Application
open class Application : GIO.Application, ApplicationProtocol
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 [classGtk.Window
]s, it is
recommended to use it together with [classGtk.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 g_application_set_resource_base_path()
).
The menu with the ID “menubar” is taken as the application’s
menubar. Additional menus (most interesting submenus) can be named
and accessed via [methodGtk.Application.get_menu_by_id
] which allows for
dynamic population of a part of the menu structure.
It is also possible to provide the menubar manually using
[methodGtk.Application.set_menubar
].
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 [methodGtk.IconTheme.add_resource_path
] for more
information.
If there is a resource located at “gtk/help-overlay.ui” which
defines a [classGtk.ShortcutsWindow
] with ID “help_overlay” then
GtkApplication
associates an instance of this shortcuts window with
each [classGtk.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 [propertyGtk.Application:register-session
]
property) and offers various functionality related to the session
life-cycle.
An application can block various ways to end the session with
the [methodGtk.Application.inhibit
] 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
The Application
type acts as a reference-counted owner of an underlying GtkApplication
instance.
It provides the methods that can operate on this data type through ApplicationProtocol
conformance.
Use Application
as a strong reference or owner of a GtkApplication
instance.
-
Designated initialiser from the underlying `C` data type.
This creates an instance without performing an unbalanced retain i.e., ownership is transferred to the
Application
instance.Declaration
Swift
@inlinable public init(_ op: UnsafeMutablePointer<GtkApplication>)
Parameters
op
pointer to the underlying object
-
Designated initialiser from a constant pointer to the underlying
C
data type. This creates an instance without performing an unbalanced retain i.e., ownership is transferred to theApplication
instance.Declaration
Swift
@inlinable public init(_ op: UnsafePointer<GtkApplication>)
Parameters
op
pointer to the underlying object
-
Optional initialiser from a non-mutating
gpointer
to the underlyingC
data type. This creates an instance without performing an unbalanced retain i.e., ownership is transferred to theApplication
instance.Declaration
Swift
@inlinable override public init!(gpointer op: gpointer?)
Parameters
op
gpointer to the underlying object
-
Optional initialiser from a non-mutating
gconstpointer
to the underlyingC
data type. This creates an instance without performing an unbalanced retain i.e., ownership is transferred to theApplication
instance.Declaration
Swift
@inlinable override public init!(gconstpointer op: gconstpointer?)
Parameters
op
pointer to the underlying object
-
Optional initialiser from a constant pointer to the underlying
C
data type. This creates an instance without performing an unbalanced retain i.e., ownership is transferred to theApplication
instance.Declaration
Swift
@inlinable public init!(_ op: UnsafePointer<GtkApplication>?)
Parameters
op
pointer to the underlying object
-
Optional initialiser from the underlying
C
data type. This creates an instance without performing an unbalanced retain i.e., ownership is transferred to theApplication
instance.Declaration
Swift
@inlinable public init!(_ op: UnsafeMutablePointer<GtkApplication>?)
Parameters
op
pointer to the underlying object
-
Designated initialiser from the underlying
C
data type. Will retainGtkApplication
. i.e., ownership is transferred to theApplication
instance.Declaration
Swift
@inlinable public init(retaining op: UnsafeMutablePointer<GtkApplication>)
Parameters
op
pointer to the underlying object
-
Reference intialiser for a related type that implements
ApplicationProtocol
Will retainGtkApplication
.Declaration
Swift
@inlinable public init<T>(_ other: T) where T : ApplicationProtocol
Parameters
other
an instance of a related type that implements
ApplicationProtocol
-
Unsafe typed initialiser. Do not use unless you know the underlying data type the pointer points to conforms to
ApplicationProtocol
.Declaration
Swift
@inlinable override public init<T>(cPointer p: UnsafeMutablePointer<T>)
Parameters
cPointer
pointer to the underlying object
-
Unsafe typed, retaining initialiser. Do not use unless you know the underlying data type the pointer points to conforms to
ApplicationProtocol
.Declaration
Swift
@inlinable override public init<T>(retainingCPointer cPointer: UnsafeMutablePointer<T>)
Parameters
cPointer
pointer to the underlying object
-
Unsafe untyped initialiser. Do not use unless you know the underlying data type the pointer points to conforms to
ApplicationProtocol
.Declaration
Swift
@inlinable override public init(raw p: UnsafeRawPointer)
Parameters
p
raw pointer to the underlying object
-
Unsafe untyped, retaining initialiser. Do not use unless you know the underlying data type the pointer points to conforms to
ApplicationProtocol
.Declaration
Swift
@inlinable override public init(retainingRaw raw: UnsafeRawPointer)
-
Unsafe untyped initialiser. Do not use unless you know the underlying data type the pointer points to conforms to
ApplicationProtocol
.Declaration
Swift
@inlinable public required init(raw p: UnsafeMutableRawPointer)
Parameters
p
mutable raw pointer to the underlying object
-
Unsafe untyped, retaining initialiser. Do not use unless you know the underlying data type the pointer points to conforms to
ApplicationProtocol
.Declaration
Swift
@inlinable required public init(retainingRaw raw: UnsafeMutableRawPointer)
Parameters
raw
mutable raw pointer to the underlying object
-
Unsafe untyped initialiser. Do not use unless you know the underlying data type the pointer points to conforms to
ApplicationProtocol
.Declaration
Swift
@inlinable override public init(opaquePointer p: OpaquePointer)
Parameters
p
opaque pointer to the underlying object
-
Unsafe untyped, retaining initialiser. Do not use unless you know the underlying data type the pointer points to conforms to
ApplicationProtocol
.Declaration
Swift
@inlinable override public init(retainingOpaquePointer p: OpaquePointer)
Parameters
p
opaque pointer to the underlying object
-
Creates a new
GtkApplication
instance.When using
GtkApplication
, it is not necessary to call [funcGtk.init
] manually. It is called as soon as the application gets registered as the primary instance.Concretely, [func
Gtk.init
] is called in the default handler for theGApplication
startupsignal. 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 [func
Gtk.init
].If
application_id
is notnil
, then it must be valid. Seeg_application_id_is_valid()
.If no application ID is given then some features (most notably application uniqueness) will be disabled.
Declaration
Swift
@inlinable public override init(applicationID: UnsafePointer<CChar>? = nil, flags: GIO.ApplicationFlags)
-
Returns the application singleton instance, creating it if it doesn’t exist yet.
Declaration
Swift
@inlinable static var shared: Application { get set }
-
Creates a new #GtkApplication instance.
When using #GtkApplication, it is not necessary to call gtk_init() manually. It is called as soon as the application gets registered as the primary instance.
Concretely, gtk_init() is called in the default handler for the
GApplication::startup signal. Therefore, #GtkApplication subclasses should
chain up in their #GApplication::startup handler before using any GTK+ API.
Note that commandline arguments are not passed to gtk_init(). All GTK+ functionality that is available via commandline arguments can also be achieved by setting suitable environment variables such as
G_DEBUG
, so this should not be a big problem. If you absolutely must support GTK+ commandline arguments, you can explicitly call gtk_init() before creating the application instance.If non-%NULL, the application ID 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. A null application ID is only allowed with GTK+ 3.6 or later.
Declaration
Swift
@inlinable convenience init?(id: UnsafePointer<gchar>? = nil, flags: ApplicationFlags = [])
-
Runs the application. This function is intended to be run from main() and its return value is intended to be returned by main(). Although you are expected to pass the argc , argv parameters from main() to this function, it is possible to pass NULL if argv is not available or commandline handling is not required. Note that on Windows, argc and argv are ignored, and g_win32_get_command_line() is called internally (for proper support of Unicode commandline arguments). GApplication will attempt to parse the commandline arguments. You can add commandline flags to the list of recognised options by way of g_application_add_main_option_entries(). After this, the “handle-local-options” signal is emitted, from which the application can inspect the values of its GOptionEntrys. “handle-local-options” is a good place to handle options such as –version, where an immediate reply from the local process is desired (instead of communicating with an already-running instance). A “handle-local-options” handler can stop further processing by returning a non-negative value, which then becomes the exit status of the process. What happens next depends on the flags: if G_APPLICATION_HANDLES_COMMAND_LINE was specified then the remaining commandline arguments are sent to the primary instance, where a “command-line” signal is emitted. Otherwise, the remaining commandline arguments are assumed to be a list of files. If there are no files listed, the application is activated via the “activate” signal. If there are one or more files, and G_APPLICATION_HANDLES_OPEN was specified then the files are opened via the “open” signal. If you are interested in doing more complicated local handling of the commandline then you should implement your own GApplication subclass and override local_command_line(). In this case, you most likely want to return TRUE from your local_command_line() implementation to suppress the default handling. See gapplication-example-cmdline2.c for an example. If, after the above is done, the use count of the application is zero then the exit status is returned immediately. If the use count is non-zero then the default main context is iterated until the use count falls to zero, at which point 0 is returned. If the G_APPLICATION_IS_SERVICE flag is set, then the service will run for as much as 10 seconds with a use count of zero while waiting for the message that caused the activation to arrive. After that, if the use count falls to zero the application will exit immediately, except in the case that g_application_set_inactivity_timeout() is in use. This function sets the prgname (g_set_prgname()), if not already set, to the basename of argv[0]. Since 2.40, applications that are not explicitly flagged as services or launchers (ie: neither G_APPLICATION_IS_SERVICE or G_APPLICATION_IS_LAUNCHER are given as flags) will check (from the default handler for local_command_line) if “–gapplication-service” was given in the command line. If this flag is present then normal commandline processing is interrupted and the G_APPLICATION_IS_SERVICE flag is set. This provides a “compromise” solution whereby running an application directly from the commandline will invoke it in the normal way (which can be useful for debugging) while still allowing applications to be D-Bus activated in service mode. The D-Bus service file should invoke the executable with “–gapplication-service” as the sole commandline argument. This approach is suitable for use by most graphical applications but should not be used from applications like editors that need precise control over when processes invoked via the commandline will exit and what their exit status will be.
Declaration
Swift
@inlinable func run(arguments: [String]? = nil, startupHandler: ApplicationSignalHandler?, activationHandler: ApplicationSignalHandler?) -> Int
-
Runs the application. This function is intended to be run from main() and its return value is intended to be returned by main(). Although you are expected to pass the argc , argv parameters from main() to this function, it is possible to pass NULL if argv is not available or commandline handling is not required. Note that on Windows, argc and argv are ignored, and g_win32_get_command_line() is called internally (for proper support of Unicode commandline arguments). GApplication will attempt to parse the commandline arguments. You can add commandline flags to the list of recognised options by way of g_application_add_main_option_entries(). After this, the “handle-local-options” signal is emitted, from which the application can inspect the values of its GOptionEntrys. “handle-local-options” is a good place to handle options such as –version, where an immediate reply from the local process is desired (instead of communicating with an already-running instance). A “handle-local-options” handler can stop further processing by returning a non-negative value, which then becomes the exit status of the process. What happens next depends on the flags: if G_APPLICATION_HANDLES_COMMAND_LINE was specified then the remaining commandline arguments are sent to the primary instance, where a “command-line” signal is emitted. Otherwise, the remaining commandline arguments are assumed to be a list of files. If there are no files listed, the application is activated via the “activate” signal. If there are one or more files, and G_APPLICATION_HANDLES_OPEN was specified then the files are opened via the “open” signal. If you are interested in doing more complicated local handling of the commandline then you should implement your own GApplication subclass and override local_command_line(). In this case, you most likely want to return TRUE from your local_command_line() implementation to suppress the default handling. See gapplication-example-cmdline2.c for an example. If, after the above is done, the use count of the application is zero then the exit status is returned immediately. If the use count is non-zero then the default main context is iterated until the use count falls to zero, at which point 0 is returned. If the G_APPLICATION_IS_SERVICE flag is set, then the service will run for as much as 10 seconds with a use count of zero while waiting for the message that caused the activation to arrive. After that, if the use count falls to zero the application will exit immediately, except in the case that g_application_set_inactivity_timeout() is in use. This function sets the prgname (g_set_prgname()), if not already set, to the basename of argv[0]. Since 2.40, applications that are not explicitly flagged as services or launchers (ie: neither G_APPLICATION_IS_SERVICE or G_APPLICATION_IS_LAUNCHER are given as flags) will check (from the default handler for local_command_line) if “–gapplication-service” was given in the command line. If this flag is present then normal commandline processing is interrupted and the G_APPLICATION_IS_SERVICE flag is set. This provides a “compromise” solution whereby running an application directly from the commandline will invoke it in the normal way (which can be useful for debugging) while still allowing applications to be D-Bus activated in service mode. The D-Bus service file should invoke the executable with “–gapplication-service” as the sole commandline argument. This approach is suitable for use by most graphical applications but should not be used from applications like editors that need precise control over when processes invoked via the commandline will exit and what their exit status will be.
Declaration
Swift
@inlinable func run(arguments: [String]? = nil, activationHandler: ApplicationSignalHandler? = nil) -> Int
-
Create and run an application with an optional ID and optional flags. This function is intended to be run from main() and its return value is intended to be returned by main(). Although you are expected to pass the argc , argv parameters from main() to this function, it is possible to pass NULL if argv is not available or commandline handling is not required. Note that on Windows, argc and argv are ignored, and g_win32_get_command_line() is called internally (for proper support of Unicode commandline arguments). GApplication will attempt to parse the commandline arguments. You can add commandline flags to the list of recognised options by way of g_application_add_main_option_entries(). After this, the “handle-local-options” signal is emitted, from which the application can inspect the values of its GOptionEntrys. “handle-local-options” is a good place to handle options such as –version, where an immediate reply from the local process is desired (instead of communicating with an already-running instance). A “handle-local-options” handler can stop further processing by returning a non-negative value, which then becomes the exit status of the process. What happens next depends on the flags: if G_APPLICATION_HANDLES_COMMAND_LINE was specified then the remaining commandline arguments are sent to the primary instance, where a “command-line” signal is emitted. Otherwise, the remaining commandline arguments are assumed to be a list of files. If there are no files listed, the application is activated via the “activate” signal. If there are one or more files, and G_APPLICATION_HANDLES_OPEN was specified then the files are opened via the “open” signal. If you are interested in doing more complicated local handling of the commandline then you should implement your own GApplication subclass and override local_command_line(). In this case, you most likely want to return TRUE from your local_command_line() implementation to suppress the default handling. See gapplication-example-cmdline2.c for an example. If, after the above is done, the use count of the application is zero then the exit status is returned immediately. If the use count is non-zero then the default main context is iterated until the use count falls to zero, at which point 0 is returned. If the G_APPLICATION_IS_SERVICE flag is set, then the service will run for as much as 10 seconds with a use count of zero while waiting for the message that caused the activation to arrive. After that, if the use count falls to zero the application will exit immediately, except in the case that g_application_set_inactivity_timeout() is in use. This function sets the prgname (g_set_prgname()), if not already set, to the basename of argv[0]. Since 2.40, applications that are not explicitly flagged as services or launchers (ie: neither G_APPLICATION_IS_SERVICE or G_APPLICATION_IS_LAUNCHER are given as flags) will check (from the default handler for local_command_line) if “–gapplication-service” was given in the command line. If this flag is present then normal commandline processing is interrupted and the G_APPLICATION_IS_SERVICE flag is set. This provides a “compromise” solution whereby running an application directly from the commandline will invoke it in the normal way (which can be useful for debugging) while still allowing applications to be D-Bus activated in service mode. The D-Bus service file should invoke the executable with “–gapplication-service” as the sole commandline argument. This approach is suitable for use by most graphical applications but should not be used from applications like editors that need precise control over when processes invoked via the commandline will exit and what their exit status will be.
Declaration
Swift
@inlinable static func run(id name: UnsafePointer<gchar>? = nil, flags f: ApplicationFlags = .none, arguments args: [String]? = nil, activationHandler a: ApplicationSignalHandler? = nil) -> Int?
-
Create and run an application with an optional ID and optional flags. This function is intended to be run from main() and its return value is intended to be returned by main(). Although you are expected to pass the argc , argv parameters from main() to this function, it is possible to pass NULL if argv is not available or commandline handling is not required. Note that on Windows, argc and argv are ignored, and g_win32_get_command_line() is called internally (for proper support of Unicode commandline arguments). GApplication will attempt to parse the commandline arguments. You can add commandline flags to the list of recognised options by way of g_application_add_main_option_entries(). After this, the “handle-local-options” signal is emitted, from which the application can inspect the values of its GOptionEntrys. “handle-local-options” is a good place to handle options such as –version, where an immediate reply from the local process is desired (instead of communicating with an already-running instance). A “handle-local-options” handler can stop further processing by returning a non-negative value, which then becomes the exit status of the process. What happens next depends on the flags: if G_APPLICATION_HANDLES_COMMAND_LINE was specified then the remaining commandline arguments are sent to the primary instance, where a “command-line” signal is emitted. Otherwise, the remaining commandline arguments are assumed to be a list of files. If there are no files listed, the application is activated via the “activate” signal. If there are one or more files, and G_APPLICATION_HANDLES_OPEN was specified then the files are opened via the “open” signal. If you are interested in doing more complicated local handling of the commandline then you should implement your own GApplication subclass and override local_command_line(). In this case, you most likely want to return TRUE from your local_command_line() implementation to suppress the default handling. See gapplication-example-cmdline2.c for an example. If, after the above is done, the use count of the application is zero then the exit status is returned immediately. If the use count is non-zero then the default main context is iterated until the use count falls to zero, at which point 0 is returned. If the G_APPLICATION_IS_SERVICE flag is set, then the service will run for as much as 10 seconds with a use count of zero while waiting for the message that caused the activation to arrive. After that, if the use count falls to zero the application will exit immediately, except in the case that g_application_set_inactivity_timeout() is in use. This function sets the prgname (g_set_prgname()), if not already set, to the basename of argv[0]. Since 2.40, applications that are not explicitly flagged as services or launchers (ie: neither G_APPLICATION_IS_SERVICE or G_APPLICATION_IS_LAUNCHER are given as flags) will check (from the default handler for local_command_line) if “–gapplication-service” was given in the command line. If this flag is present then normal commandline processing is interrupted and the G_APPLICATION_IS_SERVICE flag is set. This provides a “compromise” solution whereby running an application directly from the commandline will invoke it in the normal way (which can be useful for debugging) while still allowing applications to be D-Bus activated in service mode. The D-Bus service file should invoke the executable with “–gapplication-service” as the sole commandline argument. This approach is suitable for use by most graphical applications but should not be used from applications like editors that need precise control over when processes invoked via the commandline will exit and what their exit status will be.
Declaration
Swift
@inlinable static func run(id name: UnsafePointer<gchar>? = nil, flags f: ApplicationFlags = .none, arguments args: [String]? = nil, startupHandler s: ApplicationSignalHandler?, activationHandler a: ApplicationSignalHandler?) -> Int?