How do I handle keyboard events in GTK+3?

Question

What signals/functions should I use to get keyboard input in GTK+3?

I have looked around and the only tutorials I know of that cover GTK+3 (zetcode and gnome developer) don't seem to cover that.

Anyone can point me in the right direction?

Answer 1

I will summarize here how to handle keyboard events in GTK3, which I hope will be useful since I cannot find it put together anywhere else.

Imagine you are using GTK+3 and you want your application to do something when you press the space key. This is how you do it:

• First enable the #GDK_KEY_PRESS_MASK mask for your Gdk.Window:

  gtk_widget_add_events(window, GDK_KEY_PRESS_MASK);
  

• Then you connect the window with the keyboard_press() function:

  g_signal_connect (G_OBJECT (window), "key_press_event",
          G_CALLBACK (my_keypress_function), NULL);
  

• Define your keyboard_press() to something once the space key has been pressed:

  gboolean my_keypress_function (GtkWidget *widget, GdkEventKey *event, gpointer data) {
      if (event->keyval == GDK_KEY_space){
          printf("SPACE KEY PRESSED!");
          return TRUE;
      }
      return FALSE;
  }
  

Answer 2

it's g_signal_connect (G_OBJECT (window), "key_press_event", G_CALLBACK (on_key_press), NULL);