Xfce Forum

KahlerHarry

Member

Registered: 2022-05-07

Posts: 3

Toolchain, Tutorial and API for Absolute Beginners

Hi,

I know a little bit of C and want to write some linux desktop programs using xfce dialogs and controls.
I'm basically searching for something like the Petzold for xface4 plus GNU toolchain.

NB: I'm actually more fluent in ruby than C, but I see, that ruby bindings are still on the wish list. So no luck here I guess.

Any recommendations?

Skaperen

Member

From: right by Jesus, our Saviour

Registered: 2013-06-15

Posts: 862

Re: Toolchain, Tutorial and API for Absolute Beginners

maybe you can develop the ruby bindings?

KahlerHarry

Member

Registered: 2022-05-07

Posts: 3

Re: Toolchain, Tutorial and API for Absolute Beginners

maybe you can develop the ruby bindings?

Not now and not for some time, I'm afraid.
There are ruby bindings for GTK3. Will it help, if I master them?

ka_

Member

From: Germany

Registered: 2021-05-23

Posts: 14

Re: Toolchain, Tutorial and API for Absolute Beginners

maybe you can develop the ruby bindings?

Not now and not for some time, I'm afraid.
There are ruby bindings for GTK3. Will it help, if I master them?

I have think about it too, to build bindings for XFCE with Ruby, Rust or Crystal-Lang.
But yeah, to develop this stuff it would be more easy, if there is more documentation or a beginner friendly knowledege base.

To develop this bindings it will be easy to build a wrapper with Ruby-FFI but this are not realy bindings.
I think only to study the whole GTK-Ruby Gem API will not help to create a solid binding, but maybe there will be a way to use of the GTK Gem. (keywords: Gobject-Introspection....)

The Problem for me is that I haven't got much knowledge about the whole XFCE-API and Tools or the GTK-Tools like Gobject-Introspection.

For Rust I have found a interesting project at github that could be helpful for Rust or Crystal-lang to create bindings for the XFCE-Panel-Plugin System ( or Utils, Dialog....)

For a start I would be fine/help with a FFI Ruby or Python binding to create little Applications with XFCE4-Utils or XFCE4-Dialogs.

Links for some information that i think are useful to create a binding or are helpful:
Ruby-FFI : https://github.com/ffi/ffi
Ruby-GTK: https://ruby-gnome.github.io/ruby-gnome/doc/dev/
Rust-Panel-Plugin: https://github.com/siverv/rss-plugin
Rust-GTK: https://gtk-rs.org/gtk4-rs/stable/latest/book/
Crystal-Lang C-API: https://crystal-lang.org/reference/1.4/ … index.html
Crystal-Gobject: https://github.com/jhass/crystal-gobject
Panel-Plugin-Python: https://freshlybuilt.com/xfce-panel-plu … pt-part-1/

XFCE-Docs : https://wiki.xfce.org/api_documentation
GTK-Docs : https://www.gtk.org/docs/
GObject-Introspection : https://gi.readthedocs.io/en/latest/

Maybe someone did know more and can use help with a beginning to research or build or can tell me that the Gobject-Introspection is a way for bindings(did the XFCE libs provide this?)

greetings ka_

---

OS: Tumbleweed - Desktop : XFCE - PC: Lenovo e14 - AMD-Ryzen 5500U - Vega7 - 16GB Ram

KahlerHarry

Member

Registered: 2022-05-07

Posts: 3

Re: Toolchain, Tutorial and API for Absolute Beginners

For Rust I have found a interesting project at github that could be helpful for Rust or Crystal-lang to create bindings for the XFCE-Panel-Plugin System ( or Utils, Dialog....)

Thanks a bundle. These links look very interesting. I thought about switching from C to Rust. Seeks that there is a lot of learning before me, before I can hope to contribute in any way.