Gtk3

Hello World in Gtk

This example show how one may create a simple “Hello World” in Gtk3, setting up a window and button widgets. The sample code will also demonstrate how to set different attributes and actions on the widgets.

module Main (Main.main) where

import Graphics.UI.Gtk

main :: IO ()
main = do
  initGUI
  window <- windowNew
  on window objectDestroy mainQuit
  set window [ containerBorderWidth := 10, windowTitle := "Hello World" ]
  button <- buttonNew
  set button [ buttonLabel := "Hello World" ]
  on button buttonActivated $ do
    putStrLn "A \"clicked\"-handler to say \"destroy\""
    widgetDestroy window
  set window [ containerChild := button ]
  widgetShowAll window
  mainGUI -- main loop

Syntax

obj <- < widgetName >New -- How widgets (e.g Windows, Buttons, Grids) are created

set < widget > [ < attributes > ] -- Set attributes as defined as Attr self in widget documentation (e.g. buttonLabel)

on < widget > < event > < IO action > -- Adding an IO action to a widgets Signal self (e.g. buttonActivated)

Remarks

On many Linux distributions, the Haskell Gtk3 library is available as a package in the systems package manager (e.g. libghc-gtk in Ubuntu’s APT). However, for some developers it might be preferable to use a tool like stack to manage isolated environments, and have Gtk3 installed via cabal instead of via an global installation by the systems package manager. For this option, gtk2hs-buildtools is required. Run cabal install gtk2hs-buildtools before adding gtk, gtk3 or any other Gtk-based Haskell libraries to your projects build-depends entry in your cabal file.