Graphical Development
For drawing interfaces in linux there are a few options. To speak at the lower levels, you can use DirectFB or X11. If you want to draw a simple user interface at a much higher level you should use a graphical toolkit as listed below.
Linux has 3 major toolkits used for developing interfaces. These include QT, GTK, and WxWidgets. For development you may want to build the interface on your desktop PC, and then connect with any specific hardware functionality when it runs on the board. You should also be aware of the versions of GTK, QT, and WX widgets available in the current provided distribution as their APIs can all change significantly between versions. These examples below should help get you started in compiling a graphical hello world application, but for further development you will need to refer to the documentation for the specific toolkits.
Development environment available for Windows, Linux, and Mac. The most common utility used is QT Creator which includes the IDE, UI designer, GDB, VCS, a help system, as well as integration with their own build system. See QT's documentation for a complete list of features. QT can connect with our cross compilers. If you are working with Linux you can use the same cross compiler and connect it with qtcreator. QT also offers professional training from their website. QT has a large range of supported language bindings, but is natively written with C++.
Hello world example
Install the build dependencies
# Make sure you have a valid network connection
# This will take a while to download and install.
apt-get update && apt-get install libqt4-dev qt4-dev-tools build-essential -y
For deployment you only need the runtime libraries. These are divided up by functionality, so use 'apt-cache search' to find the necessary qt4 modules for your project. You can also use the 'libqt4-dev' for deployment, it just may contain more than you need.
This simple hello world app resizes the window when you press the button.
'qtexample.cpp'
#include <QApplication>
#include <QPushButton>
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
QApplication app(argc, argv);
QPushButton hello("Hello world!");
hello.resize(100, 30);
hello.show();
return app.exec();
}
To compile it:
# Generate the project file
qmake -project
# generate a Makefile
qmake
# build it (will take approximately 25 seconds)
make
This will create the project named after the directory you are in. In this example I'm in /root/ so the binary is 'root'.
# DISPLAY is not defined from the serial console
# but you do not need to specify it if running
# xterm on the display.
DISPLAY=:0 ./root
GTK
GTK Development is possible on Windows, Linux, and Mac, but will be significantly easier if done from Linux. Typically you would use the Anjuta IDE which includes IDE, UI designer (GtkBuilder/glade), GDB, VCS, devhelp, and integration with the autotools as a built system. This is only available for Linux. GTK also has a large range of supported bindings, though is natively written in C.
Hello world example
Install the build dependencies
# Make sure you have a valid network connection
# This will take a while to download and install.
apt-get update && apt-get install libgtk2.0-dev pkg-config build-essential -y
For deployment you only need the runtime library 'libgtk2.0-0'. The below example will echo to the terminal the application is run from every time you press the button.
main.c
#include <gtk/gtk.h>
static void hello_cb(GtkWidget *widget, gpointer data)
{
g_print ("Hello World\n");
}
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
GtkWidget *window;
GtkWidget *button;
gtk_init(&argc, &argv);
window = gtk_window_new(GTK_WINDOW_TOPLEVEL);
button = gtk_button_new_with_label("Hello World");
g_signal_connect(button, "clicked", G_CALLBACK(hello_cb), NULL);
gtk_container_add(GTK_CONTAINER(window), button);
gtk_widget_show_all(window);
gtk_main();
return 0;
}
To compile this:
gcc main.c -o test `pkg-config --cflags --libs gtk+-2.0`
To run this example:
# DISPLAY is not defined from the serial console
# but you do not need to specify it if running
# xterm on the display.
DISPLAY=:0 ./test
Hello world tutorial. This uses the simplest example as it does not use any interface design and creates all widgets from code.
Micah Carrick's GTK/glade tutorial. This will show you how to use the Glade designer (integrated with Anjuta as well) to create an xml description for your interface, and how to load this in your code.
wxWidgets is a cross platform graphics library that uses the native toolkit of whichever platform it is on. It will draw winforms on Windows, and GTK on Linux. While wxWidgets has many tools available for development, Code::Blocks seems the most recommended as it includes wxSmith for designing the user interface, as well as including an IDE and GDB support. The wxWidgets toolkit has some binding support, and is natively written in C++.
Hello world example
Install the build dependencies
# Make sure you have a valid network connection
# This will take a while to download and install.
apt-get update && apt-get install wx2.8-headers wx2.8-i18n libwxgtk2.8-dev build-essential -y
The below example will simply draw a frame that prints 'hello world'.
main.cpp
#include "wx/wx.h"
class HelloWorldApp : public wxApp
{
public:
virtual bool OnInit();
};
DECLARE_APP(HelloWorldApp)
IMPLEMENT_APP(HelloWorldApp)
// This is executed upon startup, like 'main()' in non-wxWidgets programs.
bool HelloWorldApp::OnInit()
{
wxFrame *frame = new wxFrame((wxFrame*) NULL, -1, _T("Hello wxWidgets World"));
frame->CreateStatusBar();
frame->SetStatusText(_T("Hello World"));
frame->Show(true);
SetTopWindow(frame);
return true;
}
To compile this example:
g++ main.cpp `wx-config --cxxflags --libs` -o test
To run this example:
# DISPLAY is not defined from the serial console
# but you do not need to specify it if running
# xterm on the display.
DISPLAY=:0 ./test