The Official GNOME 2 Developers Guide

In GConf, a key that does not have an associated value but, rather, describes another key-value pair. A schema describes the application that created and uses the key, the default value of the key, and the purpose of the key.

The GNOME system for managing help documents and their associated OMF files.

In the X Window System, a means of saving the current desktop state for a desktop session upon logout. The idea is that the desktop environment should be able to restore the session to its previous state when the user logs in again.

In GObject, a message that an object receives. A signal has a string identifier; you can bind a signal handler to the signal to react to the message.

See also accumulator .

See detail.

A callback function invoked upon emission of a signal ; a fundamental concept of event-driven programming. In GSignal , a signal handler has at least two arguments: a pointer to the object and a data pointer. Any additional arguments go between these two.

A function's argument types along with its return value type. In ANSI C, a function's prototype represents its signature; this is important in the implementation of signal handlers and marshallers .

A type font that represents lowercase letters as smaller versions of the capital letters; they're easier to read than exclusively capital letters .

A developer's archive of a source code tree. In comparison to an archive of a tested package neatly prepared with make dist , a snapshot receives no special treatment and may be a little rough around the edges. Although most snapshots configure well with no additional help, you must sometimes run the GNU autotools with autogen .sh before building the package,

When one class is derived from another, this is the resulting class.

An open -standard format for vector graphics, based on an XML document type.

Any program using a synchronous I/O operation suspends execution during I/O access; synchronous programs are easy to write but are sometimes not suitable for GUI applications. The opposite of asynchronous.