Toolbar created using Glade (Python)

This example is similar to , except we use Glade to create the toolbar in an XML .ui file.

Creating the toolbar with Glade

To create the toolbar using the Glade Interface Designer:

Open Glade, and save the file as toolbar_builder.ui

Screenshot of Glade ui

Under Containers on the left hand side, right click on the toolbar icon and select Add widget as toplevel.

Screenshot of toolbar icon in Glade ui

Under the General tab on the bottom right, change the Name to toolbar and Show Arrow to No.

Screenshot of General tab

Under the Common tab, set Horizontal Expand to Yes.

Screenshot of Common tab

Right click on the toolbar in the top right and select Edit. The Tool Bar Editor window will appear.

Screenshot of where to right click to edit toolbar.

We want to add 5 ToolButtons: New, Open, Undo, Fullscreen and Leave Fullscreen. First, we will add the New ToolButton.

Under Hierarchy tab, click Add.

Change the name of the ToolItem to new_button.

Scroll down and set Is important to Yes. This will cause the label of the ToolButton to be shown, when you view the toolbar.

Enter the action name: app.new.

Change the Label to New.

Select the New Stock Id from the drop down menu, or type gtk-new.

Repeat the above steps for the remaining ToolButtons, with the following properties:

Name	Is important	Action name	Label	Stock Id
open_button	Yes	app.open	Open	gtk-open
undo_button	Yes	win.undo	Undo	gtk-undo
fullscreen_button	Yes	win.fullscreen	Fullscreen	gtk-fullscreen
leave_fullscreen_button	Yes	win.fullscreen	Leave Fullscreen	gtk-leave-fullscreen

Close the Tool Bar Editor.

When our program will first start, we do not want the Leave Fullscreen ToolButton to be visible, since the application will not be in fullscreen mode. You can set this in the Common tab, by clicking the Visible property to No. The ToolButton will still appear in the interface designer, but will behave correctly when the file is loaded into your program code. Note that the method show_all() would override this setting - so in the code we have to use show() separately on all the elements.

Setting the visible property to No

Save your work, and close Glade.

The XML file created by Glade is shown below. This is the description of the toolbar. At the time of this writing, the option to add the class Gtk.STYLE_CLASS_PRIMARY_TOOLBAR in the Glade Interface did not exist. We can manually add this to the XML file. To do this, add the following XML code at line 9 of toolbar_builder.ui:

]]>

If you do not add this, the program will still work fine. The resulting toolbar will however look slightly different then the screenshot at the top of this page.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<interface>
  <!-- interface-requires gtk+ 3.0 -->
  <object class="GtkToolbar" id="toolbar">
    <property name="visible">True</property>
    <property name="can_focus">False</property>
    <property name="hexpand">True</property>
    <property name="show_arrow">False</property>
    <child>
      <object class="GtkToolButton" id="new_button">
        <property name="use_action_appearance">False</property>
        <property name="visible">True</property>
        <property name="can_focus">False</property>
        <property name="use_action_appearance">False</property>
        <property name="is_important">True</property>
        <property name="action_name">app.new</property>
        <property name="label" translatable="yes">New</property>
        <property name="use_underline">True</property>
        <property name="stock_id">gtk-new</property>
      </object>
      <packing>
        <property name="expand">False</property>
        <property name="homogeneous">True</property>
      </packing>
    </child>
    <child>
      <object class="GtkToolButton" id="open_button">
        <property name="use_action_appearance">False</property>
        <property name="visible">True</property>
        <property name="can_focus">False</property>
        <property name="use_action_appearance">False</property>
        <property name="is_important">True</property>
        <property name="action_name">app.open</property>
        <property name="label" translatable="yes">Open</property>
        <property name="use_underline">True</property>
        <property name="stock_id">gtk-open</property>
      </object>
      <packing>
        <property name="expand">False</property>
        <property name="homogeneous">True</property>
      </packing>
    </child>
    <child>
      <object class="GtkToolButton" id="undo_button">
        <property name="use_action_appearance">False</property>
        <property name="visible">True</property>
        <property name="can_focus">False</property>
        <property name="use_action_appearance">False</property>
        <property name="is_important">True</property>
        <property name="action_name">win.undo</property>
        <property name="label" translatable="yes">Undo</property>
        <property name="use_underline">True</property>
        <property name="stock_id">gtk-undo</property>
      </object>
      <packing>
        <property name="expand">False</property>
        <property name="homogeneous">True</property>
      </packing>
    </child>
    <child>
      <object class="GtkToolButton" id="fullscreen_button">
        <property name="use_action_appearance">False</property>
        <property name="visible">True</property>
        <property name="can_focus">False</property>
        <property name="use_action_appearance">False</property>
        <property name="is_important">True</property>
        <property name="action_name">win.fullscreen</property>
        <property name="label" translatable="yes">Fullscreen</property>
        <property name="use_underline">True</property>
        <property name="stock_id">gtk-fullscreen</property>
      </object>
      <packing>
        <property name="expand">False</property>
        <property name="homogeneous">True</property>
      </packing>
    </child>
    <child>
      <object class="GtkToolButton" id="leave_fullscreen_button">
        <property name="use_action_appearance">False</property>
        <property name="can_focus">False</property>
        <property name="use_action_appearance">False</property>
        <property name="is_important">True</property>
        <property name="action_name">win.fullscreen</property>
        <property name="label" translatable="yes">Leave Fullscreen</property>
        <property name="use_underline">True</property>
        <property name="stock_id">gtk-leave-fullscreen</property>
      </object>
      <packing>
        <property name="expand">False</property>
        <property name="homogeneous">True</property>
      </packing>
    </child>
  </object>
</interface>

Code used to generate this example

We now create the code below, which adds the toolbar from the file we just created.

from gi.repository import Gtk
from gi.repository import Gdk
from gi.repository import Gio
import sys


class MyWindow(Gtk.ApplicationWindow):

    def __init__(self, app):
        Gtk.Window.__init__(self, title="Toolbar Example", application=app)
        self.set_default_size(400, 200)

        # a grid to attach the toolbar (see below)
        grid = Gtk.Grid()
        self.add(grid)
        # we have to show the grid (and therefore the toolbar) with show(),
        # as show_all() would show also the buttons in the toolbar that we want to
        # be hidden (such as the leave_fullscreen button)
        grid.show()

        # a builder to add the UI designed with Glade to the grid:
        builder = Gtk.Builder()
        # get the file (if it is there)
        try:
            builder.add_from_file("toolbar_builder.ui")
        except:
            print("file not found")
            sys.exit()
        # and attach it to the grid
        grid.attach(builder.get_object("toolbar"), 0, 0, 1, 1)

        # two buttons that will be used later in a method
        self.fullscreen_button = builder.get_object("fullscreen_button")
        self.leave_fullscreen_button = builder.get_object(
            "leave_fullscreen_button")

        # create the actions that control the window, connect their signal to a
        # callback method (see below), add the action to the window:

        # undo
        undo_action = Gio.SimpleAction.new("undo", None)
        undo_action.connect("activate", self.undo_callback)
        self.add_action(undo_action)

        # and fullscreen
        fullscreen_action = Gio.SimpleAction.new("fullscreen", None)
        fullscreen_action.connect("activate", self.fullscreen_callback)
        self.add_action(fullscreen_action)

    # callback for undo
    def undo_callback(self, action, parameter):
        print("You clicked \"Undo\".")

    # callback for fullscreen
    def fullscreen_callback(self, action, parameter):
        # check if the state is the same as Gdk.WindowState.FULLSCREEN, which
        # is a bit flag
        is_fullscreen = self.get_window().get_state(
        ) & Gdk.WindowState.FULLSCREEN != 0
        if is_fullscreen:
            self.unfullscreen()
            self.leave_fullscreen_button.hide()
            self.fullscreen_button.show()
        else:
            self.fullscreen()
            self.fullscreen_button.hide()
            self.leave_fullscreen_button.show()


class MyApplication(Gtk.Application):

    def __init__(self):
        Gtk.Application.__init__(self)

    def do_activate(self):
        win = MyWindow(self)
        # show the window - with show() not show_all() because that would show also
        # the leave_fullscreen button
        win.show()

    def do_startup(self):
        Gtk.Application.do_startup(self)

        # actions that control the application: create, connect their signal to a
        # callback method (see below), add the action to the application

        # new
        new_action = Gio.SimpleAction.new("new", None)
        new_action.connect("activate", self.new_callback)
        app.add_action(new_action)

        # open
        open_action = Gio.SimpleAction.new("open", None)
        open_action.connect("activate", self.open_callback)
        app.add_action(open_action)

    # callback for new
    def new_callback(self, action, parameter):
        print("You clicked \"New\".")

    # callback for open
    def open_callback(self, action, parameter):
        print("You clicked \"Open\".")

app = MyApplication()
exit_status = app.run(sys.argv)
sys.exit(exit_status)

Useful methods for Gtk.Builder

For the useful methods for a Toolbar widget, see

Gtk.Builder builds an interface from an XML UI definition.

add_from_file(filename) loads and parses the given file and merges it with the current contents of the Gtk.Builder.

add_from_string(string) parses the given string and merges it with the current contents of the Gtk.Builder.

add_objects_from_file(filename, object_ids) is the same as add_from_file(), but it loads only the objects with the ids given in the object_ids list.

add_objects_from_string(string, object_ids) is the same as add_from_string(), but it loads only the objects with the ids given in the object_ids list.

get_object(object_id) retrieves the widget with the id object_id from the loaded objects in the builder.

get_objects() returns all loaded objects.

connect_signals(handler_object) connects the signals to the methods given in the handler_object. This can be any object which contains keys or attributes that are called like the signal handler names given in the interface description, e.g. a class or a dict. In line 39 the signal "activate" from the action undo_action is connected to the callback function undo_callback() using action.connect(signal, callback function). See for a more detailed explanation.

API References

In this sample we used the following:

GtkGrid

GtkBuilder

GtkWidget

Event Structures