7.1. Normal Buttons

We've almost seen all there is to see of the button widget. It's pretty simple. There is however more than one way to create a button. You can use the Gtk::Button.new("Label"), Gtk::Button#label=("Label"), and Gtk::Button#set_label("Label") to create a button with a label, use Gtk::Button.new( Gtk::Stock::item ), (where item is the type of stock item you wish to use) to create a button containing the image and text from a stock item or use Gtk::Button.new to create a blank button. It's up to you to pack a label or pixmap into this new button. To do this, create a new box, and then pack your objects into this box using the usual Gtk::Box#pack_start, and then use Gtk::Container#add to pack the box inside the button.

Here's an example of using the Gtk::Button.new to create a button and a putting a label in it. I've broken up the code to create a box from the rest so you can use it in your programs. There are further examples of using images later in the tutorial.

require 'gtk2'

# Create a new hbox with an image and a label packed into it
# and return the box
def label_box( image, label )
   # Create box for image and label
   box = Gtk::HBox.new( false, 0 )
   box.border_width=( 2 )
   
   # Now on to the image stuff
   image = Gtk::Image.new( image )

   # Create a label for the button
   label = Gtk::Label.new( label )
   
   # Pack the image and label into the box
   box.pack_start( image, false, false, 3 )
   box.pack_start( label, false, false, 3 )
   
   image.show
   label.show
   
   return box
end

def callback( widget )
   puts "Hello again - #{widget} was pressed."
end

Gtk.init

# Create a new window
window = Gtk::Window.new( Gtk::Window::TOPLEVEL )
window.title=( "Pixmap'd Buttons" )

# It's a good ideal to do this for all windows
window.signal_connect( "destroy" ) { Gtk.main_quit }
window.signal_connect( "delete_event" ) { Gtk.main_quit }

# Sets the border of the window
window.border_width=( 10 )

# Create a new button
button = Gtk::Button.new

# Connect the "clicked" signal of the button to our callback
button.signal_connect( "clicked" ) { |w| callback( w ) }

# This calls our box creating method
box = label_box( "ruby.png", "cool button" )

# Pack and show all our widgets
box.show
button.add( box )
button.show
window.add( button )
window.show

# Rest in Gtk.main and wait for the fun to begin
Gtk.main

The Button widget has the following signals:

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