Getting Started with GTK on Windows

I am assuming that you already know GTK+ and wanted to try it out for the first time. This article will discuss how to setup your development environment to start writing GTK+ based applications.

First things first, download everything you need.

Download GTK from GTK.org -- I downloaded gtk+-bundle_2.18.7-20100213_win32.zip.

Optionally, download libiconv from GTK.org -- as of this writing libiconv is version 1.9.1.

For C editor, I am using MinGW Developer Studio. It is the easiest to setup in compiling GTK+ applications since it already works well with MingGW, the recommended toolchain when using GTK. Sadly, the developer's website is somewhat down or possibly currently doing a revamp. But you can easily get version 2.0.5 from list of mirrors courtesy of TextEditors.org.

Setting them up

Install MinGW Developer Studio.

Extract gtk+-bundle_2.18.7-20100213_win32.zip then place content in C:\Gtk+\{here}

Same with libiconv, extract libiconv-1.9.1.bin.woe32.zip then place all contents in C:\Gtk+\{here}

Configuring MinGW Develop Studio.

1. Launch the editor
2. Click Edit -> Options... to open the Option dialog box.
3. Click the Directories tab
4. On Show directories for,
• select Include files then add the following paths:
  
  
  
  • C:\Gtk+\include
  • C:\Gtk+\lib\glib-2.0\include
  • C:\Gtk+\lib\gtk-2.0\include
  • C:\Gtk+\include\cairo
• select Library files then add this path:
  
  
  
  • C:\Gtk+\lib

Testing it out.

1. Launch MinGW Developer Studio
2. Click Project -> New Project to open New dialog box.
3. Select GTK+ Application and indicate HelloGTK as Project Name
4. Click OK to create new project.
5. Click File -> New to open New dialog box.
6. Select C/C++ Source File and indicate hellogtk.c as File name.
7. Click OK to create new file.
8. Type in the code below then press F5 to compile and run the program.

If you are having problem running you hellogtk application, you might need to install GTK+ runtime. I use GIMP, which installs the runtime -- try to download and install a copy of GIMP for Windows.

Where to go from here? Read the official documentation and tutorials.