GI.Gtk.Objects.Application

GtkApplication is a high-level API for writing applications.

It supports many aspects of writing a GTK application in a convenient fashion, without enforcing a one-size-fits-all model.

Currently, GtkApplication handles GTK initialization, application uniqueness, session management, provides some basic scriptability and desktop shell integration by exporting actions and menus and manages a list of toplevel windows whose life-cycle is automatically tied to the life-cycle of your application.

While GtkApplication works fine with plain Windows, it is recommended to use it together with ApplicationWindow.

Automatic resources

GtkApplication will automatically load menus from the GtkBuilder resource located at "gtk/menus.ui", relative to the application's resource base path (see applicationSetResourceBasePath). The menu with the ID "menubar" is taken as the application's menubar. Additional menus (most interesting submenus) can be named and accessed via applicationGetMenuById which allows for dynamic population of a part of the menu structure.

It is also possible to provide the menubar manually using applicationSetMenubar.

GtkApplication will also automatically setup an icon search path for the default icon theme by appending "icons" to the resource base path. This allows your application to easily store its icons as resources. See iconThemeAddResourcePath for more information.

If there is a resource located at gtk/help-overlay.ui which defines a ShortcutsWindow with ID help_overlay then GtkApplication associates an instance of this shortcuts window with each ApplicationWindow and sets up the keyboard accelerator <kbd>Control</kbd>+<kbd>?</kbd> to open it. To create a menu item that displays the shortcuts window, associate the item with the action win.show-help-overlay.

A simple application

A simple example is available in the GTK source code repository

GtkApplication optionally registers with a session manager of the users session (if you set the Application:registerSession property) and offers various functionality related to the session life-cycle.

An application can block various ways to end the session with the applicationInhibit function. Typical use cases for this kind of inhibiting are long-running, uninterruptible operations, such as burning a CD or performing a disk backup. The session manager may not honor the inhibitor, but it can be expected to inform the user about the negative consequences of ending the session while inhibitors are present.

See Also

HowDoI: Using GtkApplication, Getting Started with GTK: Basics

Exported types

newtype Application

Memory-managed wrapper type.

Constructors

Application (ManagedPtr Application)

Instances

Eq Application

Defined in GI.Gtk.Objects.Application

Methods

(==) :: Application -> Application -> Bool

(/=) :: Application -> Application -> Bool

GObject Application

Defined in GI.Gtk.Objects.Application

ManagedPtrNewtype Application

Defined in GI.Gtk.Objects.Application

Methods

toManagedPtr :: Application -> ManagedPtr Application

TypedObject Application

Defined in GI.Gtk.Objects.Application

Methods

glibType :: IO GType

HasParentTypes Application

Defined in GI.Gtk.Objects.Application

IsGValue (Maybe Application)

Convert Application to and from GValue. See toGValue and fromGValue.

Defined in GI.Gtk.Objects.Application

Methods

gvalueGType_ :: IO GType

gvalueSet_ :: Ptr GValue -> Maybe Application -> IO ()

gvalueGet_ :: Ptr GValue -> IO (Maybe Application)

type ParentTypes Application

Defined in GI.Gtk.Objects.Application

type ParentTypes Application = '[Application, Object, ActionGroup, ActionMap]

class (GObject o, IsDescendantOf Application o) => IsApplication o

Type class for types which can be safely cast to Application, for instance with toApplication.

Instances

(GObject o, IsDescendantOf Application o) => IsApplication o

Defined in GI.Gtk.Objects.Application

toApplication :: (MonadIO m, IsApplication o) => o -> m Application

Cast to Application, for types for which this is known to be safe. For general casts, use castTo.

Methods

Click to display all available methods, including inherited ones

Methods

actionAdded, actionEnabledChanged, actionRemoved, actionStateChanged, activate, activateAction, addAction, addActionEntries, addMainOption, addMainOptionEntries, addOptionGroup, addWindow, bindBusyProperty, bindProperty, bindPropertyFull, changeActionState, forceFloating, freezeNotify, getv, hasAction, hold, inhibit, isFloating, listActionDescriptions, listActions, lookupAction, markBusy, notify, notifyByPspec, open, queryAction, quit, ref, refSink, register, release, removeAction, removeWindow, run, runDispose, sendNotification, stealData, stealQdata, thawNotify, unbindBusyProperty, uninhibit, unmarkBusy, unref, watchClosure, withdrawNotification.

Getters

getAccelsForAction, getActionEnabled, getActionParameterType, getActionState, getActionStateHint, getActionStateType, getActionsForAccel, getActiveWindow, getApplicationId, getData, getDbusConnection, getDbusObjectPath, getFlags, getInactivityTimeout, getIsBusy, getIsRegistered, getIsRemote, getMenuById, getMenubar, getProperty, getQdata, getResourceBasePath, getWindowById, getWindows.

Setters

setAccelsForAction, setActionGroup, setApplicationId, setData, setDataFull, setDefault, setFlags, setInactivityTimeout, setMenubar, setOptionContextDescription, setOptionContextParameterString, setOptionContextSummary, setProperty, setResourceBasePath.

addWindow

applicationAddWindow

Arguments

:: (HasCallStack, MonadIO m, IsApplication a, IsWindow b)

=> a

application: a GtkApplication

-> b

window: a GtkWindow

-> m ()

Adds a window to application.

This call can only happen after the application has started; typically, you should add new application windows in response to the emission of the GApplication::activate signal.

This call is equivalent to setting the Window:application property of window to application.

Normally, the connection between the application and the window will remain until the window is destroyed, but you can explicitly remove it with applicationRemoveWindow.

GTK will keep the application running as long as it has any windows.

getAccelsForAction

applicationGetAccelsForAction

Arguments

:: (HasCallStack, MonadIO m, IsApplication a)

=> a

application: a GtkApplication

-> Text

detailedActionName: a detailed action name, specifying an action and target to obtain accelerators for

-> m [Text]

Returns: accelerators for detailed_action_name

Gets the accelerators that are currently associated with the given action.

getActionsForAccel

applicationGetActionsForAccel

Arguments

:: (HasCallStack, MonadIO m, IsApplication a)

=> a

application: a GtkApplication

-> Text

accel: an accelerator that can be parsed by acceleratorParse

-> m [Text]

Returns: a Nothing-terminated array of actions for accel

Returns the list of actions (possibly empty) that accel maps to.

Each item in the list is a detailed action name in the usual form.

This might be useful to discover if an accel already exists in order to prevent installation of a conflicting accelerator (from an accelerator editor or a plugin system, for example). Note that having more than one action per accelerator may not be a bad thing and might make sense in cases where the actions never appear in the same context.

In case there are no actions for a given accelerator, an empty array is returned. NULL is never returned.

It is a programmer error to pass an invalid accelerator string.

If you are unsure, check it with acceleratorParse first.

getActiveWindow

applicationGetActiveWindow

Arguments

:: (HasCallStack, MonadIO m, IsApplication a)

=> a

application: a GtkApplication

-> m (Maybe Window)

Returns: the active window

Gets the “active” window for the application.

The active window is the one that was most recently focused (within the application). This window may not have the focus at the moment if another application has it — this is just the most recently-focused window within this application.

getMenuById

applicationGetMenuById

Arguments

:: (HasCallStack, MonadIO m, IsApplication a)

=> a

application: a GtkApplication

-> Text

id: the id of the menu to look up

-> m (Maybe Menu)

Returns: Gets the menu with the given id from the automatically loaded resources

Gets a menu from automatically loaded resources.

See the section on Automatic resources for more information.

getMenubar

applicationGetMenubar

Arguments

:: (HasCallStack, MonadIO m, IsApplication a)

=> a

application: a GtkApplication

-> m (Maybe MenuModel)

Returns: the menubar for windows of application

Returns the menu model that has been set with applicationSetMenubar.

getWindowById

applicationGetWindowById

Arguments

:: (HasCallStack, MonadIO m, IsApplication a)

=> a

application: a GtkApplication

-> Word32

id: an identifier number

-> m (Maybe Window)

Returns: the window for the given id

Returns the ApplicationWindow with the given ID.

The ID of a GtkApplicationWindow can be retrieved with applicationWindowGetId.

getWindows

applicationGetWindows

Arguments

:: (HasCallStack, MonadIO m, IsApplication a)

=> a

application: a GtkApplication

-> m [Window]

Returns: a GList of GtkWindow instances

Gets a list of the Window instances associated with application.

The list is sorted by most recently focused window, such that the first element is the currently focused window. (Useful for choosing a parent for a transient window.)

The list that is returned should not be modified in any way. It will only remain valid until the next focus change or window creation or deletion.

inhibit

applicationInhibit

Arguments

:: (HasCallStack, MonadIO m, IsApplication a, IsWindow b)

=> a

application: the GtkApplication

-> Maybe b

window: a GtkWindow

-> [ApplicationInhibitFlags]

flags: what types of actions should be inhibited

-> Maybe Text

reason: a short, human-readable string that explains why these operations are inhibited

-> m Word32

Returns: A non-zero cookie that is used to uniquely identify this request. It should be used as an argument to applicationUninhibit in order to remove the request. If the platform does not support inhibiting or the request failed for some reason, 0 is returned.

Inform the session manager that certain types of actions should be inhibited.

This is not guaranteed to work on all platforms and for all types of actions.

Applications should invoke this method when they begin an operation that should not be interrupted, such as creating a CD or DVD. The types of actions that may be blocked are specified by the flags parameter. When the application completes the operation it should call applicationUninhibit to remove the inhibitor. Note that an application can have multiple inhibitors, and all of them must be individually removed. Inhibitors are also cleared when the application exits.

Applications should not expect that they will always be able to block the action. In most cases, users will be given the option to force the action to take place.

The reason message should be short and to the point.

If window is given, the session manager may point the user to this window to find out more about why the action is inhibited.

listActionDescriptions

applicationListActionDescriptions

Arguments

:: (HasCallStack, MonadIO m, IsApplication a)

=> a

application: a GtkApplication

-> m [Text]

Returns: the detailed action names

Lists the detailed action names which have associated accelerators.

See applicationSetAccelsForAction.

new

applicationNew

Arguments

:: (HasCallStack, MonadIO m)

=> Maybe Text

applicationId: The application ID

-> [ApplicationFlags]

flags: the application flags

-> m Application

Returns: a new GtkApplication instance

Creates a new GtkApplication instance.

When using GtkApplication, it is not necessary to call init manually. It is called as soon as the application gets registered as the primary instance.

Concretely, init is called in the default handler for the GApplication::startup signal. Therefore, GtkApplication subclasses should always chain up in their GApplication::startup handler before using any GTK API.

Note that commandline arguments are not passed to init.

If application_id is not Nothing, then it must be valid. See g_application_id_is_valid().

If no application ID is given then some features (most notably application uniqueness) will be disabled.

removeWindow

applicationRemoveWindow

Arguments

:: (HasCallStack, MonadIO m, IsApplication a, IsWindow b)

=> a

application: a GtkApplication

-> b

window: a GtkWindow

-> m ()

Remove a window from application.

If window belongs to application then this call is equivalent to setting the Window:application property of window to NULL.

The application may stop running as a result of a call to this function, if window was the last window of the application.

setAccelsForAction

applicationSetAccelsForAction

Arguments

:: (HasCallStack, MonadIO m, IsApplication a)

=> a

application: a GtkApplication

-> Text

detailedActionName: a detailed action name, specifying an action and target to associate accelerators with

-> [Text]

accels: a list of accelerators in the format understood by acceleratorParse

-> m ()

Sets zero or more keyboard accelerators that will trigger the given action.

The first item in accels will be the primary accelerator, which may be displayed in the UI.

To remove all accelerators for an action, use an empty, zero-terminated array for accels.

For the detailed_action_name, see g_action_parse_detailed_name() and g_action_print_detailed_name().

setMenubar

applicationSetMenubar

Arguments

:: (HasCallStack, MonadIO m, IsApplication a, IsMenuModel b)

=> a

application: a GtkApplication

-> Maybe b

menubar: a GMenuModel

-> m ()

Sets or unsets the menubar for windows of application.

This is a menubar in the traditional sense.

This can only be done in the primary instance of the application, after it has been registered. GApplication::startup is a good place to call this.

Depending on the desktop environment, this may appear at the top of each window, or at the top of the screen. In some environments, if both the application menu and the menubar are set, the application menu will be presented as if it were the first item of the menubar. Other environments treat the two as completely separate — for example, the application menu may be rendered by the desktop shell while the menubar (if set) remains in each individual window.

Use the base GActionMap interface to add actions, to respond to the user selecting these menu items.

uninhibit

applicationUninhibit

Arguments

:: (HasCallStack, MonadIO m, IsApplication a)

=> a

application: the GtkApplication

-> Word32

cookie: a cookie that was returned by applicationInhibit

-> m ()

Removes an inhibitor that has been previously established.

See applicationInhibit.

Inhibitors are also cleared when the application exits.

Properties

activeWindow

The currently focused window of the application.

getApplicationActiveWindow :: (MonadIO m, IsApplication o) => o -> m (Maybe Window)

Get the value of the “active-window” property. When overloading is enabled, this is equivalent to

get application #activeWindow

menubar

The GMenuModel to be used for the application's menu bar.

clearApplicationMenubar :: (MonadIO m, IsApplication o) => o -> m ()

Set the value of the “menubar” property to Nothing. When overloading is enabled, this is equivalent to

clear #menubar

constructApplicationMenubar :: (IsApplication o, MonadIO m, IsMenuModel a) => a -> m (GValueConstruct o)

Construct a GValueConstruct with valid value for the “menubar” property. This is rarely needed directly, but it is used by new.

getApplicationMenubar :: (MonadIO m, IsApplication o) => o -> m (Maybe MenuModel)

Get the value of the “menubar” property. When overloading is enabled, this is equivalent to

get application #menubar

setApplicationMenubar :: (MonadIO m, IsApplication o, IsMenuModel a) => o -> a -> m ()

Set the value of the “menubar” property. When overloading is enabled, this is equivalent to

set application [ #menubar := value ]

registerSession

Set this property to TRUE to register with the session manager.

This will make GTK track the session state (such as the Application:screensaverActive property).

constructApplicationRegisterSession :: (IsApplication o, MonadIO m) => Bool -> m (GValueConstruct o)

Construct a GValueConstruct with valid value for the “register-session” property. This is rarely needed directly, but it is used by new.

getApplicationRegisterSession :: (MonadIO m, IsApplication o) => o -> m Bool

Get the value of the “register-session” property. When overloading is enabled, this is equivalent to

get application #registerSession

setApplicationRegisterSession :: (MonadIO m, IsApplication o) => o -> Bool -> m ()

Set the value of the “register-session” property. When overloading is enabled, this is equivalent to

set application [ #registerSession := value ]

screensaverActive

This property is TRUE if GTK believes that the screensaver is currently active.

GTK only tracks session state (including this) when Application:registerSession is set to True.

Tracking the screensaver state is currently only supported on Linux.

getApplicationScreensaverActive :: (MonadIO m, IsApplication o) => o -> m Bool

Get the value of the “screensaver-active” property. When overloading is enabled, this is equivalent to

get application #screensaverActive

Signals

queryEnd

type ApplicationQueryEndCallback = IO ()

Emitted when the session manager is about to end the session.

This signal is only emitted if Application:registerSession is TRUE. Applications can connect to this signal and call applicationInhibit with GTK_APPLICATION_INHIBIT_LOGOUT to delay the end of the session until state has been saved.

afterApplicationQueryEnd :: (IsApplication a, MonadIO m) => a -> ((?self :: a) => ApplicationQueryEndCallback) -> m SignalHandlerId

Connect a signal handler for the queryEnd signal, to be run after the default handler. When overloading is enabled, this is equivalent to

after application #queryEnd callback

By default the object invoking the signal is not passed to the callback. If you need to access it, you can use the implit ?self parameter. Note that this requires activating the ImplicitParams GHC extension.

onApplicationQueryEnd :: (IsApplication a, MonadIO m) => a -> ((?self :: a) => ApplicationQueryEndCallback) -> m SignalHandlerId

Connect a signal handler for the queryEnd signal, to be run before the default handler. When overloading is enabled, this is equivalent to

on application #queryEnd callback

windowAdded

type ApplicationWindowAddedCallback

Arguments

 = Window

window: the newly-added Window

-> IO ()

Emitted when a Window is added to application through applicationAddWindow.

afterApplicationWindowAdded :: (IsApplication a, MonadIO m) => a -> ((?self :: a) => ApplicationWindowAddedCallback) -> m SignalHandlerId

Connect a signal handler for the windowAdded signal, to be run after the default handler. When overloading is enabled, this is equivalent to

after application #windowAdded callback

By default the object invoking the signal is not passed to the callback. If you need to access it, you can use the implit ?self parameter. Note that this requires activating the ImplicitParams GHC extension.

onApplicationWindowAdded :: (IsApplication a, MonadIO m) => a -> ((?self :: a) => ApplicationWindowAddedCallback) -> m SignalHandlerId

Connect a signal handler for the windowAdded signal, to be run before the default handler. When overloading is enabled, this is equivalent to

on application #windowAdded callback

windowRemoved

type ApplicationWindowRemovedCallback

Arguments

 = Window

window: the Window that is being removed

-> IO ()

Emitted when a Window is removed from application.

This can happen as a side-effect of the window being destroyed or explicitly through applicationRemoveWindow.

afterApplicationWindowRemoved :: (IsApplication a, MonadIO m) => a -> ((?self :: a) => ApplicationWindowRemovedCallback) -> m SignalHandlerId

Connect a signal handler for the windowRemoved signal, to be run after the default handler. When overloading is enabled, this is equivalent to

after application #windowRemoved callback

By default the object invoking the signal is not passed to the callback. If you need to access it, you can use the implit ?self parameter. Note that this requires activating the ImplicitParams GHC extension.

onApplicationWindowRemoved :: (IsApplication a, MonadIO m) => a -> ((?self :: a) => ApplicationWindowRemovedCallback) -> m SignalHandlerId

Connect a signal handler for the windowRemoved signal, to be run before the default handler. When overloading is enabled, this is equivalent to

on application #windowRemoved callback