GNOME Goal: Add GObject Introspection Support

Summary

The introspection project has two major goals, and a variety of more minor ones:

Two level applications - C and <your favorite runtime>
- Thus, one of the major goals of the GObject introspection project is to be a convenient bridge between these two worlds (C and a managed runtime such JavaScript, Python, Java...), and allow you to choose the right tool for the job, rather than being limited inside one or the other. With the introspection project, you can write for example a ClutterActor or GtkWidget subclass in C, and then without any additional work use that class inside JavaScript.
Sharing binding infrastructure work, and making the platform even more binding friendly
- Up until now various language bindings such as Python, Mono, java-gnome etc. had duplicated copies of hand-maintained metadata, and this led to a situation where bindings tended to lag behind until these manual fixups were done, or were simply wrong, and your application would crash when calling a more obscure function. The introspection project solves this by putting all of the metadata inside the GObject library itself, using annotations in the comments. This will lead to less duplicate work from binding authors, and a more reliable experience for binding consumers.

See GObjectIntrospection for more details.

Guidelines

For information on how to add introspection to an autotools project, see GObjectIntrospection/AutotoolsIntegration

Comments before approval

Add your comments to this goal proposal here

I think this needs to specify what constitutes completed introspection. For instance in seahorse, libcryptui the only exported library supports introspection already, but libseahorse (an internal library only) doesn't. What is sufficient to meet the goal? -- [AdamSchreiber]

Update

Although this goal is not completely finished (patches are still welcome), for some modules it is a quite big task. A GNOME Goal should be a small task. So this goal is considered mostly completed.

Status of this goal

$/!\$ Note: Automatically updated stats can be found at http://people.gnome.org/~fpeters/reports/add-gobject-introspection-support.html

Tip: If you choose to work on a module, create the bug report on the GNOME bugzilla for the relevant module, and make it block bug 585444 .
This way people will know someone already works on it, and won't duplicate the work you're doing.

Patch Status	Markup
todo	`<: #ff8080> todo`
patch	`<: #ffcc50> [[GnomeBug:xxxxx\|patch]]`
done	`<: #80ff80> [[GnomeBug:xxxxx\|done]]`
not needed	`<: #80ff80> not needed`

Above are the states and corresponding markup to update the modules state table below.

Tarball	Patch Status
Desktop
brasero	done
deskbar-applet	not needed
empathy	to do
eog	not needed
epiphany	done
evince	done
evolution-data-server	done
evolution	to do
evolution-mapi	to do
gedit	done
gnome-control-center	to do
gnome-desktop	done
gnome-icon-theme	not needed
gnome-keyring	to do
gnome-media	630916
gnome-menus	done
gnome-panel	done
gnome-screensaver	to do
gnome-settings-daemon	to do
gnome-system-tools	to do
gnome-utils	to do
gstreamer	done
gst-plugins-base	done
gst-plugins-good	not needed
gtk-engines	to do
gtksourceview	done
gucharmap	done
hamster-applet	not needed
libgnomekbd	to do
libgtop	done
libgweather	done
liboobs	to do
librsvg	not needed
libsoup	done
libwnck	done
metacity	not needed
nautilus	done
seahorse	to do
totem	done
totem-pl-parser	done
tomboy	to do
vte	done
Platform
GConf	done
at-spi	to do
atk	done
glib	to do
gtk+	done
gtk-doc	not needed
pango	done
Development Tools
anjuta	done
devhelp	not needed
gdl	done
glade	done
Mobile
clutter-gst	done
External Dependencies
avahi	to do
cairo	not needed
cairomm	not needed
clutter	done
clutter-gtk	done
conduit	to do
dbus	not needed
dbus-glib	not needed, use native bindings instead
dbus-python	not needed
DeviceKit	to do
DeviceKit-disks	to do
DeviceKit-power	to do
enchant	to do
expat	not needed
farsight2	to do
fontconfig	not needed
gamin	not needed
gnutls	not needed
gpgme	to do
gtk-vnc	to do
hal	not needed
icon-naming-utils	not needed
iso-codes	not needed
libatasmart	to do
libcanberra	to do
libcroco	to do
libgda	done
libgdata	done
libgsf	done
libical	to do
libmapi	to do
libmusicbrainz	to do
libnotify	done
liboil	not needed
libproxy	to do
libtasn1	to do
libxklavier	done
libxml2	not needed
libxslt	not needed
Mono.Addins	not needed
mozilla (firefox)	to do
ndesk-dbus	not needed
ndesk-dbus-glib	to do
opal	to do
pkg-config	not needed
PolicyKit	not needed
PolicyKit-gnome	done
pulseaudio	to do
poppler	done
pycairo	not needed
ptlib	to do
Python	not needed
rarian	to do
shared-mime-info	not needed
speech-dispatcher	to do
sqlite	not needed
startup-notification	to do
system-tools-backends	to do
telepathy-glib	done
telepathy-mission-control	upstream bug
unique	done in 1.1
Other
abiword	done
contact-lookup-applet	to do
f-spot	not needed
ghex	to do
gimp	to do
glom	to do
gnome-blog	to do
gnome-scan	to do
gnome-bluetooth	done
gnome-cups-manager	to do
gnome-main-menu	to do
gnome-mud	to do
goocanvas	to do
goocanvasmm	not needed
GParted	to do
GNOME Phone Manager	to do
Gnumeric	done
gtetrinet	not needed
gtkglext	to do
gtranslator	done
libbtctl	to do
libgnomekbd	done
libgoffice	done
libgsf	to do
libchamplain	done
nautilus-vcs	to do
nemiver	to do
NetworkManager	done
mutter	done
planner	to do
rhythmbox	done
tracker	done
webkit	done