributed components: The GToolbox module contains contributed components to help you build your applications. Memory management: Important efforts have been dedicated to cooperate with Gtk's reference counting mechanism. As a result you should generally be able to use Gdk/Gtk data structures without caring about memory management. They will be freed when nobody points to them any more. This also means that you do not need to pay too much attention to whether a data structure is still alive or not. If it is not, you should get an error rather than a core dump. The case of Gtk objects deserves special care. Since they are interactive, we cannot just destroy them when they are no longer referenced. They have to be explicitely destroyed. If a widget was added to a container widget, it will automatically be destroyed when its last container is destroyed. For this reason you need only destroy toplevel widgets. Since too frequent GC can severely degrade performance, since 2.18.4 it is possible to change the contribution of custom blocks to the GC cycle, using the function GMain.Gc.set_speed. The default is 10% of what it was in 2.18.3. If you set it to 0, custom block allocation has no impact, and you should consider running the Gc by hand. IMPORTANT: Some Gtk data structures are allocated in the Caml heap, and their use in signals (Gtk functions internally cally callbacks) relies on their address being stable during a function call. For this reason automatic compation is disabled in GtkMain. If you need it, you may use compaction through Gc.compact where it is safe (timeouts, other threads...), but do not enable automatic compaction. LibGlade support: There is support for Glade generated XML UI description files, using libglade. You can read in a file, access to widgets, and define callbacks. A tool for extracting widget definitions from glade description is provided. It generates a wrapper class, and you can then generate an object corresponding to the intended layout, and access individual widgets through its methods. Example: % lablgladecc2 project1.glade > project1.ml % lablgtk2 -thread # #use "project1.ml" ;; class window1 : ... # let w1 = new window1 () ;; # w1#bind ~name:"on_paste1_activate" ~callback:(fun () -> w1#text1#insert "some text\n");; See lablgladecc2 -help for other features (tracing and source embedding). The executable must be linked with lablglade.cma. GL extension: You can use lablgtk in combination with LablGL * get and install lablGL 1.05 from http://wwwfun.kurims.kyoto-u.ac.jp/soft/olabl/lablgl.html * get and install gtkglarea-1.99.0.tar.gz from ftp://ftp.gnome.org/pub/gnome/sources/gtkglarea/1.99/ or any other gnome mirror site * reconfigure You can then use the widget GlGtk.gl_area as an OpenGL window. Some examples are in examples/GL, but basically any LablGL example can be easily ported. The executable must be linked with both lablgl.cma and lablgtkgl.cma. SVG support: This binding was contributed by Olivier Andrieu. It requires librsvg-2.x (preferably 2.2.x). See an example in examples/rsvg. The executable must be linked with lablrsvg.cma. GnomeCanvas support: This binding was also contributed by Olivier Andrieu. It requires libgnomecanvas-2.x. See examples in examples/canvas. The executable must be linked with lablgnomecanvas.cma. GtkSourceView 1 support: This binding was contributed by Maxence Guesdon and Stefano Zacchiroli. It requires libgtksourceview-1.x. See examples in examples/sourceview. The executable must be linked with lablgtksourceview.cma. GtkSourceView 2 support: This binding was contributed by Benjamin Monate: it is based on the aforementioned GtksourceView 1 support. It requires libgtksourceview-2.x. See examples in examples/sourceview/*2.ml The executable must be linked with lablgtksourceview2.cma. Windows port See README.win32 for detailed information on installation. If you want to use threads, you must be aware of windows specific restrictions; see for instance: http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.video.gimp.windows.devel/314 I.e. all GTK related calls must occur in the same thread, the one that runs the main loop. If you want to call them from other threads you need to do some forwarding. Fortunately, with a functional language this is easy. Two functions, val async : ('a -> unit) -> 'a -> unit val sync : ('a -> 'b) -> 'a -> 'b are available in the GtkThread module to help you. They will forward your call to the main thread (between handling two GUI events). This can be either asynchronous or synchronous. In the synchronous case, beware of deadlocks (the trivial case, when you are calling from the same thread, is properly avoided). Note also that since callbacks are always called from the main loop thread, you can freely use GTK in them. Also, non-graphical operations are thread-safe. Here is an example using the lablgtk toplevel with threads: % lablgtk2.bat -thread Objective Caml version 3.09 # open GtkThread;; # let w = sync (GWindow.window ~show:true) ();; # let b = sync (GButton.button ~packing:w#add ~label:"Hello!") ();; # b#connect#clicked (fun () -> prerr_endline "Hello");; OSX/Quartz port Since Darwin is Unix, this port compiles as usual. Note however that Quartz imposes even stronger restrictions than Windows on threads: only the main thread of the application can do GUI work. Just apply the same techniques as described above, being careful to ensure that your first call to GtkThread.main occurs in the main thread. This is done automatically in the threaded toplvel. Authors: Jacques Garrigue Benjamin Monate Olivier Andrieu Adrien Nader Jun Furuse Maxence Guesdon Stefano Zacchiroli For lablgtk1: Hubert Fauque Koji Kagawa Bug reports: http://forge.ocamlcore.org/tracker/?group_id=220