A Short Introduction to GTK

What is GTK And Why Would I Want To Learn It?

I’ll try to keep this really short. First, GTK stands for the Gimp Toolkit and is the main toolkit used by GNOME (GNU Network Object Model Environment), although it is an object-oriented cross-platform toolkit that can be used to create applications independent of GNOME. Why is it called the Gimp Toolkit you ask? Well, it was originally written for the Gimp (GNU Image Manipulation Program, basically the equivalent of Photoshop in Linux). But since GTK had support for several languages, GTK was chosen as the toolkit for GNOME.

It uses LGPL, which means you won’t have to pay a penny for licenses and royalties, EVEN IF you’re program is not for personal or educational use e.g. commercial, paid programs. Programming with a toolkit allows your program to integrate well with your GNOME desktop, which means your program will have the same look and feel as your desktop theme. The toolkit also features high-level and easy to use widgets which are built on the concept of hierarchies and containers, which I’ll probably find out to be more useful than I think (think class hierarchies and inheritance, change the parent, change the children, et cetera).

Well, that was longer than I had wanted. So without further ado, I’m just gonna dive in and get ready to set up my GTK workspace.

Next >> Setting Up Your GTK Workspace