PHPGTK is an extension to PHP that allows you to create
graphical user interface (GUI) applications. Instead of running in a browser,
your PHP application runs in its own application window. These applications are
client-side only. They do not reside on the Web server. The files instead reside
on the user's hard drive. For users to use the PHPGTK application, they must
have the proper version of PHP with the GTK+ extension installed on their
system.
GTK+ was originally designed for the open-source image editing
program called the GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program). GTK stands for the
GIMP Tool Kit. Later, the Gnome team decided to use GTK+ to create their desktop
environment for Linux. GTK+ has been ported to Windows, Linux, and BeOS, and
thus makes for a good cross-platform GUI library.
PHPGTK uses GTK+ to draw the widgets required in any GUI
application. Widgets are things like scroll bars, text input fields, and
buttons, among other things. When you start almost any Windows application, such
as a Web browser, you are looking at a collection of widgets.
Widgets need to be contained in some type of framework to be
useful and logical. You can't just have a bunch of buttons and text fields
scattered randomly about the screen. To solve this problem, we use a special
kind of widget called a container. A container is another structure that
organizes the widgets however you think it best for your application. For
example, the menu bar at the top of most applications is a container.
Before you can start using PHPGTK, you need to download the
appropriate files. The PHPGTK team has set up a nice Web site at http://gtk.php.net.
The PHPGTK Web site has downloads and documentation for the GTK extension.
Before You Install
PHPGTK still has not reached the 1.0 version, and as such I
wouldn't recommend that you use this version of PHP on your production Web
server. In fact, there really isn't a reason that you'd want to install PHPGTK
on your production Web server. It is a client-side application!
PHPGTK is a developers' toy at the moment, and anything is
subject to change, at least before PHPGTK reaches version 1.0. Have some fun
with it, try it out, but don't base your company's next big product on PHPGTK
0.5.0.
Installing on Windows
Installing PHPGTK on a Windows machine is fairly
straightforward and similar to installing the normal version of PHP. Download
the Windows binary file from the PHPGTK Web site at http://gtk.php.net.
Unzip the file using a zip utility such as WinZip. Extract the
files to your C: drive.
The following folders are created when you unzip the file:
-
php4— Contains the PHP executable, as well as some GTK library files.
-
test— Contains some sample *.php files that use the GTK widget set.
If you are using Windows 98 or Windows ME, then you will notice
that folders called "winnt" and "winnt/system32" have been created. You should
copy the contents of those folders into your C:\windows directory. Note that you
may have to set your system files to be viewable so that you can see the
necessary DLL files to copy them over to C:\windows.
Additionally, you should see a new php.ini file. Copy this to your C:\Windows or C:\WINNT
directory. Be sure to first back up your existing php.ini file.
To test out the installation, type the following from a command
prompt:
c:\php4\php.exe -q c:\test\gtk.php
Installing on Linux
Installing PHPGTK on Linux is easier than installing the normal
PHP; you don't have to worry about compiling with Apache. You can compile GTK
functionality into an existing standalone version of PHP, but for our purposes
we'll start from scratch and make a brand new PHP executable that has GTK
functionality built in. Before you begin:
-
Download the source file for PHP from the download page at www.php.net.
-
Download the source file PHPGTK from the download page of http://gtk.php.net.
Once you have the necessary file, unzip and untar the regular
PHP source file:
tar -zxvf php-4.x.x.tar.gz
This creates a new directory named php-4.x.x, where the "x"
denotes the exact version number of PHP that you downloaded.
Compile PHP using the minimum options. We just want to create a
standalone executable. If you want to add additional functionality, you can
recompile later. For now, you just want to make sure you can create a working
version of PHPGTK. Change directory into your newly created PHP source
directory. Compile by typing:
./configure
That's all there is to it. This automatically creates an
executable that has built-in MySQL support as well.
Once you have the php binary file, you must copy it to
/usr/local/bin. The PHPGTK installation will be looking for it in that location.
You need to be root to do this.
cp php /usr/local/bin
Now, it's time to build the GTK extension onto your PHP
executable. Go back to where you downloaded the PHPGTK source file and extract
it:
tar -zxvf php-gtk-0.5.0.tar.gz
This creates a new directory named php-gtk-0.5.0. Change
directory into that directory and compile the source file. You will need to be
root to perform the final step, make install. To compile PHPGTK, type the
following (a lot of text will print to the screen after you type each
command):
-
./compile
-
make
-
make install
You can test your installation by going into the test directory
and running a few of the scripts. X-Windows will need to be running!
cd test
php -q gtk.php
A window should pop up showing various GTK widget buttons.
Click the different widgets to get a brief idea of what they do.