Table of Contents
Although you can use C++ code to instantiate and arrange widgets, this can soon become tedious and repetitive. And it requires a recompilation to show changes. The Cambalache application allows you to layout widgets on screen and then save an XML description of the arrangement. Your application can then use the Gtk::Builder API to load that XML file at runtime and obtain a pointer to specifically named widget instances.
This has the following advantages:
You still need C++ code to deal with User Interface changes triggered by user actions, but using Gtk::Builder for the widget layout allows you to focus on implementing that functionality.
Cambalache replaces the Glade application. Glade can generate XML files to be used with gtk3/gtkmm3, but it does not support gtk4/gtkmm4.
Gtk::Builder
must be used via a
Glib::RefPtr
. Like all such classes, you need to use a
create()
method to instantiate it. For instance,
auto builder = Gtk::Builder::create_from_file("basic.ui");
This will instantiate the windows defined in the .ui
file.
To instantiate just one window, or just one of the child widgets, you can specify the name of a widget as the second parameter. For instance,
auto builder = Gtk::Builder::create_from_file("basic.ui", "treeview_products");