Parasite – Firebug for GTK + Applications, Hacker News

    

About

    

     Developing and debugging UIs can be a pain. When something goes wrong,      It’s not always obvious why. You can waste hours writing logging      statements only to find out that a widget is in the wrong container, or an      attribute was not set correctly.     

    

     Developing isn’t much better either. Ever spend time writing temporary      code just to test a new feature, code you know you’re going to throw away      in an hour, and yet you end up spending the next 20 minutes debugging your      temporary code? Sucks, does it?     

    

     What your program really needs is a good Parasite infestation.     

    

     Parasite is a debugging and development tool that runs inside your GTK      application’s process. It can inspect your application, giving you      detailed information on your UI, such as the hierarchy, X window IDs,      widget properties, and more. You can modify properties on the fly in order      to experiment with the look of your UI.     

    

     But you can go further than that. You can actually modify your      application logic while the program is running! Parasite includes an      embedded Python shell that lets you write new code that directly interacts      With your application’s UI, regardless of the language the application is      written in. Create new dialogs, attach temporary signal handlers to      buttons, test out new logic, and gather additional debug information.     

    

     If you’ve used Firebug , it’s      sort of like that, but for GTK applications.     

    

     Parasite is available under the MIT license.     

         

Features

    

Attaches to GTK applications.
     
• Display the entire widget hierarchy of any window.

     

• Click a widget to inspect it.

     

• Allows modification of the properties for any widget.

     

• Python shell for dynamic scripting and inspection of applications.

     

• Easily enable GTK graphical update debugging.

     

• Displays all GtkActions registered in a program.

    

Usage

    

     Parasite is pretty easy to use. Start off by launching with an application      by doing the following:     

    

 $ GTK_MODULES=gtkparasite  appname           
      The Parasite window will pop up immediately, followed by the application      window.     
     
      Click the "Inspect" button and then click anywhere in your application's      UI to load the widget tree for that window and focus in on the selected      widget. You should then be able to browse around the widget tree.     
     
      The properties for the selected widget appear on the right-hand side      of the Parasite window. Many properties can be modified (nearly anything      other than pointer addresses) by clicking on the property value. You'll      Either be able to type in a new value, or select from a pop-up list.     
     
      Toggle "Show Graphic Updates" to see debug rectangles any time part of      your UI redraws. This can be used to help optimize drawing performance      of a widget.     
     
      The Python shell is located at the bottom of the screen. It works like      a standard Python shell. You can import modules you need (such as      "gtk") and write code to manipulate the widgets.     
     
      A special "parasite" module is imported for you that provides a      "gobj" function for converting a pointer address for a widget into      something you can use in the Python shell. For example:     
     
>>> widget=parasite.gobj (0xDEADBEEF)          
      You can get the pointer addresses from the "Pointer Address" column in      the widget tree, or from right-clicking an item in the widget tree      and choosing "Send Widget to Shell."     
     
      You can then use any  PyGTK  functions      on the widget.     
           
 Screenshots 
     
      We also have a 
 screencast 
      demoing and explaining Parasite.                
 Download 
     
      We don't have a release out just yet, but you can download the latest       bleeding      edge  tarball.     
     
      You can also clone the  Git  repository      by running:     
     
 $ git clone git: //github.com/chipx  / gtkparasite                
 FAQ 
     
 Why "Parasite?" 
       Parasite runs inside of another application and allows for          manipulating the application. We thought the name was appropriate.          Bonus: We got to create a cute little logo and draw him crawling          on boxes. Much better t-shirt opportunities.               Will there be t-shirts? 
      
 Yes, I think that's something we just have to do.        
 Why does the Python shell work with GIMP? 
       GIMP defines a 
  GtkScaleButton  type that conflicts with          GTK's own 
 GtkScaleButton . This isn't a problem when          running GIMP itself, since it never uses GTK's, but we use PyGTK          and that does register GTK's version. This causes a conflict that          leads to deadlocks. So we had to disable the Python shell. A           bug report           has been filed with GIMP on this.       
 Development 
     
      Parasite is 
 hosted on      GitHub 
.          
      If you want to contribute, feel free to fork the repository on GitHub      and then propose patches.     
 
 You can report bugs on our  bug tracker . 
     
      In time, we'll have a       Review Board 
 server set up      that you can upload patches to.           
 Contact Us 
     
      Parasite is developed by       Christian Hammond  and       David Trowbridge .     
     
      You can also reach us on our       mailing list .