Getting started with Mono, C# and Glade#: How to make window appear?

Question

I've been trying to get started with Mono & GTK# (I come from a background of Qt/C++ GUI programming) and decided to start with a very simple test GUI.

I installed the MS Windows Mono/GTK# installer and then, upon finding that the Start menu link to Glade didn't work (as it didn't appear to be included in the package), I used the "Glade with GTK+" Windows binary installer from the Glade website.

I then created a very simple GUI in Glade (at the bottom of this post) and wrote my first bit of C# code to display it. However, it doesn't seem to be working properly.

The "Hello, World!" is printed to the console correctly and then the program hangs without the window appearing or any error messages being printed. It seems as if the window has been created and the event loop has started but that it is not being made visible. I've tried removing the first null from the new Glade.XML line and not including the glade file as a resource, but that made no difference.

I've also tried replacing the Glade GUI xml with the one on the GtkSharpBeginnersGuide on the mono website (and changing wndTestWindow to window1 in the C# code) and it seems to work perfectly implying that there's a problem with my Glade XML. However, I'm finding it hard to figure out what's wrong with the XML created by my Glade installation. Can anyone offer any suggestions?

Glade GUI:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<glade-interface>
  <!-- interface-requires gtk+ 2.12 -->
  <!-- interface-naming-policy project-wide -->
  <widget class="GtkWindow" id="wndTestWindow">
    <property name="title" translatable="yes">Test Window</property>
    <property name="window_position">center</property>
    <child>
      <widget class="GtkVBox" id="vboxTopLevel">
        <property name="visible">True</property>
        <property name="orientation">vertical</property>
        <child>
          <widget class="GtkHBox" id="hboxComboList">
            <property name="visible">True</property>
            <child>
              <widget class="GtkLabel" id="lblList">
                <property name="visible">True</property>
                <property name="label" translatable="yes">Here's a list:</property>
              </widget>
              <packing>
                <property name="position">0</property>
              </packing>
            </child>
            <child>
              <widget class="GtkComboBox" id="cmbList">
                <property name="visible">True</property>
              </widget>
              <packing>
                <property name="position">1</property>
              </packing>
            </child>
            <child>
              <widget class="GtkButton" id="btnList">
                <property name="label" translatable="yes">Do something</property>
                <property name="visible">True</property>
                <property name="can_focus">True</property>
                <property name="receives_default">True</property>
              </widget>
              <packing>
                <property name="position">2</property>
              </packing>
            </child>
          </widget>
          <packing>
            <property name="position">0</property>
          </packing>
        </child>
        <child>
          <widget class="GtkHButtonBox" id="hbtnboxButtonRow">
            <property name="visible">True</property>
            <child>
              <widget class="GtkButton" id="btnOK">
                <property name="label">gtk-ok</property>
                <property name="visible">True</property>
                <property name="can_focus">True</property>
                <property name="receives_default">True</property>
                <property name="use_stock">True</property>
              </widget>
              <packing>
                <property name="expand">False</property>
                <property name="fill">False</property>
                <property name="position">0</property>
              </packing>
            </child>
            <child>
              <widget class="GtkButton" id="btnCancel">
                <property name="label">gtk-cancel</property>
                <property name="visible">True</property>
                <property name="can_focus">True</property>
                <property name="receives_default">True</property>
                <property name="use_stock">True</property>
              </widget>
              <packing>
                <property name="expand">False</property>
                <property name="fill">False</property>
                <property name="position">1</property>
              </packing>
            </child>
          </widget>
          <packing>
            <property name="position">1</property>
          </packing>
        </child>
      </widget>
    </child>
  </widget>
</glade-interface>

C# Test Code:

using Glade;
using Gtk;
using System;

class TestApplication
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        System.Console.Write("Hello, World!\n");
        new TestApplication(args);
    }

    public TestApplication(string[] args)
    {
        Gtk.Application.Init();

        Glade.XML gxml = new Glade.XML(null, "test_mono.glade", "wndTestWindow", null);
        gxml.Autoconnect(this);
        Gtk.Application.Run();
    }
}

Compiled and run with:

mcs -pkg:glade-sharp-2.0 -resource:test_mono.glade test_mono.cs
mono .\test_mono.exe

Versions:

Windows: XP Service Pack 3 Glade: 3.6.7 MCS Version 2.6.7.0 Mono & GTK# installed using mono-2.6.7-gtksharp-2.12.10-win32-2.exe from the Mono website.

Compiled & tested both using cygwin and the "Mono-2.6.7 Command Prompt".

Answer 1

Try adding <property name="visible">True</property> to your root widget so that it reads:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<glade-interface>
  <!-- interface-requires gtk+ 2.12 -->
  <!-- interface-naming-policy project-wide -->
  <widget class="GtkWindow" id="wndTestWindow">
    <property name="visible">True</property>
    <property name="title" translatable="yes">Test Window</property>
    <property name="window_position">center</property>
    <child>

In Glade the property can be found under the Common properties tab for the window.