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Tutorial for beginners

By following these tutorials you will learn the basics of GUI programming using GTK+ in Python.

If you have never programmed before, or are not familiar with the concepts of object oriented programming, you may need to learn a few basics first. The book Learn Python the Hard Way or The Python Tutorial may be a better place for you to start. You may also be interested in The Python GTK+ 3 Tutorial. Once you master the basics, be sure to come back and check out these tutorials.

To run the code samples

To run the code samples in the tutorial:

  1. Type or copy and paste the code into a file, and save the file with a name like filename.py

  2. To execute the code, type in the terminal:

    python filename.py

After executing the code, you will either see the widget on your screen, or (if you have mistyped some of the code) you will see an error message that will help you identify the problem.

A path through the widgets (with some theory)

The tutorial will walk you through increasingly complex examples and programming theory, but you can also feel free to just go directly to the tutorial that is most helpful to you.

Tutorial

  1. Basic windows

    1. Window

    2. ApplicationWindow

  2. Images and labels

    1. Image

    2. Strings

    3. Label

  3. Introduction to properties

    1. Properties

  4. Grid, separator and scrolling

    1. Grid

    2. Separator

    3. ScrolledWindow

    4. Paned

  5. Signals, callbacks and buttons

    1. Signals and callbacks

    2. Button

    3. LinkButton

    4. CheckButton

    5. ToggleButton

    6. Switch

    7. RadioButton

  6. ButtonBox

    1. ButtonBox

  7. Other display widgets

    1. Statusbar

    2. Spinner

    3. ProgressBar

  8. Entry widgets

    1. SpinButton

    2. Entry

    3. Scale

  9. A widget to write and display text

    1. TextView

  10. Dialogs

    1. Dialog

    2. AboutDialog

    3. MessageDialog

  11. Menus, Toolbars and Tooltips (also: using Glade and GtkBuilder)

    1. GMenu

    2. MenuButton

    3. Toolbar

    4. Tooltip

    5. Toolbar created using Glade

    6. MenuBar created using XML and GtkBuilder

  12. Selectors

    1. ColorButton

    2. FontChooserWidget

    3. FileChooserDialog

  13. TreeViews and ComboBoxes (using the M/V/C design)

    1. ComboBox (one column)

    2. Simple TreeView with ListStore

    3. Simpler TreeView with TreeStore

    4. The Model/View/Controller design

    5. ComboBox (two columns)

    6. More Complex Treeview with ListStore

    7. More Complex TreeView with TreeStore

  14. Custom widget

    1. Widget