GtkDrawingArea a widget for custom user interface elements. The #GtkDrawingArea widget is used for creating custom user interface elements. After creating a drawing area, the application may want to connect to: Mouse and button press signals to respond to input from the user. The "realize" signal to take any necessary actions when the widget The "size_allocate" signal to take any necessary actions when the widget changes size. The "expose_event" signal to handle redrawing the contents of the widget. As a convenience, the #GtkDrawingArea widget synthesizes a "configure_event" when the widget is realized and any time the size of a widget changes when it is realized. It often suffices to connect to this signal instead of "realize" and "size_allocate". The following code portion demonstrates using a drawing area to implement a widget that draws a circle. As this example demonstrates, an expose handler should draw only the pixels within the requested area and should draw or clear all these pixels. gboolean expose_event (GdkWidget *widget, GdkEventExpose *event, gpointer data) { gdk_window_clear_area (widget->window, event->area.x, event->area.y, event->area.width, event->area.height); gdk_gc_set_clip_rectangle (widget->style->fg_gc[widget->state], &event->area); gdk_draw_arc (widget->window, widget->style->fg_gc[widget->state], TRUE, 0, 0, widget->allocation.width, widget->allocation.height, 0, 64 * 360); gdk_gc_set_clip_rectangle (widget->style->fg_gc[widget->state], NULL); return TRUE; } [...] GtkWidget *drawing_area = gtk_drawing_area_new (); gtk_drawing_area_size (GTK_DRAWING_AREA (drawing_area), 100, 100); gtk_signal_connect (GTK_OBJECT (drawing_area), The #GtkDrawingArea-struct struct contains private data only, and should be accessed using the functions below. Create a new drawing area. @Returns: Set the size that the drawing area will request in response to a "size_request" signal. The drawing area may actually be allocated a size larger than this depending on how it is packed within the enclosing containers. @darea: a #GtkDrawingArea. @width: the width to request. @height: the height to request.