As part of my, "What to do while looking for a Job" project, I'm exploring the Gtk/Gobject introspection bindings in seed.

It's one of those fun, not documented anywhere, and you have to dig around all the source to understand how to do things projects. And part of a grander plan to develop a generic application builder loosely based around the RooJs builder application I blogged about previously.

The idea is that using Gtk, GtkSourceView, and the concepts I developed in the RooJS Builder, I would be able to create Dynamic Web applications (and eventually Gtk ones) very rapidly due to the ability to closely tie the action code to the interface design.

The core reasons why it speeds up development are:

- Syntax checking is feasible when creating code.

- Adding, editing and selecting properties and event handlers is faster, less error prone, and access to documentation is instant. 

- Visually changing and seeing the effect of a change (the change - reload - test cycle) is reduced to milliseconds rather than tens of seconds.

So far most of the application is mocked up, (and relivant patches have been submitted to seeds' bugzilla for review). However one of the key components I was looking at over the Chinese New Year Break was drag and drop of Palete Items onto the Rendered View of the application (Webkit embedded), (and eventually the tree that makes it up). To do this involved seriously testing the Gobject introspection bindings and how the interact with the drag and drop methods in Gtk.

So Read on if you are interested in how it all comes together.