GdkDisplayManager

A singleton object that offers notification when displays appear or disappear.

You can use gdk_display_manager_get() to obtain the GdkDisplayManager singleton, but that should be rarely necessary. Typically, initializing GTK opens a display that you can work with without ever accessing the GdkDisplayManager.

The GDK library can be built with support for multiple backends. The GdkDisplayManager object determines which backend is used at runtime.

In the rare case that you need to influence which of the backends is being used, you can use gdk_set_allowed_backends(). Note that you need to call this function before initializing GTK.

Backend-specific code

When writing backend-specific code that is supposed to work with multiple GDK backends, you have to consider both compile time and runtime. At compile time, use the GDK_WINDOWING_X11, GDK_WINDOWING_WIN32 macros, etc. to find out which backends are present in the GDK library you are building your application against. At runtime, use type-check macros like GDK_IS_X11_DISPLAY() to find out which backend is in use:

#ifdef GDK_WINDOWING_X11
  if (GDK_IS_X11_DISPLAY (display))
    {
      // make X11-specific calls here
    }
  else
#endif
#ifdef GDK_WINDOWING_MACOS
  if (GDK_IS_MACOS_DISPLAY (display))
    {
      // make Quartz-specific calls here
    }
  else
#endif
  g_error ("Unsupported GDK backend");