Re: GTK strangeness

["Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de>]

On Thu, 1 Oct 2009 06:19:25 -0700 (PDT), Srini - wrote:

> Perhaps there is a wiki or FAQ dedicated to GtkAda?
> If not might be worth it. many subtleties.

There is nothing specific about GtkAda, except maybe its design with regard
to handling events based on generics. GtkAda comes with some documentation
how to create simple custom widgets and very basic information about Gtk. 

The questions you asked are not GtkAda, but Gtk itself. There is a Gtk FAQ
and some how-to's for tricky widgets like Gtk_Tree_View. Yes, you should
translate them from C to GtkAda, but it is not difficult because GtkAda is
thin bindings.

> My next question has to do with :
> 
> - font selection - a. the right way to access fonts installed on a
> system with and without a selection dialog? for example I want to use
> Verdana as the font for my dialogs/messages etc. should i look at some
> mods to pango.aliases file?

You can give a list of font names and pango will try to find a match, like:

    Font : Pango_Font_Description :=
                From_String ("fixed,monospace 10");

This tries to find "fixed" then "monospace".

> - File_Selection Dialog My reading of the doc says, I build a dialog
> based on the file_selection widget. and it does not appear to match
> the native file_selection dialog.

Yes, because Gtk has its own look and feel in order to be portable. It does
not use any Windows widgets. For example Gtk_Gentry has nothing to do with
Windows EDIT control.

> Eg windows or the mac have their own "style" if you will.

I don't use Gtk file selection because I have my own, which is more in the
Windows flavor. You can find it here among other additions to GtkAda:

   http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de/ada/gtkada_contributions.htm

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de