IPC and Networking
The GNOME desktop has full support for transferring data using the clipboard or with drag and drop. The APIs in GTK+ can help you create applications that interoperate well with the rest of the desktop. Clipboard and drag and drop functionality are discussed in Section 4.1 ― Clipboards and Drag and Drop.
With freedesktop.org, GNOME provides the D-Bus messaging system. D-Bus is a cross-desktop message bus which allows all types of applications to communicate with one another. D-Bus is discussed in Section 4.2 ― D-BUS Messaging.
GNOME features the Bonobo component system, built on top of CORBA. Bonobo allows programmers to create complex embeddable components which can be reused inside other programs. Note that Bonobo has been deprecated. Newly written code should use D-Bus and other technologies instead. Bonobo is discussed in Section 4.3 ― Bonobo and CORBA.
To make networks more manageable for users, GNOME supports DNS Service Discovery. DNS Service Discovery enables applications to find services automatically on a local network, rather than requiring users to provide network addresses. DNS Service Discovery is discussed in Section 4.4 ― Service Discovery.
Finally, GNOME provides a number of libraries for working with XML and web services. These technologies are becoming increasingly important to application developers. XML and web services are discussed in Section 4.5 ― XML and Web Services.