Struct gtk4::Builder

source · [−]

#[repr(transparent)]
pub struct Builder { /* private fields */ }

Expand description

A Builder reads XML descriptions of a user interface and instantiates the described objects.

To create a Builder from a user interface description, call from_file(), from_resource() or from_string().

In the (unusual) case that you want to add user interface descriptions from multiple sources to the same Builder you can call new() to get an empty builder and populate it by (multiple) calls to add_from_file(), add_from_resource() or add_from_string().

A Builder holds a reference to all objects that it has constructed and drops these references when it is finalized. This finalization can cause the destruction of non-widget objects or widgets which are not contained in a toplevel window. For toplevel windows constructed by a builder, it is the responsibility of the user to call Gtk::Window::destroy() to get rid of them and all the widgets they contain.

The functions object() and objects() can be used to access the widgets in the interface by the names assigned to them inside the UI description. Toplevel windows returned by these functions will stay around until the user explicitly destroys them with Gtk::Window::destroy(). Other widgets will either be part of a larger hierarchy constructed by the builder (in which case you should not have to worry about their lifecycle), or without a parent, in which case they have to be added to some container to make use of them. Non-widget objects need to be reffed with g_object_ref() to keep them beyond the lifespan of the builder.

GtkBuilder UI Definitions

Builder parses textual descriptions of user interfaces which are specified in XML format. We refer to these descriptions as “GtkBuilder UI definitions” or just “UI definitions” if the context is clear.

The toplevel element is <interface>. It optionally takes a “domain” attribute, which will make the builder look for translated strings using dgettext() in the domain specified. This can also be done by calling set_translation_domain() on the builder.

Objects are described by <object> elements, which can contain <property> elements to set properties, <signal> elements which connect signals to handlers, and <child> elements, which describe child objects (most often widgets inside a container, but also e.g. actions in an action group, or columns in a tree model). A <child> element contains an <object> element which describes the child object.

The target toolkit version(s) are described by <requires> elements, the “lib” attribute specifies the widget library in question (currently the only supported value is “gtk”) and the “version” attribute specifies the target version in the form “<major>.<minor>”. Builder will error out if the version requirements are not met.

Typically, the specific kind of object represented by an <object> element is specified by the “class” attribute. If the type has not been loaded yet, GTK tries to find the get_type() function from the class name by applying heuristics. This works in most cases, but if necessary, it is possible to specify the name of the get_type() function explicitly with the “type-func” attribute.

Objects may be given a name with the “id” attribute, which allows the application to retrieve them from the builder with object(). An id is also necessary to use the object as property value in other parts of the UI definition. GTK reserves ids starting and ending with ___ (three consecutive underscores) for its own purposes.

Setting properties of objects is pretty straightforward with the <property> element: the “name” attribute specifies the name of the property, and the content of the element specifies the value. If the “translatable” attribute is set to a true value, GTK uses gettext() (or dgettext() if the builder has a translation domain set) to find a translation for the value. This happens before the value is parsed, so it can be used for properties of any type, but it is probably most useful for string properties. It is also possible to specify a context to disambiguate short strings, and comments which may help the translators.

Builder can parse textual representations for the most common property types: characters, strings, integers, floating-point numbers, booleans (strings like “TRUE”, “t”, “yes”, “y”, “1” are interpreted as true, strings like “FALSE”, “f”, “no”, “n”, “0” are interpreted as false), enumerations (can be specified by their name, nick or integer value), flags (can be specified by their name, nick, integer value, optionally combined with “|”, e.g. “GTK_INPUT_HINT_EMOJI|GTK_INPUT_HINT_LOWERCASE”) and colors (in a format understood by gdk::RGBA::parse()).

GVariants can be specified in the format understood by g_variant_parse(), and pixbufs can be specified as a filename of an image file to load.

Objects can be referred to by their name and by default refer to objects declared in the local XML fragment and objects exposed via expose_object(). In general, Builder allows forward references to objects — declared in the local XML; an object doesn’t have to be constructed before it can be referred to. The exception to this rule is that an object has to be constructed before it can be used as the value of a construct-only property.

It is also possible to bind a property value to another object’s property value using the attributes “bind-source” to specify the source object of the binding, and optionally, “bind-property” and “bind-flags” to specify the source property and source binding flags respectively. Internally, Builder implements this using GBinding objects. For more information see g_object_bind_property().

Sometimes it is necessary to refer to widgets which have implicitly been constructed by GTK as part of a composite widget, to set properties on them or to add further children (e.g. the content area of a Dialog). This can be achieved by setting the “internal-child” property of the <child> element to a true value. Note that Builder still requires an <object> element for the internal child, even if it has already been constructed.

A number of widgets have different places where a child can be added (e.g. tabs vs. page content in notebooks). This can be reflected in a UI definition by specifying the “type” attribute on a <child> The possible values for the “type” attribute are described in the sections describing the widget-specific portions of UI definitions.

Signal handlers and function pointers

Signal handlers are set up with the <signal> element. The “name” attribute specifies the name of the signal, and the “handler” attribute specifies the function to connect to the signal. The remaining attributes, “after”, “swapped” and “object”, have the same meaning as the corresponding parameters of the g_signal_connect_object() or g_signal_connect_data() functions. A “last_modification_time” attribute is also allowed, but it does not have a meaning to the builder.

If you rely on GModule support to lookup callbacks in the symbol table, the following details should be noted:

When compiling applications for Windows, you must declare signal callbacks with G_MODULE_EXPORT, or they will not be put in the symbol table. On Linux and Unix, this is not necessary; applications should instead be compiled with the -Wl,–export-dynamic CFLAGS, and linked against gmodule-export-2.0.

A GtkBuilder UI Definition

<interface>
  <object class="GtkDialog" id="dialog1">
    <child internal-child="content_area">
      <object class="GtkBox" id="vbox1">
        <child internal-child="action_area">
          <object class="GtkBox" id="hbuttonbox1">
            <child>
              <object class="GtkButton" id="ok_button">
                <property name="label" translatable="yes">_Ok</property>
                <property name="use-underline">True</property>
                <signal name="clicked" handler="ok_button_clicked"/>
              </object>
            </child>
          </object>
        </child>
      </object>
    </child>
  </object>
</interface>

Beyond this general structure, several object classes define their own XML DTD fragments for filling in the ANY placeholders in the DTD above. Note that a custom element in a element gets parsed by the custom tag handler of the parent object, while a custom element in an

Struct gtk4::Builder

Implementations

impl Builder

pub fn new() -> Builder

pub fn from_resource(resource_path: &str) -> Builder

pub fn from_string(string: &str) -> Builder

pub fn add_from_resource(&self, resource_path: &str) -> Result<(), Error>

pub fn add_from_string(&self, buffer: &str) -> Result<(), Error>

pub fn add_objects_from_file( &self, filename: impl AsRef<Path>, object_ids: &[&str]) -> Result<(), Error>

pub fn add_objects_from_resource( &self, resource_path: &str, object_ids: &[&str]) -> Result<(), Error>

pub fn add_objects_from_string( &self, buffer: &str, object_ids: &[&str]) -> Result<(), Error>

pub fn create_closure( &self, function_name: &str, flags: BuilderClosureFlags, object: Option<&impl IsA<Object>>) -> Result<Option<Closure>, Error>

pub fn expose_object(&self, name: &str, object: &impl IsA<Object>)

pub fn extend_with_template( &self, object: &impl IsA<Object>, template_type: Type, buffer: &str) -> Result<(), Error>

pub fn objects(&self) -> Vec<Object>

pub fn scope(&self) -> BuilderScope

pub fn translation_domain(&self) -> Option<GString>

pub fn type_from_name(&self, type_name: &str) -> Type

pub fn set_current_object(&self, current_object: Option<&impl IsA<Object>>)

pub fn set_scope(&self, scope: Option<&impl IsA<BuilderScope>>)

pub fn set_translation_domain(&self, domain: Option<&str>)

pub fn value_from_string( &self, pspec: impl AsRef<ParamSpec>, string: &str) -> Result<Value, Error>

pub fn value_from_string_type( &self, type_: Type, string: &str) -> Result<Value, Error>

pub fn connect_current_object_notify<F: Fn(&Self) + 'static>( &self, f: F) -> SignalHandlerId

pub fn connect_scope_notify<F: Fn(&Self) + 'static>( &self, f: F) -> SignalHandlerId

pub fn connect_translation_domain_notify<F: Fn(&Self) + 'static>( &self, f: F) -> SignalHandlerId

impl Builder

pub fn from_file(file_path: impl AsRef<Path>) -> Self

pub fn current_object(&self) -> Option<Object>

pub fn object<T: IsA<Object>>(&self, name: &str) -> Option<T>

pub fn add_from_file(&self, file_path: impl AsRef<Path>) -> Result<(), Error>

Trait Implementations

impl Clone for Builder

fn clone(&self) -> Self

fn clone_from(&mut self, source: &Self)

impl Debug for Builder

fn fmt(&self, f: &mut Formatter<'_>) -> Result

impl Default for Builder

fn default() -> Self

impl Display for Builder

fn fmt(&self, f: &mut Formatter<'_>) -> Result

impl Hash for Builder

fn hash<H>(&self, state: &mut H) where H: Hasher,

fn hash_slice<H>(data: &[Self], state: &mut H) where H: Hasher,

impl Ord for Builder

fn cmp(&self, other: &Self) -> Ordering

fn max(self, other: Self) -> Self

fn min(self, other: Self) -> Self

fn clamp(self, min: Self, max: Self) -> Self where Self: PartialOrd<Self>,

impl ParentClassIs for Builder

type Parent = Object

impl<OT: ObjectType> PartialEq<OT> for Builder

fn eq(&self, other: &OT) -> bool

fn ne(&self, other: &Rhs) -> bool

impl<OT: ObjectType> PartialOrd<OT> for Builder

fn partial_cmp(&self, other: &OT) -> Option<Ordering>

fn lt(&self, other: &Rhs) -> bool

fn le(&self, other: &Rhs) -> bool

fn gt(&self, other: &Rhs) -> bool

fn ge(&self, other: &Rhs) -> bool

impl StaticType for Builder

fn static_type() -> Type

impl Eq for Builder

Auto Trait Implementations

impl RefUnwindSafe for Builder

impl !Send for Builder

impl !Sync for Builder

impl Unpin for Builder

impl UnwindSafe for Builder

Blanket Implementations

impl<T> Any for T where T: 'static + ?Sized,

fn type_id(&self) -> TypeId

impl<T> Borrow<T> for T where T: ?Sized,

fn borrow(&self) -> &T

impl<T> BorrowMut<T> for T where T: ?Sized,

fn borrow_mut(&mut self) -> &mut T

impl<T> Cast for T where T: ObjectType,

fn upcast<T>(self) -> T where T: ObjectType, Self: IsA<T>,

fn upcast_ref<T>(&self) -> &T where T: ObjectType, Self: IsA<T>,

fn downcast<T>(self) -> Result<T, Self> where T: ObjectType, Self: CanDowncast<T>,

pub fn add_objects_from_file(
&self,
filename: impl AsRef<Path>,
object_ids: &[&str]
) -> Result<(), Error>

pub fn add_objects_from_resource(
&self,
resource_path: &str,
object_ids: &[&str]
) -> Result<(), Error>

pub fn add_objects_from_string(
&self,
buffer: &str,
object_ids: &[&str]
) -> Result<(), Error>

pub fn create_closure(
&self,
function_name: &str,
flags: BuilderClosureFlags,
object: Option<&impl IsA<Object>>
) -> Result<Option<Closure>, Error>

pub fn extend_with_template(
&self,
object: &impl IsA<Object>,
template_type: Type,
buffer: &str
) -> Result<(), Error>

pub fn value_from_string(
&self,
pspec: impl AsRef<ParamSpec>,
string: &str
) -> Result<Value, Error>

pub fn value_from_string_type(
&self,
type_: Type,
string: &str
) -> Result<Value, Error>

pub fn connect_current_object_notify<F: Fn(&Self) + 'static>(
&self,
f: F
) -> SignalHandlerId

pub fn connect_scope_notify<F: Fn(&Self) + 'static>(
&self,
f: F
) -> SignalHandlerId

pub fn connect_translation_domain_notify<F: Fn(&Self) + 'static>(
&self,
f: F
) -> SignalHandlerId

fn hash<H>(&self, state: &mut H) where
H: Hasher,

fn hash_slice<H>(data: &[Self], state: &mut H) where
H: Hasher,

fn clamp(self, min: Self, max: Self) -> Self where
Self: PartialOrd<Self>,

impl<T> Any for T where
T: 'static + ?Sized,

impl<T> Borrow<T> for T where
T: ?Sized,

impl<T> BorrowMut<T> for T where
T: ?Sized,

impl<T> Cast for T where
T: ObjectType,

fn upcast<T>(self) -> T where
T: ObjectType,
Self: IsA<T>,

fn upcast_ref<T>(&self) -> &T where
T: ObjectType,
Self: IsA<T>,

fn downcast<T>(self) -> Result<T, Self> where
T: ObjectType,
Self: CanDowncast<T>,

fn downcast_ref<T>(&self) -> Option<&T> where
T: ObjectType,
Self: CanDowncast<T>,

fn dynamic_cast<T>(self) -> Result<T, Self> where
T: ObjectType,

fn dynamic_cast_ref<T>(&self) -> Option<&T> where
T: ObjectType,

unsafe fn unsafe_cast<T>(self) -> T where
T: ObjectType,