Academic Tutorials



English | French | Portugese | German | Italian
Home Advertise Payments Recommended Websites Interview Questions FAQs
News Source Codes E-Books Downloads Jobs Web Hosting
Chats

Gnome
Gnome Introduction
Gnome GTK Programming
Gnome GTK+
Gnome Programming
Gnome Libgnome Library
Gnome Framework
Gnome libgnomeui Library
Gnome Widget
Gnome Drag and Drop
Gnome Building
Gnome Application
Gnome Application - Part 2

HTML Tutorials
HTML Tutorial
XHTML Tutorial
CSS Tutorial
TCP/IP Tutorial
CSS 1.0
CSS 2.0
HLML
XML Tutorials
XML Tutorial
XSL Tutorial
XSLT Tutorial
DTD Tutorial
Schema Tutorial
XForms Tutorial
XSL-FO Tutorial
XML DOM Tutorial
XLink Tutorial
XQuery Tutorial
XPath Tutorial
XPointer Tutorial
RDF Tutorial
SOAP Tutorial
WSDL Tutorial
RSS Tutorial
WAP Tutorial
Web Services Tutorial
Browser Scripting
JavaScript Tutorial
VBScript Tutorial
DHTML Tutorial
HTML DOM Tutorial
WMLScript Tutorial
E4X Tutorial
Server Scripting
ASP Tutorial
PERL Tutorial
SQL Tutorial
ADO Tutorial
CVS
Python
Apple Script
PL/SQL Tutorial
SQL Server
PHP
.NET (dotnet)
Microsoft.Net
ASP.Net
.Net Mobile
C# : C Sharp
ADO.NET
VB.NET
VC++
Multimedia
SVG Tutorial
Flash Tutorial
Media Tutorial
SMIL Tutorial
Photoshop Tutorial
Gimp Tutorial
Matlab
Gnuplot Programming
GIF Animation Tutorial
Scientific Visualization Tutorial
Graphics
Web Building
Web Browsers
Web Hosting
W3C Tutorial
Web Building
Web Quality
Web Semantic
Web Careers
Weblogic Tutorial
SEO
Web Site Hosting
Domain Name
Java Tutorials
Java Tutorial
JSP Tutorial
Servlets Tutorial
Struts Tutorial
EJB Tutorial
JMS Tutorial
JMX Tutorial
Eclipse
J2ME
JBOSS
Programming Langauges
C Tutorial
C++ Tutorial
Visual Basic Tutorial
Data Structures Using C
Cobol
Assembly Language
Mainframe
Forth Programming
Lisp Programming
Pascal
Delphi
Fortran
OOPs
Data Warehousing
CGI Programming
Emacs Tutorial
Gnome
ILU
Soft Skills
Communication Skills
Time Management
Project Management
Team Work
Leadership Skills
Corporate Communication
Negotiation Skills
Database Tutorials
Oracle
MySQL
Operating System
BSD
Symbian
Unix
Internet
IP-Masquerading
IPC
MIDI
Software Testing
Testing
Firewalls
SAP Module
ERP
ABAP
Business Warehousing
SAP Basis
Material Management
Sales & Distribution
Human Resource
Netweaver
Customer Relationship Management
Production and Planning
Networking Programming
Corba Tutorial
Networking Tutorial
Microsoft Office
Microsoft Word
Microsoft Outlook
Microsoft PowerPoint
Microsoft Publisher
Microsoft Excel
Microsoft Front Page
Microsoft InfoPath
Microsoft Access
Accounting
Financial Accounting
Managerial Accounting
Network Sites


Using The Libgnome Library


Previoushome Next






Using the libgnome Library


The libgnome library is the non-toolkit specific utility library for GNOME applications, and includes things like configuration file reading, .

A D V E R T I S E M E N T
desktop file handling, special GLib like utility routines, getting the standard file locations for GNOME, handling mime types, handling meta-data on files, sound, "triggers", and other useful things one could want to use. Also say that you are writing an application in say motif, but you want your app to be more GNOME friendly. Then you could use this library to make your application work well with other GNOME programs.


Configuration Files


The gnome-config routines provide an easy way to store configuration info in files. To see a full list of the routines, look in the libgnome/gnome-config.h header file.

Do note however that these routines are marked deprecated for GNOME 2.0. The reason is that there is now a much better library for storing configuration data called GConf. GConf will also be a part of the GNOME 1.4 release so you can start using it for stable applications at that time.

The routines all working with a path. The path is a Unix like path, but the root is set to the ~/.gnome/ directory. So /some/config/path/file/sectionA/keyB, refers to the file ~/.gnome/some/config/path/file, and inside the file using section sectionA and key keyB.

Reading Configuration Info


To read configuration information gnome_config_get_* functions are used. the * is replaced by the type of the data, it can be int, float, string, bool and vector. The int functions work with gint, float functions work with gdouble, string functions work with gchar *, bool functions work with gboolean and vector work with an argc like array of strings (gint and gchar **). For the gnome_config_get_* functions, the default to be returned if the file section or key are not found can be appended to the path after an equals sign. If you need to know if the default was used, you can append _with_default to the function name and add a parameter which is a gboolean *, though which the function returns whether it used the default or if it actually found a real value. Example follows:

 
int counter;
char *text;
gboolean def;
...
counter = gnome_config_get_int_with_default("/example/section/counter=1",
                                            &def);
if(def) g_print("Default used for counter!\n");
text = gnome_config_get_string("/example/section/text=TEXT");
...
g_free(text);
 

Note that the string returned by gnome_config_get_string should be freed with g_free, the vector from gnome_config_get_vector should also be freed with g_free

Writing Configuration Info


To write configuration info to files, the gnome_config_set_* functions are used. The use is very similar to above to the gnome_config_get_* functions. The types used are exactly the same. Except with the "set" functions, you pass the data you want to store after the path, and there is no default inside the path. If the directory in the path doesn't exist it will get created when the functions are written to disk. After you set all your data, you need to call gnome_config_sync to actually write your data to file. The library will not write the data to file immediately for efficiency reasons. Example follows:

 
char *text;
int counter;
...
/*after we have set text and counter to some values we can
  write them to our config location*/
gnome_config_set_int("/example/section/counter", counter);
gnome_config_set_string("/example/section/text", text);
gnome_config_sync();
 

 

Privacy Functions


If you want to store sensitive data, that other users should not read, use the gnome_config_private_* functions, which have exactly the same behavior as the above functions, with the exception of gnome_config_sync (and a few others) which doesn't have a private equivalent since it works for both. The difference is that these functions write to a directory called ~/.gnome_private on which 0700 permissions are enforced. This is not extremely secure, but because of the highly brain-dead US export restrictions, we can't really use encryption.

Using gnome-config for Arbitrary Files


If you wish to use gnome-config for reading and writing of arbitrary files on the file-system (as long as those files are in the gnome-config format), you can just prepend '=' to the beginning of the path and another '=' to the end of the file name. Example follows:

 
char buf[256];
...
/*write some bogus data to a temporary file*/
g_snprintf(buf,256,"=%s=/section/key",tmpnam(tmpnam));
gnome_config_set_int(buf,999);
gnome_config_sync();
 

Note that it doesn't really make sense to use the private versions when using an arbitrary absolute path, as there will be absolutely no difference between the two. 

Automatic Prefixes


Sometime, especially if you have a long path, would be much easier to say have the config automatically prefix the path with a given string. This is what gnome_config_push_prefix and gnome_config_pop_prefix are for. You pass the string you want to prefix to gnome_config_push_prefix and call gnome_config_pop_prefix when you are done. Note that these functions are common between private and normal config functions. Example:

 
gnome_config_push_prefix("/file/section/");
gnome_config_set_int("key1",1);
gnome_config_set_int("key2",2);
gnome_config_set_int("key3",-88);
gnome_config_pop_prefix();
 

 

Misc gnome-config Stuff


If you need to remove a file in your configuration file, you will use gnome_config_clean_file. This function will schedule that file to be deleted on the next gnome_config_sync. You can do a gnome_config_clean_file and then use the file and then do gnome_config_sync, and it will have the expected behavior.

If you have written to a file or read from a file and want gnome-config to drop it from memory, use gnome_config_drop_file. This is used if you want to forget changes done to that file, or to simply conserve memory, since gnome-config will otherwise keep a copy of the data in memory for faster access.


.desktop Files


The .desktop files are the files that contain information about programs. The files are in the gnome-config format and are internally read using gnome-config. Your app definitely needs one of these files installed in the system menu paths if it wants to be added to the menu.

You can use gnome_desktop_entry_* functions to manipulate these files. These functions work with a structure called GnomeDesktopEntry and you should look at the libgnome/gnome-dentry.h header file for the format of this structure.

The basic functions that you use to manipulate these files are gnome_desktop_entry_load which returns a newly allocated GnomeDesktopEntry structure, gnome_desktop_entry_launch which takes the GnomeDesktopEntry structure as an argument and launches the program it describes and gnome_desktop_entry_free which frees the allocated memory with the structure.

An example .desktop file for your app might look like:

 
[Desktop Entry]
Name=Clock
Name[cz]=Hodiny
Comment=Digital Clock
Comment[cz]=Digitalni Hodiny
Exec=digital-clock
Icon=clock.png
Terminal=0
Type=Application
 

You will notice that there are translations for Name and Comment fields in Czech. For gnome programs to notice your .desktop file, it is usually located somewhere under <prefix>/share/apps/, which contains the hierarchy of the system menus. For the system to find your icon, your icon should be placed inside the <prefix>/share/pixmaps directory. Note that the prefix refers to the location where GNOME was installed. 


Utility and Files


Files


There is a standard way to find files that belong to gnome installation, you shouldn't really be using your own logic to find them and you should use these functions to get filenames for icons, sounds or other data. Also these functions are only for finding files that were installed with the GNOME libraries. There is not at this time functions to deal with data installed by your application. The functions are:

Table 3-1. File Finding Functions
Prototype Description
char *gnome_libdir_file (const char *filename) Get a full path of a file in the library directory or NULL if the file doesn't exist
char *gnome_unconditional_libdir_file (const char *filename) Get a full path of a file in the library directory
char *gnome_datadir_file (const char *filename) Get a full path of a file in the data director or NULL if the file doesn't exist
char *gnome_unconditional_datadir_file (const char *filename) Get a full path of a file in the data director
char *gnome_sound_file (const char *filename) Get a full path of a file in the sound directory or NULL if the file doesn't exist
char *gnome_unconditional_sound_file (const char *filename) Get a full path of a file in the sound directory
char *gnome_pixmap_file (const char *filename) Get a full path of a file in the pixmap directory or NULL if the file doesn't exist
char *gnome_unconditional_pixmap_file (const char *filename) Get a full path of a file in the pixmap directory
char *gnome_config_file (const char *filename) Get a full path of a file in the config directory or NULL if the file doesn't exist
char *gnome_unconditional_config_file (const char *filename) Get a full path of a file in the config directory

 

These functions return a newly g_malloced string and you should use g_free on the string when you are done. The gnome_unconditional_* functions don't check if the file actually exist and will just return a file name. The normal functions will check and return NULL if the file doesn't exist. So you shouldn't use those functions when you will do saving. As an example we want to get a pixmap from the standard pixmap directory, for example we need to get the "gnome-help.png" icon:

 
char *name;
...
name = gnome_pixmap_file("gnome-help.png");
if(!name) {
        g_warning("gnome-help.png doesn't exist!");
} else {
        /*here we use the file*/
        ...
        g_free(name);
}
 

 

Also of interest are the functions (actually macros) gnome_util_home_file and gnome_util_user_home. gnome_util_home_file takes one argument (string) and returns a newly allocated string with the home directory and .gnome prepended to the file. So for example if you pass it say someconfigfile, it would return /home/jirka/.gnome/someconfigfile. Similar is the gnome_util_user_home, it takes one argument and returns the file with just the home directory added. So if you pass it .dotfile, it would return /home/jirka/.dotfile.

Utility


There are also a number of GLib like named functions to make your life easier, of note would be g_file_exists which takes a filename and returns TRUE if it exists or FALSE if it doesn't, or g_concat_dir_and_file which takes a directory name and a file name, and takes care of the '/' issue, this is useful when working with strings where you don't want to check for the '/', you just want to append a directory to some file, or another directory. Note that you should g_free the string you get as usual. For more utility functions, look into libgnome/gnome-util.h, it is well commented.


Mime Types


Sometimes it's useful to know the mime-type of a file. You can do this by using the gnome_mime_type_or_default function, which takes two arguments, the filename and a default mime-type string which it will return if it can't figure out the mime type from the filename. This call doesn't actually look into the file, it tries to guess the type by looking at the filename itself. Also the string it returns is a pointer to it's internal database and you should not free it as that would likely result in a segfault later on. You can also use gnome_mime_type which will return NULL if it can't guess the mime-type.

It is also possible to work with URI lists, such as the ones used sometimes in Drag and Drop. Usually from an URI list you want to extract a list of filenames that you just received. For that you use the gnome_uri_list_extract_filenames function, which takes the URI list as a string argument, and returns a GList * of newly allocated strings. Once you are done with the files, you should free the strings and the list. You can use the utility routine gnome_uri_list_free_strings to do this for you.

In the following example I write a drag and drop handler that takes the files and finds out their mime information, then you could just write code that can do things based on the mime type of the files.

 
/*this is the handler for the drag_data_receive signal, assuming our
  widget only accepts the "text/uri-list" mime type of data, drag and
  drop is a more complicated topic and you should read up on GTK+
  documentation for better treatment*/
static void
dnd_drop_internal (GtkWidget        *widget,
                   GdkDragContext   *context,
                   gint              x,
                   gint              y,
                   GtkSelectionData *selection_data,
                   guint             info,
                   guint             time)
{
        GList *files, *li;

        /*here we extract the filenames from the URI-list we received*/
        files = gnome_uri_list_extract_filenames(selection_data->data);

        /*here we loop though the files and get their mime-type*/
        for(li = files; li!=NULL ; li = g_list_next(li)) {
                  char *mimetype;
                  char *filename = li->data;

                  /*guess the mime type of the file*/
                  mimetype = gnome_mime_type(filename);

                  /*if we can't guess it, just loop to the
                    next filename*/
                  if(!mimetype) continue;

                  /*here comes code that can actually do something
                    based on the mime-type of the file we received*/
                  ...
        }
        /*free the list of files we got*/
        gnome_uri_list_free_strings (files);
}
 

Note how easy it is to find out what files you got, and what type they are. You would just need to add some code instead of the three dots that actually compares the mime strings you got to some you have to figure out what you can do with the files. 


Meta Data


Sometimes it is useful to store some information along with a filename, this can be done easily with the gnome-metadata. It is a set of functions to manage this data. Since Unix doesn't natively support meta-data, you have to help it yourself. For example if your app copies, renames or deletes files, use the following functions.

Table 3-2. Metadata Functions
Prototype Description
int gnome_metadata_rename (const char *from, const char *to) Notify the metadata database that a file has been renamed
int gnome_metadata_copy (const char *from, const char *to) Notify the metadata database that a file has been copied
int gnome_metadata_delete (const char *file) Notify the metadata database that a file has been deleted
int gnome_metadata_set (const char *file, const char *name, int size, const char *data) Set data associated with the file 'file', and key 'name'. The data is pointed to by 'data' and is 'size' bytes long. GNOME_METADATA_OK is returned on success.
int gnome_metadata_get (const char *file, const char *name, int *size, char **buffer) Get data associated with file 'file' and key 'name'. Data will be copied to a buffer and 'buffer' will be set to point to it, and 'size' will be set to the size of the buffer. GNOME_METADATA_OK is returned on success.
char **gnome_metadata_list (const char *file) Get a list of the keys for which there is some data set on 'file'. The list will be a newly allocated, NULL terminated string vector and should be freed with g_strfreev
Table 3-3. Metadata Return Values
Name Description
GNOME_METADATA_OK No error (this is actually 0)
GNOME_METADATA_IO_ERROR IO or other low-level communications/storage error.
GNOME_METADATA_NOT_FOUND Information not found.

 

These functions don't actually do the operations on the files, they just change the meta-data accordingly. So if your app does any of these operations, it is nicer towards other apps, that it notifies the meta-data database of the changes. You shouldn't rely on the data being stored. Only non-critical data should be stored in the meta-data, since apps that do not notify the database with these functions will make you loose your data for the file. These functions will return 0 or GNOME_METADATA_OK if there was no error, or an error-code (described above).

Now if you actually want to use the meta-data to store information about files, you will most likely use the functions gnome_metadata_set, gnome_metadata_remove and gnome_metadata_get. Again these functions return an integer, which is GNOME_METADATA_OK in case there was no error, or they use the same error codes as the previous functions.

The functions work with a a key string for which they store a piece of data. The data is represented by a size integer and a character pointer. gnome_metadata_set takes the filename as the first argument, the name or key of the data as the second argument, the size as the third and the pointer to the actual data as the forth argument. This function just sets that data for that file and key. gnome_metadata_remove will clear a particular data item on a file, so it takes a file and then the key name as the second argument. gnome_metadata_get takes the filename as the first argument and the key name as the second, then it returns data size though an integer pointer you pass though the third argument and the actual data though a pointer to a pointer you pass as the fourth argument. The data returned is newly allocated and should be freed after use. Small example follows (in real life you should also check the return of the functions for errors):

 
int size;
char *data;
...
/*set some bogus data on a file*/
gnome_metadata_set("/some/file/name","bogus",5,"BLAH");
...
/*retrieve the data back*/
gnome_metadata_get("/some/file/name","bogus",&size,&data);


Be the first one to comment on this page.




  Gnome eBooks

No eBooks on Gnome could be found as of now.

 
 Gnome FAQs
More Links » »
 
 Gnome Interview Questions
More Links » »
 
 Gnome Articles

No Gnome Articles could be found as of now.

 
 Gnome News

No News on Gnome could be found as of now.

 
 Gnome Jobs

No Gnome Articles could be found as of now.


Share And Enjoy:These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
  • blinkbits
  • BlinkList
  • blogmarks
  • co.mments
  • connotea
  • del.icio.us
  • De.lirio.us
  • digg
  • Fark
  • feedmelinks
  • Furl
  • LinkaGoGo
  • Ma.gnolia
  • NewsVine
  • Netvouz
  • RawSugar
  • Reddit
  • scuttle
  • Shadows
  • Simpy
  • Smarking
  • Spurl
  • TailRank
  • Wists
  • YahooMyWeb

Previoushome Next

Keywords: Using the libgnome Library, GNOME, GNOME, GNOME tutorial, GNOME tutorial pdf, history of GNOME, Custamizing Style Sheet, learn GNOME

HTML Quizzes
HTML Quiz
XHTML Quiz
CSS Quiz
TCP/IP Quiz
CSS 1.0 Quiz
CSS 2.0 Quiz
HLML Quiz
XML Quizzes
XML Quiz
XSL Quiz
XSLT Quiz
DTD Quiz
Schema Quiz
XForms Quiz
XSL-FO Quiz
XML DOM Quiz
XLink Quiz
XQuery Quiz
XPath Quiz
XPointer Quiz
RDF Quiz
SOAP Quiz
WSDL Quiz
RSS Quiz
WAP Quiz
Web Services Quiz
Browser Scripting Quizzes
JavaScript Quiz
VBScript Quiz
DHTML Quiz
HTML DOM Quiz
WMLScript Quiz
E4X Quiz
Server Scripting Quizzes
ASP Quiz
PERL Quiz
SQL Quiz
ADO Quiz
CVS Quiz
Python Quiz
Apple Script Quiz
PL/SQL Quiz
SQL Server Quiz
PHP Quiz
.NET (dotnet) Quizzes
Microsoft.Net Quiz
ASP.Net Quiz
.Net Mobile Quiz
C# : C Sharp Quiz
ADO.NET Quiz
VB.NET Quiz
VC++ Quiz
Multimedia Quizzes
SVG Quiz
Flash Quiz
Media Quiz
SMIL Quiz
Photoshop Quiz
Gimp Quiz
Matlab Quiz
Gnuplot Programming Quiz
GIF Animation Quiz
Scientific Visualization Quiz
Graphics Quiz
Web Building Quizzes
Web Browsers Quiz
Web Hosting Quiz
W3C Quiz
Web Building Quiz
Web Quality Quiz
Web Semantic Quiz
Web Careers Quiz
Weblogic Quiz
SEO Quiz
Web Site Hosting Quiz
Domain Name Quiz
Java Quizzes
Java Quiz
JSP Quiz
Servlets Quiz
Struts Quiz
EJB Quiz
JMS Quiz
JMX Quiz
Eclipse Quiz
J2ME Quiz
JBOSS Quiz
Programming Langauges Quizzes
C Quiz
C++ Quiz
Visual Basic Quiz
Data Structures Using C Quiz
Cobol Quiz
Assembly Language Quiz
Mainframe Quiz
Forth Programming Quiz
Lisp Programming Quiz
Pascal Quiz
Delphi Quiz
Fortran Quiz
OOPs Quiz
Data Warehousing Quiz
CGI Programming Quiz
Emacs Quiz
Gnome Quiz
ILU Quiz
Soft Skills Quizzes
Communication Skills Quiz
Time Management Quiz
Project Management Quiz
Team Work Quiz
Leadership Skills Quiz
Corporate Communication Quiz
Negotiation Skills Quiz
Database Quizzes
Oracle Quiz
MySQL Quiz
Operating System Quizzes
BSD Quiz
Symbian Quiz
Unix Quiz
Internet Quiz
IP-Masquerading Quiz
IPC Quiz
MIDI Quiz
Software Testing Quizzes
Testing Quiz
Firewalls Quiz
SAP Module Quizzes
ERP Quiz
ABAP Quiz
Business Warehousing Quiz
SAP Basis Quiz
Material Management Quiz
Sales & Distribution Quiz
Human Resource Quiz
Netweaver Quiz
Customer Relationship Management Quiz
Production and Planning Quiz
Networking Programming Quizzes
Corba Quiz
Networking Quiz
Microsoft Office Quizzes
Microsoft Word Quiz
Microsoft Outlook Quiz
Microsoft PowerPoint Quiz
Microsoft Publisher Quiz
Microsoft Excel Quiz
Microsoft Front Page Quiz
Microsoft InfoPath Quiz
Microsoft Access Quiz
Accounting Quizzes
Financial Accounting Quiz
Managerial Accounting Quiz
Testimonials | Contact Us | Link to Us | Site Map
Copyright ? 2008. Academic Tutorials.com. All rights reserved Privacy Policies | About Us
Our Portals : Academic Tutorials | Best eBooksworld | Beyond Stats | City Details | Interview Questions | Discussions World | Excellent Mobiles | Free Bangalore | Give Me The Code | Gog Logo | Indian Free Ads | Jobs Assist | New Interview Questions | One Stop FAQs | One Stop GATE | One Stop GRE | One Stop IAS | One Stop MBA | One Stop SAP | One Stop Testing | Webhosting in India | Dedicated Server in India | Sirf Dosti | Source Codes World | Tasty Food | Tech Archive | Testing Interview Questions | Tests World | The Galz | Top Masala | Vyom | Vyom eBooks | Vyom International | Vyom Links | Vyoms | Vyom World | Important Websites
Copyright ? 2003-2024 Vyom Technosoft Pvt. Ltd., All Rights Reserved.