Xfce.org | Xfce Goodies | Xfce Foundation Classes | Xfce Bug Tracker | Xfce Wiki | Xfce Forum | Xfce DevBlog    

... the power of gtk, the power of c++!

Home | News | History | FAQ | Documentation | Download | Contact | Links

Welcome to the Xfce Foundation Classes

The Xfce Foundation Classes is a set of integrated C++ classes for developing Xfce applications on UNIX-like operating systems such as Linux. The classes combine the power of GTK+ and the power of C++ into a state-of-the-art application development framework for the Xfce Desktop Environment. The classes judiciously use C++ language features to avoid layering on too much extra C++ complexity. The API is easy to understand and use, and should feel immediately familiar to most GTK+ programmers. The Xfce Foundation Classes is part of the Xfce project, and like Xfce it's lightweight, fast and easy to use. Currently there are three modules, the core object system and utility library (libXFCcore), the user interface library (libXFCui) and the Glade XML parser library (libXFCglade).

The libXFCcore library

The libXFCcore library wraps the GLib object system and selected objects from the GLib utility library. Essentially, it provides a low level object system that can be used to build other libraries; libXFCui depends on this library. libXFCcore uses the libsigc++ 2.0 callback library to implement a typesafe system of signals and slots that makes using native GObject signals or creating your own signals very easy. libXFCcore includes a standard string compatible UTF-8 string class, automatic memory management, several convenient base classes, reference documentation and several example programs.

The libXFCui library

The libXFCui library is a user interface toolkit that makes developing GTK+ applications in C++ easy, intuitive and efficient. It provides more than 420 classes that wrap most  of the objects found in the ATK, GDK, Gdk-pixbuf, GTK and Pango libraries. libXFCui is built on the libXFCcore library so you don't need to include this library in your application; libXFCui will do that for you. Included is a full set of simple example programs, a C++ version of the GTK+ widget demonstration program, an extensive reference manual, several test applications and a tutorial.

The libXFCglade library

Glade is a popular GUI builder for GTK+ applications. Using Glade, you can visually create an application's user interface and save it to a XML description file (.glade). libglade is a C library that loads and parses Glade XML description files at runtime and generates the appropriate widgets. libXFCglade is a C++ binding for libglade. It provides the user with a convenient way to use a Glade generated interface in a XFC application. And because there is less C++ code to write it makes XFC application development easier and faster.

Why program in C++?

Over the years application programming has become more complex. Today, C++ is a better way the manage that complexity because it provides you with a variety of programming designs, both object-oriented and conventional, that let you develop high-quality applications easily. Properly used, C++ code is easily maintainable, is extensible, and can be performance and memory efficient.

Latest release...

The latest development release of the Xfce Foundation Classes is version 4.3.1.



Valid XHTML 1.0  
    Copyright © 2004-2005 The XFC Development Team Xfce is © Olivier FOURDAN 1996-2005