This is a repository of C++ (C++11 and C++2a) examples of using GTK+ v3 to build Graphical User Interfaces for system applications using the gtkmm library for C++ bindings.

You can use gtk's C bindings instead of gtkmm, but to write more modern code in C++ style we decided to use gtkmm.

For more testing purposes, we're also building with GCC 9 using the C++2a standard ("C++20") and testing out the latest language features with the GUI apps shown here.

Once you've followed the build-and-setup section, you should go to the test_install documentation and follow those instructions to verify that everything is setup correctly.

Follow the setup instructions for your system before trying to build, modify, or run any of the provided example subprojects in this repository.

Note that with macOS Catalina (10.15.x), Apple changed the default shell for the system and user accounts to be zsh instead of bash. You shouldn't need to change it to run anything here, but I built everything using bash instead of zsh, so for reference here's how I updated my config:

chsh -s /bin/bash;
touch ~/.bash_profile;
touch ~/.bashrc;
echo "source ~/.bashrc" >> ~/.bash_profile;

And then you can use either ~/.bashrc or ~/.bash_profile to put your shell preferences in. As configured, it's preferable to put everything in ~/.bashrc since that'll be source-ed (read: "imported") by the ~/.bash_profile file. I do this typically just to try and keep things more comparable to Linux systems that I use and work with, since they tend to only use a ~/.bashrc config file and don't have the ~/.bash_profile version. Most (if not all) of the configs are compatible between macOS and Linux, so putting everything into ~/.bashrc this way can make the config more portable and reusable.

Again, the above is optional, but it's what I did, so there may be bash-specific commands referenced, and if you're using zsh you may get errors that I didn't. So please just be aware of that so that you don't get stuck or post a config-specific issue. If you'd like to request zsh support for this repo, please create an Enhancement issue on GitHub.

For the rest of the setup, the steps we'll follow are:

1. Install Homebrew, to make library installations consistent and (relatively) config-proof.
2. Use Homebrew to install the GTK+ v3 library and its dependencies.
3. Download and install a macOS compatible D Language Compiler.
4. Download the gtkd source code.
5. Build and install gtkd.

This process, all together, should take about 30-60 minutes with downloads and depending on your system specs.

1. Homebrew install:

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install.sh)"

1. C++ Compiler installation (we're using GCC 9.3.x from Homebrew):

bre install gcc;

1. Homebrew install GTK+ v3 to macOS system:

brew install gtk+3;
brew install gtkmm3;  # C++ bindings, to do modern C++ (instead of C) development.

1. Go to the test_install README and confirm that the application builds and runs.

Simple example to confirm that the installation of prerequisites was successful.

See the test_install README for more info.