Gnome's application development framework centers around a
suite of libraries, all written in portable ANSI C and
intended to be used on UNIX-like systems. Libraries which
involve graphics realy on the X Window System. Wrappers are
available which export the Gnome API to nearly any language
you can think of, including Ada, Scheme, Python, Perl, Tom,
Eiffel, Dylan, and Objective C. There are at least three
different C++ wrappers as well.
This book will cover the C interface to the libraries;
however, it should be useful for users of any language
binding, since the mapping from C to your preferred
language is typically straightforward. The book covers
version 1.0 of the Gnome libraries (including the
compatible bug fix releases, such as 1.0.9---all 1.0.x
versions are compatible).
Taking full advantage of the free software tradition,
Gnome didn't start from scratch. It uses several
libraries which are maintained separately from the Gnome
project. These are a part of the Gnome application
development framework, and you can count on their
presence in a Gnome environment.
