Getting started with the user interface editor

In a GUI program, sometimes, some widgets are only important for generating events (eg: static buttons) while other ones are needed to get or show data to the user (eg: a text entry). In this later case, some code has to be generated so that these widgets can be accessed at runtime. With the glade plug-in, Anjuta is able to automatically generate such code.

To automatically generate code for a widget, some conditions must be met: the glade plug-in must be running and the source file that will hold the code must be opened. To make sure that the glade plug-in is running, it is enough to open the .ui file that holds the UI for the current project. By default, the file that will hold the code for the widgets is the same one where callbacks will be created (eg: application.c). Both files can easily be found in the project file list and are automatically created by the project template.

Once the glade plug-in is running and the file that will hold the code is open, simply double click a widget in the glade inspector. The associated file will then be scanned for some marker comments (/* ANJUTA: Widgets declaration for application.ui - DO NOT REMOVE */ and /* ANJUTA: Widgets initialization for application.ui - DO NOT REMOVE */) and, if found, code will be added right after such comments. So, for this feature to work correctly, it is important not to modify such marker comments.