A Field Guide to GTK Widgets

This is the first proper entry in A Field Guide to GTK Widgets — a series about which widget to reach for, when, and what bites you when you do. We start where every app starts: the window. Each post stands on its own, and the complete, runnable code for this one lives in the companion repo. Two windows, and the one you should reach for You sit down to write a GNOME app. The very first widget you need is the window, and the toolkit immediately hands you a choice it doesn’t explain: GtkApplicationWindow, from GTK itself, or AdwApplicationWindow, from Libadwaita. The reference describes both accurately and tells you nothing about which one you want. ...

This is the opening post of a series that works through GTK4 and Libadwaita together, one practical interface decision at a time. The posts are grouped around the things you actually build — a window, a list, a settings page — rather than the library a widget happens to ship in. Each post stands alone; together they’re meant to be the field guide the reference documentation isn’t. The problem with the reference The GTK4 documentation is genuinely good. Every widget has a page. Every property, signal, and method is listed. The class hierarchies are accurate and the prose is precise. If you already know which widget you need, the reference will tell you everything about it. ...