Writing Gnome Applications

By John R. Sheets

Writing GNOME Applications will help Linux programmers learn the basics of GNOME and understand how to write real-world applications using this important programming environment. Focusing on the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0201657910
• ISBN13: 9780201657913
• Release Date: September 2000
• Publisher: Addison-Wesley
• Length: 480 Pages
• Weight: 1.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 1.3" x 7.3"

Customer Reviews

Easy read introduction to GNOME programming

The author full fills his goal of giving an good introduction on how to write basic application for GNOME - going from makefiles over the GTK+ toolkit to the GNOME canvas as well as how to internationalize applications. This is an easy read, but personally I would like to have the code fragments placed closer to the text or on the opposite side, it has always irrated me when I have to move forward or backward to check out code which is referenced in the text.This is a very nice introduction, but I am missing information about Orbit and how to use the ORB in my application or be used from other application. If you are experience GUI (C/C++) programmers from the X11/Motif/KDE background this will be very easy reading (too).

Use by undergraduate computer science majors

This book has an easy reading style that supports the almost "hobby" or "fan club" interest of some of my undergraduate computer science students. The author, John Sheets, did what he set out to do: "My fervent hope is that this book will be useful to people as a learning tool, and as a reference guide. I've done my best to offer clear descriptions of how things work, while at the same time provide complete API listings and enough hands-on examples to give you a good intuitive feel for things."This book is informative, yet straightforward. It is ambitious, but there is enough detail to get somewhere without getting lost in deadly unstated details. The author is also open to interaction with readers in the amazing and delightful nature of people who actively pursue projects like this and change the world along the way. I expect that readers will value the attitude expressed by the author that this book needs to be treated as an ongoing, evolving software project. The book in its current form is very good. With the hopes and attitude expressed by the author, it is something that I will recommend to my students who are capable and interested in GNOME. Without meeting John Sheets personally, I added a 5th star to my rating because I liked his attitude and his style.

The beginner's must have...

This is a book aimed mainly at the uninitiated in the world of UNIX and X-Window programming. It is, however, necessary that the reader has the basic knowledge of C programming.In the beginning the book presents the reader with an overview of basic concepts of UNIX, X-Window system programming and the GLib and GTK+ libraries which are the foundations of GNOME libraries. For an in-depth understanding of these topics, further reading is necessary, but for the purposes of this book, they are covered well enough.The reader is then provided with a thorough description of the GNOME libraries, especially the UI framework and with special emphasis on more complicated sections like the GNOME canvas, MDI and session management, which have chapters dedicated solely to them. It also discusses a lot of graphics related stuff including latest additions to GNOME like the gdk-pixbuf library which replaces the deprecated imlib. Throughout the book all the important and hard-to-understand issues are very well illustrated with example source code.Yet another strong side of the book is the discussion of the GNU build system, which can be quite cryptic for the newcomers and migrants from the Windows world.One of its weak points is the rather spartan coverage of the help system and preparation of documentation which tend to be the weak sides of most applications and would therefore require a better description.To sum it up: an experienced UNIX programmer would perhaps rather use another, more reference-like book, but for a beginner that would like to get familiar with the world of GNOME programming as quickly and as painlessly as possible, this book is a must have!

Gnome 1.2 and the canvas.

A "must have" for starters, and a wonderful reference and guide (full of examples and code) for those already developing applications using GNOME!Intended audience for this book must be able to understand simple C code. Some UNIX tools and environment experience would be desirable in order to fully deploy the content of this book. Basic knowledge about GTK+ would also be a plus, but not a must.The most important feature of this book is that it covers GNOME 1.2. The next most important feature is the fact that subjects like Internationalization, GnomeMDI, Session Management and Documentation, have each one a hole chapter dedicated to its own. There is also a chapter on Graphics and another on The GNOME Canvas. This last one is worth John Sheets to deserve a hurray!, because the Canvas itself is not an easy issue to explain, and John does it wonderfully.The remaining chapters covers the "usual suspects": A General overview on UNIX / GTK+ / GNOME, an analysis on the GNOME Build Environment, and a detailed "dissection" on Gnome Applications, like Menus, Toolbars and Dialogs. This book is a buy that worths every buck spent on it!