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GTK+ is a cross-platform

Cross-platform

In computing, cross-platform, or multi-platform, is an attribute conferred to computer software or computing methods and concepts that are implemented and inter-operate on multiple computer platforms...

widget toolkit

Widget toolkit

In computing, a widget toolkit, widget library, or GUI toolkit is a set of widgets for use in designing applications with graphical user interfaces...

for creating graphical user interface

Graphical user interface

In computing, a graphical user interface is a type of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices with images rather than text commands. GUIs can be used in computers, hand-held devices such as MP3 players, portable media players or gaming devices, household appliances and...

s. It is licensed under the terms of the GNU LGPL

GNU Lesser General Public License

The GNU Lesser General Public License or LGPL is a free software license published by the Free Software Foundation . It was designed as a compromise between the strong-copyleft GNU General Public License or GPL and permissive licenses such as the BSD licenses and the MIT License...

, allowing both free

Free software

Free software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do...

and proprietary

Proprietary software

Proprietary software is computer software licensed under exclusive legal right of the copyright holder. The licensee is given the right to use the software under certain conditions, while restricted from other uses, such as modification, further distribution, or reverse engineering.Complementary...

software to use it. It is one of the most popular toolkits for the X Window System

X Window System

The X window system is a computer software system and network protocol that provides a basis for graphical user interfaces and rich input device capability for networked computers...

, along with Qt

Qt (toolkit)

Qt is a cross-platform application framework that is widely used for developing application software with a graphical user interface , and also used for developing non-GUI programs such as command-line tools and consoles for servers...

.

The name GTK+ originates from GTK; the plus was added to distinguish an enhanced version. It was originally created for the GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP), a free software

Free software

raster graphics editor

Raster graphics editor

A raster graphics editor is a computer program that allows users to paint and edit pictures interactively on the computer screen and save them in one of many popular “bitmap” or “raster” formats such as JPEG, PNG, GIF and TIFF....

, in 1997 by Spencer Kimball

Spencer Kimball

Spencer Kimball is a computer programmer most notable for his early work on the GNU Image Manipulation Program .In 1995, while students at the University of California at Berkeley, Kimball and his classmate Peter Mattis developed the first version of The GIMP as a class project...

and Peter Mattis

Peter Mattis

Peter Mattis is a computer programmer most notable for his early work on the GNU Image Manipulation Program .In 1995, while students at the University of California at Berkeley, Mattis and his classmate Spencer Kimball developed the first version of The GIMP as a class project...

, members of eXperimental Computing Facility

EXperimental Computing Facility

Founded in 1986, the eXperimental Computing Facility is an undergraduate computing-interest organization...

(XCF) at the University of California, Berkeley

University of California, Berkeley

The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...

. It is now maintained by members of the GNOME Foundation

GNOME Foundation

The GNOME Foundation is a non-profit organization based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, coordinating the efforts in the GNOME project.-Purpose:...

Design

GTK+ is an object-oriented widget toolkit

Widget toolkit

In computing, a widget toolkit, widget library, or GUI toolkit is a set of widgets for use in designing applications with graphical user interfaces...

written in the C programming language

C (programming language)

C is a general-purpose computer programming language developed between 1969 and 1973 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system....

; object-orientation is achieved by using the GLib object system

GObject

The GLib Object System, or GObject, is a free software library providing a portable object system and transparent cross-language interoperability...

. On the X11 display server, GTK+ uses Xlib

Xlib

Xlib is an X Window System protocol client library written in the C programming language. It contains functions for interacting with an X server. These functions allow programmers to write programs without knowing the details of the protocol...

to draw widgets. Using Xlib provides flexibility and allows GTK+ to be used on platforms where the X Window System

X Window System

The X window system is a computer software system and network protocol that provides a basis for graphical user interfaces and rich input device capability for networked computers...

is unavailable. While GTK+ is primarily targeted at the X Window System

X Window System

The X window system is a computer software system and network protocol that provides a basis for graphical user interfaces and rich input device capability for networked computers...

, other platforms are supported, including Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...

(interfaced with the Windows API

Windows API

The Windows API, informally WinAPI, is Microsoft's core set of application programming interfaces available in the Microsoft Windows operating systems. It was formerly called the Win32 API; however, the name "Windows API" more accurately reflects its roots in 16-bit Windows and its support on...

), and Mac OS X

Mac OS X

Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...

(interfaced with Quartz

Quartz (graphics layer)

Quartz specifically refers to a pair of Mac OS X technologies, each part of the Core Graphics framework: Quartz 2D and Quartz Compositor. It includes both a 2D renderer in Core Graphics and the composition engine that sends instructions to the graphics card...

). HTML5 and Wayland

Wayland (display server)

Wayland is a display server protocol for the Unix-like operating systems and a library for Linux implementing that protocol.Wayland provides a method for compositing window managers to communicate directly with applications and to communicate directly with video and input hardware...

backends are in development.

GTK+ can be configured to change the look of the widgets drawn; this is done using different display engines. Several display engines exist which try to emulate the look of the native widgets on the platform in use.

Programming language bindings

A library written in one programming language may be used in another programming language if bindings

Language binding

In computing, a binding from a programming language to a library or OS service is an API providing that service in the language.Many software libraries are written in systems programming languages such as C or C++...

are written; GTK+ has bindings in many languages.

See the table below:
! Language
! Name
! Supported?> ! Ada

Ada (programming language)

Ada is a structured, statically typed, imperative, wide-spectrum, and object-oriented high-level computer programming language, extended from Pascal and other languages...

| GtkAda
| style="text-align:center;" | Partial support up to 2.18> ! C

C (programming language)

C is a general-purpose computer programming language developed between 1969 and 1973 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system....

| GTK+
| > ! C++

C++

C++ is a statically typed, free-form, multi-paradigm, compiled, general-purpose programming language. It is regarded as an intermediate-level language, as it comprises a combination of both high-level and low-level language features. It was developed by Bjarne Stroustrup starting in 1979 at Bell...

| gtkmm

Gtkmm

gtkmm is the official C++ interface for the popular GUI library GTK+. gtkmm is free software distributed under the GNU Lesser General Public License ....

| > !C# and other .NET

.NET Framework

The .NET Framework is a software framework that runs primarily on Microsoft Windows. It includes a large library and supports several programming languages which allows language interoperability...

languages
| Gtk#

Gtk Sharp

Gtk# is a set of .NET bindings for the GTK+ GUI toolkit and assorted GNOME libraries. The library facilitates building graphical GNOME applications using Mono or any other compliant CLR...

| style="text-align:center;" | Partial support up to 2.20> ! D

D (programming language)

The D programming language is an object-oriented, imperative, multi-paradigm, system programming language created by Walter Bright of Digital Mars. It originated as a re-engineering of C++, but even though it is mainly influenced by that language, it is not a variant of C++...

| gtkD

GtkD

In computer programming, GtkD is a language binding of the GTK+ widget toolkit for the D programming language. As of 2011, the latest version is 1.4.1 which wraps GTK+ 2.20...

GObject

The GLib Object System, or GObject, is a free software library providing a portable object system and transparent cross-language interoperability...

| languages written for the GObject

GObject

The GLib Object System, or GObject, is a free software library providing a portable object system and transparent cross-language interoperability...

system.
| > !Gambas

Gambas

Gambas is the name of an object-oriented dialect of the BASIC programming language as well as the integrated development environment that accompanies it. Designed to run on Linux and other Unix-like computer operating systems, its name is a recursive acronym for Gambas Almost Means Basic...

| gambas2-gb-gtk
| > !Genie

Genie (programming language)

Genie is a modern, general-purpose high-level programming language in active development since 2008. It was designed as an alternative, simpler and cleaner dialect for the Vala compiler, while preserving the same functionality of the Vala language. Genie uses the same compiler and libraries as...

| languages written for the GObject

GObject

The GLib Object System, or GObject, is a free software library providing a portable object system and transparent cross-language interoperability...

system.
| > ! Haskell

Haskell (programming language)

Haskell is a standardized, general-purpose purely functional programming language, with non-strict semantics and strong static typing. It is named after logician Haskell Curry. In Haskell, "a function is a first-class citizen" of the programming language. As a functional programming language, the...

| gtk2hs
| > ! Fortran

Fortran

Fortran is a general-purpose, procedural, imperative programming language that is especially suited to numeric computation and scientific computing...

| gtk-fortran
| style="text-align:center;" | Partial support up to 2.24 & 3.0> ! FreeBASIC

FreeBASIC

FreeBASIC is a free/open source , 32-bit BASIC compiler for Microsoft Windows, protected-mode DOS , Linux, FreeBSD and Xbox....

Java (programming language)

Java is a programming language originally developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems and released in 1995 as a core component of Sun Microsystems' Java platform. The language derives much of its syntax from C and C++ but has a simpler object model and fewer low-level facilities...

| java-gnome

Java-gnome

java-gnome is a set of language bindings for the Java programming language for use in the GNOME desktop environment. It is part of the official GNOME language bindings suite and provides a set of libraries allowing developers to write computer programs for GNOME using the Java programming language...

| style="text-align:center;" | Partial support up to 2.20 (not available on Windows)> ! JavaScript

JavaScript

JavaScript is a prototype-based scripting language that is dynamic, weakly typed and has first-class functions. It is a multi-paradigm language, supporting object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles....

| seed

Seed (programming)

Seed is a JavaScript interpreter and a library of the GNOME project to create standalone applications in JavaScript. It uses the JavaScript engine JavaScriptCore of the WebKit project. It is possible to easily create modules in C....

Perl

Perl is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language. Perl was originally developed by Larry Wall in 1987 as a general-purpose Unix scripting language to make report processing easier. Since then, it has undergone many changes and revisions and become widely popular...

| Gtk2-Perl

Gtk2-perl

Gtk2-Perl is a set of wrappers for the Perl programming language around the GTK+ GUI library and the other GNOME platform libraries. GTK2-Perl is free software and licensed under the LGPL...

| style="text-align:center;" | Partial support up to 2.20> ! PHP

PHP

PHP is a general-purpose server-side scripting language originally designed for web development to produce dynamic web pages. For this purpose, PHP code is embedded into the HTML source document and interpreted by a web server with a PHP processor module, which generates the web page document...

| PHP-GTK

PHP-GTK

PHP-GTK is a set of language bindings for PHP which allow GTK+ GUI applications to be written in PHP. PHP-GTK provides an object-oriented interface to GTK+ classes and functions.- History:...

| style="text-align:center;" | Partial support up to 2.20> ! Python

Python (programming language)

Python is a general-purpose, high-level programming language whose design philosophy emphasizes code readability. Python claims to "[combine] remarkable power with very clear syntax", and its standard library is large and comprehensive...

| PyGTK

PyGTK

PyGTK is a set of Python wrappers for the GTK+ graphical user interface library. PyGTK is free software and licensed under the LGPL. It is analogous to PyQt and wxPython which are python wrappers for Qt and wxWidgets respectively. Its original author is the prominent GNOME developer James Henstridge...

(native as of GTK3)
| > ! R

R (programming language)

R is a programming language and software environment for statistical computing and graphics. The R language is widely used among statisticians for developing statistical software, and R is widely used for statistical software development and data analysis....

| RGtk2

RGtk2

RGtk+ is a set of R wrappers for the GTK+ graphical user interface library. RGtk+ is free software and licensed under the GPL.- Syntax :The code below will produce a 200x200 pixel window with the words "Hello World" inside.librarycreateWindow...

| style="text-align:center;" | Partial support up to 2.12> ! Ruby

Ruby (programming language)

Ruby is a dynamic, reflective, general-purpose object-oriented programming language that combines syntax inspired by Perl with Smalltalk-like features. Ruby originated in Japan during the mid-1990s and was first developed and designed by Yukihiro "Matz" Matsumoto...

| ruby-gtk2
| > ! Smalltalk

Smalltalk

Smalltalk is an object-oriented, dynamically typed, reflective programming language. Smalltalk was created as the language to underpin the "new world" of computing exemplified by "human–computer symbiosis." It was designed and created in part for educational use, more so for constructionist...

| Smalltalk GTK
| style="text-align:center;" | GNU Smalltalk

GNU Smalltalk

GNU Smalltalk is an implementation of the Smalltalk programming language by the GNU Project.The implementation, unlike other Smalltalk environments, uses text files for program input and interprets the contents as Smalltalk code...

, Smalltalk YX

Smalltalk YX

Smalltalk YX is an open source programming language. It's an implementation of the Smalltalk-80 standard.Syx is written in the C programming language and has the following purposes:* Readable code* Flexibility through easy creation of plugins...

, Squeak

Squeak

The Squeak programming language is a Smalltalk implementation. It is object-oriented, class-based and reflective.It was derived directly from Smalltalk-80 by a group at Apple Computer that included some of the original Smalltalk-80 developers...

> ! Tcl
| Gnocl
| > ! Vala

Vala (programming language)

Vala is a programming language created with the goal of bringing modern language features to C, with no added runtime needs and with little overhead, by targeting the GObject object system. It is being developed by Jürg Billeter and Raffaele Sandrini. The syntax borrows heavily from C#...

| languages written for the GObject

GObject

The GLib Object System, or GObject, is a free software library providing a portable object system and transparent cross-language interoperability...

system.
| >

GUI designers

There were several attempts to create a GUI designer for GTK+. The following projects are active as of July 2011:

Glade
Glade Interface Designer
Glade Interface Designer is a graphical user interface builder for GTK+, with additional components for GNOME. In its third version, Glade is programming language–independent, and does not produce code for events, but rather an XML file that is then used with an appropriate binding .Glade is...

, supports GtkBuilder, which is a GTK+ built-in GUI description format.
Crow Designer, relies on its own GuiXml format and GuiLoader library.
Stetic
Stetic
Stetic is a GTK# GUI designer used in MonoDevelop to develop Forms, or windows, to run on the Mono implementation of the Microsoft.NET framework. It has been included since version 0.1 of Monodevelop. Stetic is very similar to Glade Interface Designer but is integrated into Monodevelop with...

, part of MonoDevelop, oriented towards Gtk#
Gtk Sharp
Gtk# is a set of .NET bindings for the GTK+ GUI toolkit and assorted GNOME libraries. The library facilitates building graphical GNOME applications using Mono or any other compliant CLR...

.

History

GTK+ was originally designed and used in the GNU Image Manipulation Program

GIMP

GIMP is a free software raster graphics editor. It is primarily employed as an image retouching and editing tool and is freely available in versions tailored for most popular operating systems including Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac OS X, and Linux.In addition to detailed image retouching and...

(GIMP) as a replacement of the Motif

Motif (widget toolkit)

In computing, Motif refers to both a graphical user interface specification and the widget toolkit for building applications that follow that specification under the X Window System on Unix and other POSIX-compliant systems. It emerged in the 1980s as Unix workstations were on the rise, as a...

toolkit; at some point Peter Mattis

Peter Mattis

became disenchanted with Motif and began to write his own GUI toolkit called the GIMP toolkit and had successfully replaced Motif by the 0.60 release of GIMP. Finally GTK was re-written to be object oriented and was renamed GTK+. This was first used in the 0.99 release of GIMP.

The GTK+ 2.0.0 release series introduced new features which include improved text rendering using Pango

Pango

Pango is an LGPL licensed open source computing library used by software developers for laying out and rendering text in high quality, emphasising support for multilingual text...

, a new theme engine, improved accessibility using the Accessibility Toolkit

Accessibility Toolkit

In computing, Accessibility Toolkit refers in particular to the GNOME ATK.The GNOME ATK, a developer toolkit, allows programmers to use common GNOME accessibility features in their applications. This includes such features as high-contrast visual themes for the visually impaired and keyboard...

, complete transition to Unicode

Unicode

Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...

using UTF-8

UTF-8

UTF-8 is a multibyte character encoding for Unicode. Like UTF-16 and UTF-32, UTF-8 can represent every character in the Unicode character set. Unlike them, it is backward-compatible with ASCII and avoids the complications of endianness and byte order marks...

strings, and a more flexible API. Starting with version 2.8, GTK+ 2 depends on the Cairo

Cairo (graphics)

cairo is a software library used to provide a vector graphics-based, device-independent API for software developers. It is designed to provide primitives for 2-dimensional drawing across a number of different backends...

graphics library for rendering vector graphics in GTK+ 2.

GTK+ version 3.0.0 included revised input device handling, support for themes

Theme (computing)

In computing, a theme is a preset package containing graphical appearance details, used to customize the look and feel of an operating system, widget set or window manager....

written with CSS

Cascading Style Sheets

Cascading Style Sheets is a style sheet language used to describe the presentation semantics of a document written in a markup language...

-like syntax, and the ability to receive information about other opened GTK+ applications.

Release series	Initial release date	Major enhancements	Latest minor version
1.0	14 April 1998	First stable version	1.0.6
1.2	27 February 1999	New widgets (GtkFontSelector, GtkPacker, GtkItemFactory, GtkCTree, GtkInvisible, GtkCalendar, GtkLayout, GtkPlug, GtkSocket)	1.2.10
2.0	11 March 2002	GObject, Universal Unicode UTF-8	2.0.9
2.2	22 December 2002	Multihead support	2.2.4
2.4	16 March 2004	New widgets (GtkFileChooser, GtkComboBox, GtkComboBoxEntry, GtkExpander, GtkFontButton, GtkColorButton)	2.4.14
2.6	16 December 2004	New widgets (GtkIconView, GtkAboutDialog, GtkCellView). The last to support Windows 98 Windows 98 Windows 98 is a graphical operating system by Microsoft. It is the second major release in the Windows 9x line of operating systems. It was released to manufacturing on 15 May 1998 and to retail on 25 June 1998. Windows 98 is the successor to Windows 95. Like its predecessor, it is a hybrid... /ME. Windows Me Windows Millennium Edition, or Windows Me , is a graphical operating system released on September 14, 2000 by Microsoft, and was the last operating system released in the Windows 9x series. Support for Windows Me ended on July 11, 2006....	2.6.10
2.8	13 August 2005	Cairo Cairo (graphics) cairo is a software library used to provide a vector graphics-based, device-independent API for software developers. It is designed to provide primitives for 2-dimensional drawing across a number of different backends... integration	2.8.20
2.10	3 July 2006	New widgets (GtkStatusIcon, GtkAssistant, GtkLinkButton, GtkRecentChooser) and print support (GtkPrintOperation)	2.10.14
2.12	14 September 2007	GtkBuilder	2.12.12
2.14	4 September 2008	Jpeg2000 load support	2.14.7
2.16	13 March 2009	New GtkOrientable, Caps Lock warning in password Entry. Improvement on GtkScale, GtkStatusIcon, GtkFileChooser.	2.16.6
2.18	23 September 2009	New GtkInfoBar. Improvement on file chooser, printing. GDK has been rewritten to use 'client-side windows'	2.18.9
2.20	23 March 2010	New GtkSpinner and GtkToolPalette, GtkOffscreenWindow. Improvement on file chooser, keyboard handling, GDK.Introspection data is now included in GTK+	2.20.1
2.22	23 September 2010	gdk-pixbuf moved to separate module, most GDK drawing are based on Cairo, many internal data are now private and can be sealed in preparation to GTK+3	2.22.1
2.24	30 January 2011	New simple combo box widget (GtkComboBoxText) added, the cups print backend can send print jobs as PDF, GtkBuilder has gained support for text tags and menu toolbuttons and many introspection annotation fixes were added	2.24.5
3.0	10 February 2011	Cairo, more X11 agnostic, XInput2, CSS-based theme API	3.0.12
3.2	25 September 2011	New experimental Wayland and HTML5 backends, New Font Chooser dialog, New widgets: GtkLockButton and GtkOverlay	3.2.0

Future developments

Project Ridley is an attempt to consolidate several libraries that are currently external to GTK+, including libgnome, libgnomeui, libgnomeprint22, libgnomeprintui22, libglade, libgnomecanvas, libegg, libeel, gtkglext, and libsexy.

Developers are also considering new directions for the library, including removing deprecated API

Application programming interface

An application programming interface is a source code based specification intended to be used as an interface by software components to communicate with each other...

components and adding an integrated scene graph

Scene graph

A scene graph is a general data structure commonly used by vector-based graphics editing applications and modern computer games. Examples of such programs include Acrobat 3D, Adobe Illustrator, AutoCAD, CorelDRAW, OpenSceneGraph, OpenSG, VRML97, and X3D....

system, similar to the Clutter

Clutter (computing)

Clutter is an open source graphics library for creating hardware-accelerated user interfaces. It relies upon OpenGL or OpenGL ES for rendering, can be compiled on different platforms and has multiple bindings to other languages...

graphics library, effectively integrating GTK+ with OpenGL

OpenGL

OpenGL is a standard specification defining a cross-language, cross-platform API for writing applications that produce 2D and 3D computer graphics. The interface consists of over 250 different function calls which can be used to draw complex three-dimensional scenes from simple primitives. OpenGL...

.

Development and design of the GTK+ 3 release of the toolkit started in February 2009 during the GTK+ Theming Hackfest held in Dublin. A first draft of the development roadmap has been released on 9 April 2009.

GTK+ hello world

The following is a graphical GTK+ hello world

Hello world program

A "Hello world" program is a computer program that outputs "Hello world" on a display device. Because it is typically one of the simplest programs possible in most programming languages, it is by tradition often used to illustrate to beginners the most basic syntax of a programming language, or to...

program in the C programming language

C (programming language)

C is a general-purpose computer programming language developed between 1969 and 1973 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system....

. This program has a window with the title "Hello, world!" and a label with similar text.

include

int main (int argc, char *argv[])
{
GtkWidget *window;
GtkWidget *label;

gtk_init(&argc, &argv);

/* Create the main, top level window */
window = gtk_window_new(GTK_WINDOW_TOPLEVEL);

/* Give it the title */
gtk_window_set_title(GTK_WINDOW(window), "Hello, world!");

/*
** Map the destroy signal of the window to gtk_main_quit;
** When the window is about to be destroyed, we get a notification and
** stop the main GTK+ loop by returning 0
*/
g_signal_connect(window, "destroy", G_CALLBACK(gtk_main_quit), NULL);

/*
** Assign the variable "label" to a new GTK label,
** with the text "Hello, world!"
*/
label = gtk_label_new("Hello, world!");

/* Plot the label onto the main window */
gtk_container_add(GTK_CONTAINER(window), label);

/* Make sure that everything, window and label, are visible */
gtk_widget_show_all(window);

/*
** Start the main loop, and do nothing (block) until
** the application is closed
*/
gtk_main;

return 0;
}

Using GCC

GNU Compiler Collection

The GNU Compiler Collection is a compiler system produced by the GNU Project supporting various programming languages. GCC is a key component of the GNU toolchain...

and pkg-config

Pkg-config

pkg-config is computer software that provides a unified interface for querying installed libraries for the purpose of compiling software from its source code. pkg-config was originally designed for Linux but is now also available for the various BSDs, Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and Solaris.It...

in a Unix shell

Unix shell

A Unix shell is a command-line interpreter or shell that provides a traditional user interface for the Unix operating system and for Unix-like systems...

, this code can be compiled with the following command (assume above source has file name "helloworld.c"):



$ gcc -Wall helloworld.c -o helloworld `pkg-config --cflags gtk+-3.0` `pkg-config --libs gtk+-3.0`

GTK+ example using Vala instead of C

To create a "Hello World" program in Vala

Vala (programming language)

instead of C, do the following:

using Gtk;

int main (string[] args) {
Gtk.init (ref args);

var window = new Window ;
window.title = "Hello, World!";
window.border_width = 10;
window.window_position = WindowPosition.CENTER;
window.set_default_size (350, 70);
window.destroy.connect (Gtk.main_quit);

var label = new Label ("Hello, World!");

window.add (label);
window.show_all;

Gtk.main;
return 0;
}

Uses

Environments that use GTK+

GNOME
GNOME
GNOME is a desktop environment and graphical user interface that runs on top of a computer operating system. It is composed entirely of free and open source software...

is based on GTK+, meaning that programs native to GNOME use GTK+
Xfce
Xfce
Xfce is a free software desktop environment for Unix and other Unix-like platforms, such as Linux, Solaris, and BSD – though recent compatibility issues have arisen with regard to BSD Unix platforms...

is based on GTK+
LXDE
LXDE
LXDE is a free and open source desktop environment for Unix and other POSIX compliant platforms, such as Linux or BSD. The goal of the project is to provide a desktop environment that is fast and energy efficient...

(Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment) is based on GTK+
ROX Desktop
ROX Desktop
The ROX Desktop is a graphical desktop environment for the X Window System. It is based on the ROX-Filer which is a drag and drop spatial file manager. It is free software released under the GNU General Public License. The environment was inspired by the user interface of RISC OS...

is a lightweight desktop, with features from the GUI
Gui
Gui or guee is a generic term to refer to grilled dishes in Korean cuisine. These most commonly have meat or fish as their primary ingredient, but may in some cases also comprise grilled vegetables or other vegetarian ingredients. The term derives from the verb, "gupda" in Korean, which literally...

of RISC OS
RISC OS
RISC OS is a computer operating system originally developed by Acorn Computers Ltd in Cambridge, England for their range of desktop computers, based on their own ARM architecture. First released in 1987, under the name Arthur, the subsequent iteration was renamed as in 1988...
GPE Palmtop Environment
GPE Palmtop Environment
GPE is a graphical user interface environment for handheld computers, such as palmtops and personal digital assistants , running the Linux operating system...
Access Linux Platform
Access Linux Platform
The Access Linux Platform , once referred to as a "next-generation version of the Palm OS" is an open source-based operating system for mobile devices developed and marketed by Access Co., of Tokyo, Japan. The platform includes execution environments for Java, classic Palm OS, and GTK+-based native...

(successor of the Palm OS
Palm OS
Palm OS is a mobile operating system initially developed by Palm, Inc., for personal digital assistants in 1996. Palm OS is designed for ease of use with a touchscreen-based graphical user interface. It is provided with a suite of basic applications for personal information management...

PDA
Personal digital assistant
A personal digital assistant , also known as a palmtop computer, or personal data assistant, is a mobile device that functions as a personal information manager. Current PDAs often have the ability to connect to the Internet...

platform)
Sugar is a desktop environment oriented on helping children learn, which uses GTK+ and PyGTK
PyGTK
PyGTK is a set of Python wrappers for the GTK+ graphical user interface library. PyGTK is free software and licensed under the LGPL. It is analogous to PyQt and wxPython which are python wrappers for Qt and wxWidgets respectively. Its original author is the prominent GNOME developer James Henstridge...
KDE
KDE
KDE is an international free software community producing an integrated set of cross-platform applications designed to run on Linux, FreeBSD, Microsoft Windows, Solaris and Mac OS X systems...

, though based on Qt, has integration with GTK+-based programs and themes (since version 4.2).

GTK+ programs do not require a desktop environment

Desktop environment

In graphical computing, a desktop environment commonly refers to a style of graphical user interface derived from the desktop metaphor that is seen on most modern personal computers. These GUIs help the user in easily accessing, configuring, and modifying many important and frequently accessed...

made with GTK+. If the required libraries are installed, a GTK+ program can run on top of other X11-based desktop environments or window managers; this includes Mac OS X

Mac OS X

Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...

if X11.app

X11.app

XQuartz is Apple Inc.'s version of the X server, a component of the X Window System, for Mac OS X. The current version of XQuartz is a DDX included in the X.Org Server and implements support for hardware-accelerated 2D graphics , hardware OpenGL acceleration and integration with Aqua, the Mac OS...

is installed (which is the default since the Leopard release). GTK+ can also run under Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows

, where it is used by some popular cross-platform applications like Pidgin

Pidgin (software)

Pidgin is an open-source multi-platform instant messaging client, based on a library named libpurple. Libpurple has support for many commonly used instant messaging protocols, allowing the user to log into various services from one application.The number of Pidgin users was estimated to be over 3...

and GIMP. wxWidgets

WxWidgets

wxWidgets is a widget toolkit for creating graphical user interfaces for cross-platform applications. wxWidgets enables a program's GUI code to compile and run on several computer platforms with minimal or no code changes...

, a cross-platform GUI toolkit, uses GTK+ for Unix-like operating systems. Other ports include DirectFB

DirectFB

DirectFB stands for Direct Frame Buffer. It is a software library for GNU/Linux/Unix-based operating systems with a small memory footprint that provides graphics acceleration, input device handling and abstraction layer, and integrated windowing system with support for translucent windows and...

(used by the Debian installer

Debian-Installer

Debian-Installer is the installation program for Debian. It was originally written for the Debian 3.1 release , although the first version of a Linux distribution it was used with was Skolelinux Venus ....

, for example) and ncurses

Ncurses

ncurses is a programming library that provides an API which allows the programmer to write text user interfaces in a terminal-independent manner. It is a toolkit for developing "GUI-like" application software that runs under a terminal emulator...

.

Window managers
The following window managers use GTK+

Aewm
AfterStep
AfterStep
AfterStep is a stacking window manager for the X Window System. The goal of AfterStep's development is to provide for flexibility of desktop configuration, improved aesthetics and efficient use of system resources, and was used in such distributions as MachTen...
Amaterus
IceWM
IceWM
IceWM is a stacking window manager for the X Window System graphical infrastructure, written by Marko Maček. It was coded from scratch in C++ and is released under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License...
Metacity
Metacity
Metacity was the window manager used by default in the GNOME desktop environment until GNOME 3, where it was replaced by Mutter. The development of Metacity was started by Havoc Pennington and it is released under the GNU General Public License....
Mutter
Mutter (window manager)
Mutter is the window manager for which GNOME Shell is a plugin in GNOME 3, replacing Metacity....
Sawfish
Sawfish (window manager)
Sawfish is an extensible window manager for the X Window System. Its aim is simply to manage windows in the most flexible and attractive manner possible. Formerly known as Sawmill, the name was changed because another software program had the same name....
Wmg
Xfwm
Xfce
Xfce is a free software desktop environment for Unix and other Unix-like platforms, such as Linux, Solaris, and BSD – though recent compatibility issues have arisen with regard to BSD Unix platforms...

Applications

Some notable applications that use GTK+ as a widget toolkit include:

AbiWord
AbiWord
AbiWord is a free and open source software word processor. It was originally started by SourceGear Corporation as the first part of a proposed AbiSuite. Development stopped when SourceGear changed their focus to Internet appliances. AbiWord was adopted by some open source developers and AbiWord...

– Word processor
Word processor
A word processor is a computer application used for the production of any sort of printable material....
Anjuta
Anjuta
Anjuta is an integrated development environment for the C, C++, Java, JavaScript, Python and Vala computer programming languages, written for the GNOME project...

– Integrated development environment
Integrated development environment
An integrated development environment is a software application that provides comprehensive facilities to computer programmers for software development...

(IDE)
Ardour – Digital audio workstation
Digital audio workstation
A digital audio workstation is an electronic system designed solely or primarily for recording, editing and playing back digital audio. DAWs were originally tape-less, microprocessor-based systems such as the Synclavier and Fairlight CMI...
Chromium
Chromium (web browser)
Chromium is the open source web browser project from which Google Chrome draws its source code. The project's hourly Chromium snapshots appear essentially similar to the latest builds of Google Chrome aside from the omission of certain Google additions, most noticeable among them: Google's...

– Secure web browser
Web browser
A web browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting, and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web. An information resource is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier and may be a web page, image, video, or other piece of content...

employing WebKit
WebKit
WebKit is a layout engine designed to allow web browsers to render web pages. WebKit powers Google Chrome and Apple Safari and by October 2011 held over 33% of the browser market share between them. It is also used as the basis for the experimental browser included with the Amazon Kindle ebook...

and developed in large part by Google
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
Ekiga
Ekiga
Ekiga /i k ai g a/ is a VoIP and video conferencing application for GNOME and Windows. It is distributed as free software under the terms of the GNU General Public License. It was the default VoIP client in Ubuntu until October 2009, when it was replaced by Empathy...

(formerly GnomeMeeting) – VoIP and video conferencing
Videoconferencing
Videoconferencing is the conduct of a videoconference by a set of telecommunication technologies which allow two or more locations to interact via two-way video and audio transmissions simultaneously...

application
Epiphany
Epiphany (web browser)
Epiphany is an open source web browser for the GNOME desktop environment. The browser is a descendant of Galeon, and was created after developer disagreements about Galeon's growing complexity...

– Official GNOME
GNOME
GNOME is a desktop environment and graphical user interface that runs on top of a computer operating system. It is composed entirely of free and open source software...

web browser
Evolution – Personal information manager
Personal information manager
A personal information manager is a type of application software that functions as a personal organizer. The acronym PIM is now, more commonly, used in reference to Personal information management as a field of study...
GIMP
GIMP
GIMP is a free software raster graphics editor. It is primarily employed as an image retouching and editing tool and is freely available in versions tailored for most popular operating systems including Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac OS X, and Linux.In addition to detailed image retouching and...

– Raster graphics editor
Raster graphics editor
A raster graphics editor is a computer program that allows users to paint and edit pictures interactively on the computer screen and save them in one of many popular “bitmap” or “raster” formats such as JPEG, PNG, GIF and TIFF....
Gnumeric
Gnumeric
Gnumeric is a spreadsheet program that is part of the GNOME Free Software Desktop Project. Gnumeric version 1.0 was released December 31, 2001. Gnumeric is distributed as free software under the GNU GPL license; it is intended to replace proprietary and other spreadsheet programs such as Microsoft...

– Spreadsheet
Spreadsheet
A spreadsheet is a computer application that simulates a paper accounting worksheet. It displays multiple cells usually in a two-dimensional matrix or grid consisting of rows and columns. Each cell contains alphanumeric text, numeric values or formulas...

software
GRAMPS
GRAMPS
The core export file format of Gramps is named Gramps XML and uses the file extension .gramps. It is extended from XML. Gramps XML is a free format. Gramps usually compresses Gramps XML files with gzip. The file format Portable Gramps XML Package uses the extension .gpkg and is currently a .tar.gz...

– Genealogy software
Genealogy software
Genealogy software is computer software used to record, organize, and publish genealogical data. At a minimum, genealogy software collects the date and place of an individual's birth, marriage, and death, and stores the relationships of individuals to their parents, spouses, and children...
Inkscape
Inkscape
Inkscape is a free software vector graphics editor, licensed under the GNU General Public License. Its goal is to implement full support for the Scalable Vector Graphics 1.1 standard....

– SVG
Scalable Vector Graphics
Scalable Vector Graphics is a family of specifications of an XML-based file format for describing two-dimensional vector graphics, both static and dynamic . The SVG specification is an open standard that has been under development by the World Wide Web Consortium since 1999.SVG images and their...

Vector graphics editor
Vector graphics editor
A vector graphics editor is a computer program that allows users to compose and edit vector graphics images interactively on a computer and save them in one of many popular vector graphics formats, such as EPS, PDF, WMF, SVG, or VML....
LiVES
LiVES
LiVES is a free software video editing software and VJ tool, released under the GNU General Public License version 3 or later. There are binary versions available for most popular Linux distributions...

– Video editor
Video editing software
Video editing software, is application software which handles the post-production video editing of digital video sequences on a computer non-linear editing systems...
Midori
Midori (browser)
is a web browser that aims to be lightweight and fast. It uses the WebKit rendering engine and the GTK+ 2 interface. Midori is part of the Xfce desktop environment's Goodies component...

– Minimalistic web browser
Pidgin
Pidgin (software)
Pidgin is an open-source multi-platform instant messaging client, based on a library named libpurple. Libpurple has support for many commonly used instant messaging protocols, allowing the user to log into various services from one application.The number of Pidgin users was estimated to be over 3...

– Instant messenger
Instant messaging
Instant Messaging is a form of real-time direct text-based chatting communication in push mode between two or more people using personal computers or other devices, along with shared clients. The user's text is conveyed over a network, such as the Internet...
gconfig – Linux kernel
Linux kernel
The Linux kernel is an operating system kernel used by the Linux family of Unix-like operating systems. It is one of the most prominent examples of free and open source software....

source configuration utility

GTK+

Design

Programming language bindings

GUI designers

History

Future developments

GTK+ hello world

GTK+ example using Vala instead of C

Uses

Applications

See also

External links