Running external Gtk programs under Tabs (fwd)

28 Aug 2003

      ---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 27 Aug 2003 23:48:14 -0700
From: t <loveall@qwest.net>
To: Jorge Arellano Cid <jcid@softhome.net>
Subject: Running external Gtk programs under Tabs

Jorge,

Please forward this to the dillo/dev mailing list unless you think it is not
appropriate.

Nice job on dillo, guys! Have been using it since at least 0.2.1.

Nice work on the tabs, Frank. They have added a whole new dimension to dillo.

Recently, while working on a multi-media project, noticed that I had way too
many instances of a text editor open. Couldn't easily find the desired
file.

About then Frank put up the tab/frame patch. Spent a day or so getting
external Gtk apps to run in a tabbed window. This turned dillo into an MDI
interface with built-in file picker and HTML help file viewer.

This has been working for me in a stable manner, e.g. no seg faults, for about
two weeks under heavy use. Which means it will only take someone else about 5
minutes to induce a failure:-).

Have modified a file manager, my personal text editor and the erwin HTML
editor to run as client Gtk apps, just like dillo. As a matter of fact, dillo
can run itself as an external Gtk app in a tabbed window. The patch file for
the tab/frame patched version of dillo is set up to do this as a working
example. You can download it from:
http://www.users.qwest.net/~loveall/xid8-patch.gz

!!!! NOTE !!!!
This patch is valid only on dillo-0.7.3 patched with Franks version 9
tab/frame patch:
http://www.geocities.com/ikbenfrank/dillo-0.7.3-20030821-tabs.patch.gz

To modify a typical Gtk app to act as a client requires just the following:

In function main(), add these lines at the beginning just after the data
declarations:

  guint32 xid = 0;
  int i = 1;

  if (i < argc-1 && !strcmp(argv[i++],"-x")){
    xid = strtol(argv[i], NULL, 10);
    argc -= 2;
    argv += 2;
    if(xid == LONG_MIN || xid == LONG_MAX) xid = 0;
  }

This requires that the first two args when calling dillo be '-x <Xid number>'.

Find and replace the (typically) single line:

  main_window = gtk_window_new (GTK_WINDOW_TOPLEVEL);

with:
  if(!xid)
    main_window = gtk_window_new (GTK_WINDOW_TOPLEVEL);
  else
    main_window = gtk_plug_new (xid);

See also the working source which references 'xid' in dillo.c and interface.c.

Thanks again, to the dillo crew. You guys are awesome.

Regards,
Terry Loveall

Jorge Arellano Cid

Lars Segerlund

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