nfisher1226 / zig-gtk3

Convenience functions and wrappers for using Gtk+ in Zig

zig-gtk3

This package contains some convenience functions and wrappers around the C api of both the Gtk+ and Vte libraries for developing Gui applications using Zig.

Usage

We track zig-master, so you will need the current master compiler. In your build.zig file, add the package path:

    const exe = b.addExecutable("exe-name", "path-to-source.zig");
    exe.addPackagePath("zig-gtk3", "path/to/zig-gtk3/lib.zig");
    exe.linkLibC();
    exe.linkSystemLibrary("gtk+-3.0");

The Gtk wrappers are namespaced to gtk, and the C functions to c.

const GTK @import("zig-gtk3");
const c = GTK.c;
const gtk = GTK.gtk;
const std = @import("std");

const Gui = struct {
    window: gtk.Window,

    fn init(app: *c.GtkApplication) Gui {
...

There are a number of examples in the "examples" subdirectory which can be built with by running zig build in this directory.

Rationale

It is entirely possible to call C functions directly from Zig. However, Zig's translate-c function, which is used to import C code into Zig, is still somewhat immature and tends to fail with heavily macro dependent code. This happens for certain parts of Gtk+ that make working around it quite difficult.

Additionally, the C Api to Gtk (and Vte), due to limitations of the language, can be incredibly verbose as well as quite clumsy at times. A better Api is both possible and desireable in a language such as Zig.