mutter/doc/reference/clutter/clutter-overview.xml
2010-11-18 15:21:16 +00:00

63 lines
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XML

<part id="clutter-overview">
<partinfo>
<author>
<firstname>Emmanuele</firstname>
<surname>Bassi</surname>
<affiliation>
<address>
<email>ebassi@openedhand.com</email>
</address>
</affiliation>
</author>
</partinfo>
<title>Overview</title>
<partintro>
<para>Clutter is a GObject based library for creating fast, visually
rich, graphical user interfaces.</para>
<para>Clutter works by manipulating a scene-graph of 2D surfaces, or
'actors', inside a 3D space.</para>
<para>#ClutterActor is the base class for such surfaces. All
#ClutterActor<!-- -->s can be positioned, scaled and rotated in 3D space.
In addition, other properties can be set, such as 2D clipping, children and
opacity. Tranforms applied to a parent actor also apply to any children.
Actors are also able to receive events.</para>
<para>Subclasses of #ClutterActor include #ClutterStage, #ClutterTexture,
#ClutterText, #ClutterRectangle, #ClutterCairoTexture, #ClutterGroup and
#ClutterBox. #ClutterActor<!-- -->s are added to a parent, transformed
and then made visible.</para>
<para>#ClutterStage is the top level #ClutterActor - it's the
representation of a window, or framebuffer. It is created automatically
when Clutter is initialised. #ClutterStage is a #ClutterGroup, a class
implementing the #ClutterContainer interface.</para>
<para>Clutter allows explicit positioning and sizing through the
#ClutterFixedLayout layout manager; and implicit positioning and sizing
through fluid layout managers like #ClutterBoxLayout, #ClutterFlowLayout
and #ClutterTableLayout. Actors inside fixed layout managers like
#ClutterGroup and #ClutterStage can also be positioned and sized implicitly
using the #ClutterConstraint sub-classes.</para>
<para>#ClutterTimeline<!-- -->s provide the basis for Clutter's animation
utilities. #ClutterActor<!-- -->s can be animated using explicit animations
through the various #ClutterBehaviour implementations, or implicit
animations, through the clutter_actor_animate() function. Animations can
also be defined as named states through the #ClutterState class.</para>
<para>Clutter further contains a number of utilities, including;
#ClutterScript - for loading 'UI definition' files formatted in
<ulink type="http" url="http://json.org">JSON</ulink>; #ClutterShader - a
class for applying GPU shaders to actors, #ClutterModel - a utility class
for MVC list type implementations; #ClutterAction<!-- -->s,
#ClutterConstraint<!-- -->s and #ClutterEffect<!-- -->s.</para>
</partintro>
</part>