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The Gnome Application Window

Now we are ready to start building our Gnome interface. We first need to create our main Gnome Application Window which will be the window displayed when our application starts up. Select the Gnome button of the Palette window to display in the palette the Gnome widgets (which are extensions to the GTK+ Basic widgets which are displayed by default). Identify the Gnome Application Window widget by hovering the mouse over the various widgets to display their tool tips. It is the top left widget in the palette. Simply click on it with the left mouse button to create one.

There are many other widgets available on this Gnome palette. They include dialog boxes, message boxes, a standard Gnome About Dialog, file entry field with a browse button, a pixmap entry field with built-in preview, and a druid. We'll see some of these later and

all of them in the reference sections. For now we simply create the Gnome Application Window.

You will be presented with a new window that has many of the characteristics of a Gnome application window. There is the menu bar along the top with the usual File, Edit, View, Settings, and Help menus, most including standard menu items within them. This is followed by the default toolbar with the New, Open, and Save buttons. Below this is the canvas area where you will construct your interface. At the bottom is the status bar and a progress monitor. Note that not all menus and toolbar buttons will be useful for your application and you will have others in mind that you may wish to add. Feel free to click around the window and see the menus by clicking the menu twice--once to select the menu itself then once to open up the menu to show it's sub-items. Also note how widgets are identified in the Properties window as you select the widgets.