GTK:Installation and usage tutorial for Windows

Installation and usage tutorial for Windows

Releasing your program

You should always ship all needed DLLs & files with your binaries. End-users should not be required to download the bundle themselves.

Requirements

GTK+3 is known to work on Windows XP, Vista, 7 and 8 at this date.

Developers might want to have a working MinGW or MSVC installation.

Initial setup

1. Download the latest all-in-one bundle and extract it using right-click -> "Extract All...". Choose a location at your will ; we will call it %GTKDIR% during next phases.

   

2. Add %GTKDIR%in to your PATH environment variable :

   • Windows XP : right-click on "My Computer" -> "Properties".
   • Windows Vista/7 : right-click on "Computer" -> "Properties" -> "Advanced system settings".

   Click on "Advanced tab" -> "Environment variables". Double-click on PATH line in "System variables" panel, and add ;%GTKDIR%in at the end of the text.

   

   

3. Optionally, open a console (Start -> Run -> "cmd" or Start -> search for "cmd") and type the following commands :

4. pango-querymodules > %GTKDIR%etcpangopango.modules
5. gdk-pixbuf-query-loaders > %GTKDIR%libgdk-pixbuf-2.02.10.0loaders.cache
6. gtk-query-immodules-3.0 > %GTKDIR%libgtk-3.03.0.0immodules.cache

7. Let's test ! Still in a console or in the "Run" window, run the demo : gtk3-demo

   

Developing with GTK+3

MinGW

You should have a working installation, i.e. "gcc.exe" already in your PATH.

1. In the console, verify that "pkg-config" prints out something reasonable by typing :

   pkg-config --cflags --libs gtk+-3.0

   

2. Use this output in your further compilation commands, like this one :

   gcc -o gtk3.exe gtk3.c -mms-bitfields -Ic:/gtk3/include/gtk-3.0 -Ic:/gtk3/include/atk-1.0 -Ic:/gtk3/include/cairo [...]

   

3. Test the resulting executable (here gtk3.exe) :

   

MSVC

1. Open the Visual Studio Command Prompt :

   

2. In the console, verify that "pkg-config" prints out something reasonable by typing :

   pkg-config --cflags gtk+-3.0

   

3. Use this output in your further compilation commands, like this one, modifying the following : 

   • delete the "-mms-bitfields" switch ;
   • add the "-Dinline= /link /libpath:%GTKDIR% gtk-win32-3.0.lib gobject-2.0.lib" switches at the end.
   For instance :

   cl gtk3.c -mms-bitfields -Ic:/gtk3/include/gtk-3.0 -Ic:/gtk3/include/atk-1.0 [...] -Dinline= /link /libpath:c:/gtk3/lib gtk-win32-3.0.lib gobject-2.0.lib

   

   ("gtk-win32-3.0.lib gobject-2.0.lib" are a minimal requirement. You may want to add other .lib files as you need them)

4. Test the resulting executable (here gtk3.exe) :