Composite widgets and alert dialog

The source files are in the Gtk4 tutorial GitHub repository. Download it and see src/tfe6 directory.

An outline of new Tfe text editor

Tfe text editor will be restructured. The program is divided into six parts.

Main program: the C main function.
TfeApplication object: It is like GtkApplication but keeps GSettings and CSS Provider.
TfeWindow object: It is a window with buttons and a notebook.
TfePref object: A preference dialog.
TfeAlert object: An alert dialog.
pdf2css.h and pdf2css.c: Font and CSS utility functions.

This section describes TfeAlert. Others will be explained in the following sections.

Composite widgets

The alert dialog is like this:

Tfe uses it when a user quits the application or closes a notebook without saving data to files.

The dialog has a title, buttons, an icon and a message. Therefore, it consists of several widgets. Such dialog is called a composite widget.

Composite widgets are defined with template XMLs. The class is built in the class initialization function and the instances are built and desposed by the following functions.

gtk_widget_init_template
gtk_widget_dispose_template

TfeAlert is a good example to know composite widgets. It is defined with the three files.

tfealert.ui: XML file
tfealert.h: Header file
tfealert.c: C program file

The XML file

A template tag is used in a composite widget XML.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<interface>
  <template class="TfeAlert" parent="GtkWindow">
    <property name="resizable">FALSE</property>
    <property name="modal">TRUE</property>
    <property name="titlebar">
      <object class="GtkHeaderBar">
        <property name="show-title-buttons">FALSE</property>
        <property name="title-widget">
          <object class="GtkLabel" id="lb_title">
            <property name="label">Are you sure?</property>
            <property name="single-line-mode">True</property>
          </object>
        </property>
        <child type="start">
          <object class="GtkButton" id="btn_cancel">
            <property name="label">Cancel</property>
            <style>
              <class name="suggested-action"/>
            </style>
            <signal name="clicked" handler="cancel_cb" swapped="TRUE" object="TfeAlert"></signal>
          </object>
        </child>
        <child type="end">
          <object class="GtkButton" id="btn_accept">
            <property name="label">Close</property>
            <style>
              <class name="destructive-action"/>
            </style>
            <signal name="clicked" handler="accept_cb" swapped="TRUE" object="TfeAlert"></signal>
          </object>
        </child>
      </object>
    </property>
    <child>
      <object class="GtkBox">
        <property name="orientation">GTK_ORIENTATION_HORIZONTAL</property>
        <property name="spacing">12</property>
        <property name="margin-top">12</property>
        <property name="margin-bottom">12</property>
        <property name="margin-start">12</property>
        <property name="margin-end">12</property>
        <child>
          <object class="GtkImage">
            <property name="icon-name">dialog-warning</property>
            <property name="icon-size">GTK_ICON_SIZE_LARGE</property>
          </object>
        </child>
        <child>
          <object class="GtkLabel" id="lb_message">
          </object>
        </child>
      </object>
    </child>
  </template>
</interface>

3: A template tag defines a composite widget. The class attribute tells the class name of the composite widget. The parent attribute tells the parent class of the composite widget. So, TfeAlert is a child class of GtkWindow. A parent attribute is an option and you can leave it out. But it is recommended to write it in the template tag.
4-6: Its three properties are defined. These properties are inherited from GtkWindow. The titlebar property has a widget for a custom title bar. The typical widget is GtkHeaderBar.
8: If the property “show-title-buttons” is TRUE, the title buttons like close, minimize and maximize are shown. Otherwise it is not shown. The TfeAlert object is not resizable. It is closed when either of the two buttons, cancel or accept, is clicked. Therefore the title buttons are not necessary and this property is set to FALSE.
9-14: The bar has a title, which is a GtkLabel widget. The default title is “Are you sure?” but it can be replaced by an instance method.
15-32: The bar has two buttons, cancel and accept. The cancel button is on the left so the child tag has type="start" attribute. The accept button is on the right so the child tag has type="end" attribute. The dialog is shown when the user clicked the close button or the quit menu without saving the data. Therefore, it is safer for the user to click on the cancel button of the alert dialog. So, the cancel button has a “suggested-action” CSS class. Ubuntu colors the button green but the color can be blue or other appropriate one defined by the system. In the same way the accept button has a “destructive-action” CSS class and is colored red. Two buttons have signals which are defined by the signal tags.
35-54: A horizontal box has an image icon and a label.
44-47: The GtkImage widget displays an image. The “icon-name” property is an icon name in the icon theme. The theme depends on your system. You can check it with an icon browser.

$ gtk4-icon-browser

The “dialog-warning” icon is something like this.

These are made by my hand. The real image on the alert dialog is nicer.

It is possible to define the alert widget as a child of GtkDialog. But GtkDialog is deprecated since GTK version 4.10. And users should use GtkWindow instead of GtkDialog.

The header file

The header file is similar to the one of TfeTextView.

#pragma once

#include <gtk/gtk.h>

#define TFE_TYPE_ALERT tfe_alert_get_type ()
G_DECLARE_FINAL_TYPE (TfeAlert, tfe_alert, TFE, ALERT, GtkWindow)

/* "response" signal id */
enum TfeAlertResponseType
{
  TFE_ALERT_RESPONSE_ACCEPT,
  TFE_ALERT_RESPONSE_CANCEL
};

const char *
tfe_alert_get_title (TfeAlert *alert);

const char *
tfe_alert_get_message (TfeAlert *alert);

const char *
tfe_alert_get_button_label (TfeAlert *alert);

void
tfe_alert_set_title (TfeAlert *alert, const char *title);

void
tfe_alert_set_message (TfeAlert *alert, const char *message);

void
tfe_alert_set_button_label (TfeAlert *alert, const char *btn_label);

GtkWidget *
tfe_alert_new (void);

GtkWidget *
tfe_alert_new_with_data (const char *title, const char *message, const char* btn_label);

5-6: These two lines are always needed to define a new object. TFE_TYPE_ALERT is the type of TfeAlert object and it is a macro expanded into tfe_alert_get_type (). G_DECLARE_FINAL_TYPE macro is expanded into:
- The declaration of the function tfe_alert_get_type
- TfeAlert is defined as a typedef of struct _TfeAlert, which is defined in the C file.
- TFE_ALERT and TFE_IS_ALERT macro is defined as a cast and type check function.
- TfeAlertClass structure is defined as a final class.
8-13: The TfeAlert class has a “response” signal. It has a parameter and the parameter type is defined as a TfeAlertResponseType enumerative constant.
15-31: Getter and setter methods.
33-37: Functions to create a instance. The function tfe_alert_new_with_data is a convenience function, which creates an instance and sets data at once.

The C file

Functions for composite widgets

The following codes are extracted from tfealert.c.

#include <gtk/gtk.h>
#include "tfealert.h"

struct _TfeAlert {
  GtkWindow parent;
  GtkLabel *lb_title;
  GtkLabel *lb_message;
  GtkButton *btn_accept;
  GtkButton *btn_cancel;
};

G_DEFINE_FINAL_TYPE (TfeAlert, tfe_alert, GTK_TYPE_WINDOW);

static void
cancel_cb (TfeAlert *alert) {
  ... ... ...
}

static void
accept_cb (TfeAlert *alert) {
  ... ... ...
}

static void
tfe_alert_dispose (GObject *gobject) { // gobject is actually a TfeAlert instance.
  gtk_widget_dispose_template (GTK_WIDGET (gobject), TFE_TYPE_ALERT);
  G_OBJECT_CLASS (tfe_alert_parent_class)->dispose (gobject);
}

static void
tfe_alert_init (TfeAlert *alert) {
  gtk_widget_init_template (GTK_WIDGET (alert));
}

static void
tfe_alert_class_init (TfeAlertClass *class) {
  G_OBJECT_CLASS (class)->dispose = tfe_alert_dispose;
  gtk_widget_class_set_template_from_resource (GTK_WIDGET_CLASS (class), "/com/github/ToshioCP/tfe/tfealert.ui");
  gtk_widget_class_bind_template_child (GTK_WIDGET_CLASS (class), TfeAlert, lb_title);
  gtk_widget_class_bind_template_child (GTK_WIDGET_CLASS (class), TfeAlert, lb_message);
  gtk_widget_class_bind_template_child (GTK_WIDGET_CLASS (class), TfeAlert, btn_accept);
  gtk_widget_class_bind_template_child (GTK_WIDGET_CLASS (class), TfeAlert, btn_cancel);
  gtk_widget_class_bind_template_callback (GTK_WIDGET_CLASS (class), cancel_cb);
  gtk_widget_class_bind_template_callback (GTK_WIDGET_CLASS (class), accept_cb);
  ... ... ...
}

GtkWidget *
tfe_alert_new (void) {
  return GTK_WIDGET (g_object_new (TFE_TYPE_ALERT, NULL));
}

The macro G_DEFINE_FINAL_TYPE is available since GLib version 2.70. It is used only for a final type class. You can use G_DEFINE_TYPE macro instead. They are expanded into:
- The declaration of the functions tfe_alert_init and tfe_alert_class_init. They are defined in the following part of the C program.
- The definition of the variable tfe_alert_parent_class.
- The definition of the function tfe_alert_get_type.
The names of the members of _TfeAlert, which are lb_title, lb_message, btn_accept and btn_cancel, must be the same as the id attribute in the XML file tfealert.ui.
The function tfe_alert_class_init initializes the composite widget class.
- The function gtk_widget_class_set_template_from_resource sets the template of the class. The template is built from the XML resource “tfealert.ui”. At this moment no instance is created. It just makes the class recognize the structure of the object. That’s why the top level tag is not object but template in the XML file.
- The function macro gtk_widget_class_bind_template_child connects the member of TfeAlert and the object class in the template. So, for example, you can access to lb_title GtkLabel instance via alert->lb_title where alert is an instance of TfeAlert class.
- The function gtk_widget_class_bind_template_callback connects the callback function and the handler attribute of the signal tag in the XML. For example, the “clicked” signal on the cancel button has a handler named “cancel_cb” in the signal tag. And the function cancel_cb exists in the C file above. These two are connected so when the signal is emitted the function cancel_cb is called. You can add static storage class to the callback function thanks to this connection.
The function tfe_alert_init initializes the newly created instance. You need to call gtk_widget_init_template to create and initialize the child widgets in the template.
The function tfe_alert_despose releases objects. The function gtk_widget_despose_template clears the template children.
The function tfe_alert_new creates the composite widget TfeAlert instance. It creates not only TfeAlert itself but also all the child widgets that the composite widget has.

Other functions

The following is the full codes of tfealert.c.

#include <gtk/gtk.h>
#include "tfealert.h"

struct _TfeAlert {
  GtkWindow parent;
  GtkLabel *lb_title;
  GtkLabel *lb_message;
  GtkButton *btn_accept;
  GtkButton *btn_cancel;
};

G_DEFINE_FINAL_TYPE (TfeAlert, tfe_alert, GTK_TYPE_WINDOW);

enum {
  RESPONSE,
  NUMBER_OF_SIGNALS
};

static guint tfe_alert_signals[NUMBER_OF_SIGNALS];

static void
cancel_cb (TfeAlert *alert) {
  g_signal_emit (alert, tfe_alert_signals[RESPONSE], 0, TFE_ALERT_RESPONSE_CANCEL);
  gtk_window_destroy (GTK_WINDOW (alert));
}

static void
accept_cb (TfeAlert *alert) {
  g_signal_emit (alert, tfe_alert_signals[RESPONSE], 0, TFE_ALERT_RESPONSE_ACCEPT);
  gtk_window_destroy (GTK_WINDOW (alert));
}

const char *
tfe_alert_get_title (TfeAlert *alert) {
  return gtk_label_get_text (alert->lb_title);
}

const char *
tfe_alert_get_message (TfeAlert *alert) {
    return gtk_label_get_text (alert->lb_message);
}

const char *
tfe_alert_get_button_label (TfeAlert *alert) {
  return gtk_button_get_label (alert->btn_accept);
}

void
tfe_alert_set_title (TfeAlert *alert, const char *title) {
  gtk_label_set_text (alert->lb_title, title);
}

void
tfe_alert_set_message (TfeAlert *alert, const char *message) {
  gtk_label_set_text (alert->lb_message, message);
}

void
tfe_alert_set_button_label (TfeAlert *alert, const char *btn_label) {
  gtk_button_set_label (alert->btn_accept, btn_label);
}

static void
tfe_alert_dispose (GObject *gobject) { // gobject is actually a TfeAlert instance.
  gtk_widget_dispose_template (GTK_WIDGET (gobject), TFE_TYPE_ALERT);
  G_OBJECT_CLASS (tfe_alert_parent_class)->dispose (gobject);
}

static void
tfe_alert_init (TfeAlert *alert) {
  gtk_widget_init_template (GTK_WIDGET (alert));
}

static void
tfe_alert_class_init (TfeAlertClass *class) {
  G_OBJECT_CLASS (class)->dispose = tfe_alert_dispose;
  gtk_widget_class_set_template_from_resource (GTK_WIDGET_CLASS (class), "/com/github/ToshioCP/tfe/tfealert.ui");
  gtk_widget_class_bind_template_child (GTK_WIDGET_CLASS (class), TfeAlert, lb_title);
  gtk_widget_class_bind_template_child (GTK_WIDGET_CLASS (class), TfeAlert, lb_message);
  gtk_widget_class_bind_template_child (GTK_WIDGET_CLASS (class), TfeAlert, btn_accept);
  gtk_widget_class_bind_template_child (GTK_WIDGET_CLASS (class), TfeAlert, btn_cancel);
  gtk_widget_class_bind_template_callback (GTK_WIDGET_CLASS (class), cancel_cb);
  gtk_widget_class_bind_template_callback (GTK_WIDGET_CLASS (class), accept_cb);

  tfe_alert_signals[RESPONSE] = g_signal_new ("response",
                                G_TYPE_FROM_CLASS (class),
                                G_SIGNAL_RUN_LAST | G_SIGNAL_NO_RECURSE | G_SIGNAL_NO_HOOKS,
                                0 /* class offset */,
                                NULL /* accumulator */,
                                NULL /* accumulator data */,
                                NULL /* C marshaller */,
                                G_TYPE_NONE /* return_type */,
                                1     /* n_params */,
                                G_TYPE_INT
                                );
}

GtkWidget *
tfe_alert_new (void) {
  return GTK_WIDGET (g_object_new (TFE_TYPE_ALERT, NULL));
}

GtkWidget *
tfe_alert_new_with_data (const char *title, const char *message, const char* btn_label) {
  GtkWidget *alert = tfe_alert_new ();
  tfe_alert_set_title (TFE_ALERT (alert), title);
  tfe_alert_set_message (TFE_ALERT (alert), message);
  tfe_alert_set_button_label (TFE_ALERT (alert), btn_label);
  return alert;
}

The function tfe_alert_new_with_data is used more often than tfe_alert_new to create a new instance. It creates the instance and sets three data at the same time. The following is the common process when you use the TfeAlert class.

Call tfe_alert_new_with_data and create an instance.
Call gtk_window_set_transient_for to set the transient parent window.
Call gtk_window_present to show the TfeAlert dialog.
Connect “response” signal and a handler.
The user clicks on the cancel or accept button. Then the dialog emits the “response” signal and destroy itself.
The user catches the signal and do something.

The rest of the program is:

14-19: An array for a signal id. You can use a variable instead of an array because the class has only one signal. But using an array is a common way.
21-31: Signal handlers. They emits the “response” signal and destroy the instance itself.
33-61: Getters and setters.
85-95: Creates the “response” signal.
103-110: A convenience function tfe_alert_new_with_data creates an instance and sets labels.

An example

There’s an example in the src/tfe6/example directory. It shows how to use TfeAlert. The program is src/example/ex_alert.c.

#include <gtk/gtk.h>
#include "../tfealert.h"

static void
alert_response_cb (TfeAlert *alert, int response, gpointer user_data) {
  if (response == TFE_ALERT_RESPONSE_ACCEPT)
    g_print ("%s\n", tfe_alert_get_button_label (alert));
  else if (response == TFE_ALERT_RESPONSE_CANCEL)
    g_print ("Cancel\n");
  else
    g_print ("Unexpected error\n");
}

static void
app_activate (GApplication *application) {
  GtkWidget *alert;
  char *title, *message, *btn_label;

  title = "Example for TfeAlert"; message = "Click on Cancel or Accept button"; btn_label = "Accept";
  alert = tfe_alert_new_with_data (title, message, btn_label);
  g_signal_connect (TFE_ALERT (alert), "response", G_CALLBACK (alert_response_cb), NULL);
  gtk_window_set_application (GTK_WINDOW (alert), GTK_APPLICATION (application));
  gtk_window_present (GTK_WINDOW (alert));
}

static void
app_startup (GApplication *application) {
}

#define APPLICATION_ID "com.github.ToshioCP.example_tfe_alert"

int
main (int argc, char **argv) {
  GtkApplication *app;
  int stat;

  app = gtk_application_new (APPLICATION_ID, G_APPLICATION_DEFAULT_FLAGS);
  g_signal_connect (app, "startup", G_CALLBACK (app_startup), NULL);
  g_signal_connect (app, "activate", G_CALLBACK (app_activate), NULL);
  stat =g_application_run (G_APPLICATION (app), argc, argv);
  g_object_unref (app);
  return stat;
}

The “activate” signal handler app_activate initializes the alert dialog.

A TfeAlert instance is created.
Its “response” signal is connected to the handler alert_response_cb.
TfeAlert class is a sub class of GtkWindow so it can be a top level window that is connected to an application instance. The function gtk_window_set_application does that.
The dialog is shown.

A user clicks on either the cancel button or the accept button. Then, the “response” signal is emitted and the dialog is destroyed. The signal handler alert_response_cb checks the response and prints “Accept” or “Cancel”. If an error happens, it prints “Unexpected error”.

You can compile it with meson and ninja.

$ cd src/tfe6/example
$ meson setup _build
$ ninja -C _build
$ _build/ex_alert
Accept #<= if you clicked on the accept button