Gtk - How to Create Simple Window, Compile, and Run GTK+

In previous tutorial, Knowledge hub already guided step by step of how to install GTK+ library in window. Today, Knowledge hub will provide another tutorial of how to create simple window with GTK+ libary.

Moreover, Knowledge hub will explain how to compile and run GTK+ library with MinGW C Compiler. Mingw C Compiler is a compiler used to compile C program.

It is assumed that you already have Mingw installed on your machine
To Compile program MinGW in Command line, using the following command

gcc yourfilename.c -o yourprogramfile.exe

After that, we can run exe file that generated by compiler with the above command.

.\yourprogramfile.exe

But, in order to Compile GTK+ library, we need to add more command to link libraries and include path where the compiler can find those library
How to know which path should be included and which library should be linked?
*In order to know those command, we need to type the following command in command line

pkg-config --cflags --libs gtk+-3.0

After that, please Copy the result getting from above command and save it Notepad. Because, you will need it to compile your gtk+ library
Note: The result obtaining from the above command may vary depending on where you place your GTK+ library

After that, creating mainwindow.c and type the following code to that file and save it.

//mainwindow.c

#include <gtk/gtk.h>

static void activate (GtkApplication* app, gpointer user_data)

  GtkWidget *window;

  window = gtk_application_window_new (app);

  gtk_window_set_title (GTK_WINDOW (window),

                        "Hello http://knowledgehubkh.blogspot.com/");

  gtk_window_set_default_size (GTK_WINDOW (window), 200, 200);

  gtk_widget_show_all (window);

int main (int argc, char **argv)

  GtkApplication *app;

  int status;

  app = gtk_application_new ("org.gtk.example", G_APPLICATION_FLAGS_NONE);

  g_signal_connect (app, "activate", G_CALLBACK (activate), NULL);

  status = g_application_run (G_APPLICATION (app), argc, argv);

  g_object_unref (app);

  return status;

Open Command line and using cd command to go to where you locate your mainwindow.c file
Then, type the following command to compile mainwindow.c

gcc mainwindow.c -o mainwindow.exe -mms-bitfields -ID:/Libraries/gtk/include/gtk-3.0 -ID:/Libraries/gtk/include/cairo -ID:/Libraries/gtk/include/pango-1.0 -ID:/Libraries/gtk/include/atk-1.0 -ID:/Libraries/gtk/include/cairo -ID:/Libraries/gtk/include/pixman-1 -ID:/Libraries/gtk/include -ID:/Libraries/gtk/include/freetype2 -ID:/Libraries/gtk/include -ID:/Libraries/gtk/include/libpng15 -ID:/Libraries/gtk/include/gdk-pixbuf-2.0 -ID:/Libraries/gtk/include/libpng15 -ID:/Libraries/gtk/include/glib-2.0 -ID:/Libraries/gtk/lib/glib-2.0/include -LD:/Libraries/gtk/lib -lgtk-3 -lgdk-3 -lgdi32 -limm32 -lshell32 -lole32 -Wl,-luuid -lpangocairo-1.0 -lpangoft2-1.0 -lfreetype -lfontconfig -lpangowin32-1.0 -lgdi32 -lpango-1.0 -lm -latk-1.0 -lcairo-gobject -lcairo -lgdk_pixbuf-2.0 -lgio-2.0 -lgobject-2.0 -lglib-2.0 -lintl

Note: The command from -mms-bitfields ..... until the end (-lintl). Please replace it with the result you got from the step with asterisk (*) above