path: root/doc/reference/mate-panel-applet/mate-panel-applet-docs.sgml

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<!DOCTYPE article PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.1.2//EN"
    "http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.1.2/docbookx.dtd" [
<!ENTITY MatePanelApplet SYSTEM "xml/mate-panel-applet.xml">
]>

<book id="libmate-panel-applet">
  <bookinfo>
    <title>Panel Applet Library Reference Manual</title>
    <authorgroup>
      <author>
        <firstname>Mark</firstname>
        <surname>McLoughlin</surname>
        <affiliation>
          <address>
            <email>mark@skynet.ie</email>
          </address>
        </affiliation>
      </author>
    </authorgroup>

    <copyright>
      <year>2001</year>
      <year>2003</year>
      <holder>Sun Microsystems, Inc.</holder>
    </copyright>

    <abstract>
      <para>
This manual documents the interfaces of the panel applet
library for MATE 2.x and a short guide to porting applets from
the MATE 1.x interfaces.
      </para>
    </abstract>

  </bookinfo>

  <chapter id="applet-writing">
    <title>Writing Applets</title>

    <para>Writing applets is very simple. You take some boiler plate
code like below, change a couple of things and write the code that
implements your widgetry. The hardest part is writing your widgetry -
and its completely up to yourself how hard that should be.
    </para>

    <sect1 id="hello-world">
      <title>Hello World Applet</title>

      <para>As usual, following the pointless tradition of starting with
an example of how get 'Hello World' on the screen in some form, here's
just about the simplest applet you could write.
      </para>

      <programlisting>
#include &lt;string.h&gt;

#include &lt;mate-panel-applet.h&gt;
#include &lt;gtk/gtklabel.h&gt;

static gboolean
hello_applet_fill (MatePanelApplet *applet,
		   const gchar *iid,
		   gpointer     data)
{
        GtkWidget *label;

        if (strcmp (iid, "OAFIID:My_HelloApplet") != 0)
		return FALSE;

        label = gtk_label_new ("Hello World");
	gtk_container_add (GTK_CONTAINER (applet), label);

	gtk_widget_show_all (GTK_WIDGET (applet));

        return TRUE;
}


MATE_PANEL_APPLET_MATECOMPONENT_FACTORY ("OAFIID:My_HelloApplet_Factory",
                             PANEL_TYPE_APPLET,
                             "TheHelloWorldApplet",
                             "0",
                             hello_applet_fill,
                             NULL);
      </programlisting>

      <para>The code here is very similar to writing a normal MateComponent
control. You define a factory using MATE_PANEL_APPLET_MATECOMPONENT_FACTORY(),
passing it a factory function like hello_applet_fill().
      </para>

      <para>libmate-panel-applet automatically creates a #MatePanelApplet object
for you, passing this to your factory method. Here, you should fill
the applet with your widgets just like a #GtkBin. For example, if you
were writing a cdplayer applet you would create a #GtkHBox, pack the
hbox with the cdplayer buttons and in turn add the hbox to the applet.
      </para>

    </sect1>

    <sect1 id="server-files">
      <title>MateComponent Activation .server Files For Applets</title>

      <para>Since an applet is a matecomponent component, you must write
a .server file so that the matecomponent activation daemon is aware that
your component exists and how to activate it. Copy and paste is
your friend here ...
      </para>

      <programlisting>
&lt;oaf_info&gt;
&lt;oaf_server iid="OAFIID:My_HelloApplet_Factory" type="exe"
            location="test-matecomponent-applet"&gt;

        &lt;oaf_attribute name="repo_ids" type="stringv"&gt;
                &lt;item value="IDL:MateComponent/GenericFactory:1.0"/&gt;
                &lt;item value="IDL:MateComponent/Unknown:1.0"/&gt;
        &lt;/oaf_attribute&gt;
        &lt;oaf_attribute name="name" type="string" value="Hello World Applet Factory"/&gt;
        &lt;oaf_attribute name="description" type="string" value="My first applet factory"/&gt;
&lt;/oaf_server&gt;

&lt;oaf_server iid="OAFIID:My_HelloApplet" type="factory"
            location="OAFIID:My_HelloApplet_Factory"&gt;

        &lt;oaf_attribute name="repo_ids" type="stringv"&gt;
                &lt;item value="IDL:MATE/Vertigo/MatePanelAppletShell:1.0"/&gt;
                &lt;item value="IDL:MateComponent/Control:1.0"/&gt;
                &lt;item value="IDL:MateComponent/Unknown:1.0"/&gt;
        &lt;/oaf_attribute&gt;
        &lt;oaf_attribute name="name" type="string" value="Hello World Applet"/&gt;
        &lt;oaf_attribute name="description" type="string" value="My first applet for the MATE2 panel"/&gt;
        &lt;oaf_attribute name="panel:icon" type="string" value="mate-applets.png"/&gt;
&lt;/oaf_server&gt;
&lt;/oaf_info&gt;
      </programlisting>

      <para>Probably the most important thing to note here is that, unlike
.server files for other matecomponent components, applet .server files contain
a special attribute called 'panel:icon'. This is used by the panel to display
an entry for the applet in the 'Add to Panel' dialog.
      </para>
    </sect1>

    <sect1 id="applet-popups">
      <title>Defining a Popup Context Menu</title>

      <para>FIXME: write</para>
    </sect1>

    <sect1 id="panel-signals">
      <title>Detecting Changes in the Panel.</title>

      <para>FIXME: write</para>
    </sect1>

    <sect1 id="session-saving">
      <title>Session/Preference Saving.</title>

      <para>FIXME: write</para>
    </sect1>

    <sect1 id="multi-applets">
      <title>Multiple Applets</title>

      <para>FIXME: write</para>
    </sect1>

  </chapter>

  <chapter id="applet-porting">
    <title>Porting Applets from the MATE 1.x interfaces</title>

      <para>In MATE 1.x the applet interface lived in a header called
<filename>applet-widget.h</filename>. The interface was based on GOAD,
the MATE 1.x object activation framework. A new interface was
designed for MATE 2.x using the power of matecomponent UI embedding and the
new object activation framework, matecomponent-activation. The interface is
intended to be easy to use, cruft free, but semantically similar to
the old API in order to make porting relatively painless.</para>

      <simplesect id="applet-porting-activation">
      <title>Applet Activation</title>

	<para>The first thing to change when porting to the new API is
the header. Include <filename>mate-panel-applet.h</filename> instead of
<filename>applet-widget.h</filename>.</para>

	<para>Next you need to change how the applet is activated.
Browsing through old applet's code, its obvious that this was done in
various ways in the past. The best advice is to hunt out the calls to
applet_widget_init, applet_widget_new and applet_widget_add.
applet_widget_new and applet_widget_add are now effectively merged
into one call mate_panel_applet_new, to which the top-level widget of the
applet should be passed. applet_widget_init is not neccessary anymore.
So the new code should look something like this</para>

      <programlisting>
#include &lt;mate-panel-applet.h&gt;

static MateComponentObject *
blah_applet_new ()
{
        MatePanelApplet *applet;

	/*
	 * The old code setting up the applet widgetry
	 * goes here. So effectively delete calls to
	 * applet_widget_init and applet_widget_new
	 * and the replace applet_widget_add with a call
	 * to mate_panel_applet_new.
	 */

        applet = mate_panel_applet_new (label);

        return MATECOMPONENT_OBJECT (mate_panel_applet_get_control (applet));
}

static MateComponentObject *
blah_applet_factory (MateComponentGenericFactory *this,
		     const gchar          *iid,
		     gpointer              data)
{
        MateComponentObject *applet = NULL;

        if (!strcmp (iid, "OAFIID:BlahApplet"))
                applet = blah_applet_new ();

        return applet;
}


MATE_PANEL_APPLET_MATECOMPONENT_FACTORY ("OAFIID:BlahApplet_Factory",
                             "Blah",
                             "0",
                             blah_applet_factory,
                             NULL)
      </programlisting>

	<para>You should use MATE_PANEL_APPLET_MATECOMPONENT_FACTORY or
MATE_PANEL_APPLET_MATECOMPONENT_SHLIB_FACTORY depending on whether you want the
applet to be out of process or in process.</para>

      </simplesect>

      <simplesect id="applet-porting-activation-files">
      <title>Activation files</title>

	<para>The next thing to do may be to port from a
<filename>.gnorba</filename> file to a matecomponent-activation
<filename>.server</filename> file. You no longer need a .desktop file
for applets. A <filename>.gnorba</filename> looks something like this
:</para>

	<programlisting>
[blah]
type=exe
repo_id=IDL:MATE/Applet:1.0
description=Blah
location_info=blah-de-blah
	</programlisting>

	<para>Your <filename>.server</filename> file should look like
this :</para>

	<programlisting>
&lt;oaf_info&gt;

&lt;oaf_server iid="OAFIID:BlahApplet"
            type="exe"
            location="blah-de-blah-2"&gt;

        &lt;oaf_attribute name="repo_ids" type="stringv"&gt;
                &lt;item value="IDL:MateComponent/GenericFactory:1.0""/&gt;
                &lt;item value="IDL:MateComponent/Unknown:1.0"/&gt;
        &lt;/oaf_attribute&gt;
        &lt;oaf_attribute name="name" type="string" value="Blah Factory"/&gt;
        &lt;oaf_attribute name="description" type="string" value="Blah De Blah"/&gt;

&lt;/oaf_server&gt;

&lt;oaf_server iid="OAFIID:BlahApplet"
            type="factory"
            location="OAFIID:BlahApplet_Factory"&gt;

        &lt;oaf_attribute name="repo_ids" type="stringv"&gt;
                &lt;item value="IDL:MATE/MatePanelAppletShell:1.0"/&gt;
                &lt;item value="IDL:MateComponent/Control:1.0"/&gt;
                &lt;item value="IDL:MateComponent/Unknown:1.0"/&gt;
        &lt;/oaf_attribute&gt;
        &lt;oaf_attribute name="name" type="string" value="Blah Applet"/&gt;
        &lt;oaf_attribute name="description" type="string" value="Blah De Blah"/&gt;
        &lt;oaf_attribute name="panel:icon" type="string" value="blah-de-blah.png"/&gt;

&lt;/oaf_server&gt;

&lt;/oaf_info&gt;
	</programlisting>

	<para>A lot of this should be copied and pasted. The most
important bit is "panel:icon" which specfies the icon
that should be displayed in the "Add to Panel" dialog.</para>

      </simplesect>

      <simplesect id="applet-porting-menus">
      <title>Context Menu</title>

	<para>Most applets also place extra menu items into it context
menu. It might be a good idea to port this next. In MATE 1.x this was
done using the applet_widget_register_stock_callback API call. In
MATE 2.x 3 things must be done</para>

	<itemizedlist>
	<listitem><para>An xml desription of the popup menu must be
written.</para></listitem>
	<listitem><para>A description of the verbs must be prepared.
This is basically a list of callbacks to be call when a certain menu
item is clicked in the popup.</para></listitem>
	<listitem><para>The menu is registered using a call to
mate_panel_applet_setup_menu.</para></listitem>
	</itemizedlist>

	<para>The xml description should look something like this
:</para>

	<programlisting>
static const char fish_menu_xml [] =
        "&lt;popup name=\"button3\"&gt;\n"
        "   &lt;menuitem name=\"Properties Item\" verb=\"BlahProperties\" _label=\"Properties ...\"\n"
        "             pixtype=\"stock\" pixname=\"gtk-properties\"/&gt;\n"
        "   &lt;menuitem name=\"Help Item\" verb=\"BlahHelp\" _label=\"Help\"\n"
        "             pixtype=\"stock\" pixname=\"gtk-help\"/&gt;\n"
        "   &lt;menuitem name=\"About Item\" verb=\"BlahAbout\" _label=\"About ...\"\n"
        "             pixtype=\"stock\" pixname=\"mate-stock-about\"/&gt;\n"
        "&lt;/popup&gt;\n";
	</programlisting>

	<para>This could also be in a seperate
<filename>.xml</filename> file and loaded with
mate_panel_applet_setup_menu_from_file. The description of the verbs should
look something like :</para>

	<programlisting>
static const MateComponentUIVerb fish_menu_verbs [] = {
        MATECOMPONENT_UI_VERB ("BlahProperties", display_properties_dialog),
        MATECOMPONENT_UI_VERB ("BlahHelp",       display_help_dialog),
        MATECOMPONENT_UI_VERB ("BlahAbout",      display_about_dialog),

        MATECOMPONENT_UI_VERB_END
};
	</programlisting>

	<para>This is just a list of callbacks invoked when the menu
items are clicked. There are other macros you may use other than
MATECOMPONENT_UI_VERB - see
<filename>matecomponent-ui-component.h</filename>.</para>

	<para>To actually register the menu you just do something like
:</para>

	<programlisting>
	mate_panel_applet_setup_menu (MATE_PANEL_APPLET (blah->applet),
                                 blah_menu_xml,
                                 blah_menu_verbs,
                                 blah);
	</programlisting>

	<para>The last argument is the user_data argument passed back
to the callbacks.</para>

	</simplesect>

  </chapter>

  <chapter id="mate-panel-applet">
    <title>The Panel Applet Library</title>

    &MatePanelApplet;
  </chapter>

</book>