<para>There is a wonderful simile in the preface of the <emphasis>Perl
Cookbook</emphasis>: approaching a programming problem is oftentimes
similar to balancing Columbus's egg. The initial difficulties of dealing
- with, and more importantly solving, problems in the computer programming
+ with, and more importantly solving, problems in the software engineering
field sometimes can only be overcome if somebody shows you how to use a
new tool. This is true for programming languages but also for programming
libraries.</para>
how to solve common issues that you might have to face when using
the Clutter toolkit.</para>
- <para>This book is not meant to be a replacement for the API reference,
- even though there will be descriptions of how Clutter works and how
- its API looks like. We will require knowledge of the Clutter API, but
- we will also point out where to find more information on the API that
+ <para>This book is not meant to be a replacement for the Clutter API
+ reference, even though there will be descriptions of how Clutter works
+ and how its API looks like. We will require knowledge of the Clutter API,
+ but we will also point out where to find more information on the API that
examples have used.</para>
<para>Indeed, this book should be used as a companion to the API reference,
- expanding the examples and showing how to achieve a specific result.</para>
+ expanding its examples and showing how to achieve a specific result.</para>
<para>This is not a book for learning Clutter. This is also not a book
for learning C, or GObject or even GUI development.</para>
<emphasis>recipes</emphasis>. Each recipe starts with a problem, or a short
statement describing what we want to achieve; a solution, containing the
source code; and a discussion section, where the code is explained, where
- alternative approaches might be useful, caveats and references to the
- Clutter API for furher studying.</para>
+ alternative approaches might be useful, and where caveats and references to
+ the Clutter API for further studying can be found.</para>
<para>This book, in the cookbook spirit, can be accessed mostly at
random.</para>
<para>The latest version is always available at
<ulink url="&docurl;">&docurl;</ulink>.</para>
+ <para>To contribute to this document, see the
+ <link linkend="contributing">Contributing</link> appendix.</para>
+
+ <section>
+ <title>Compiling the examples</title>
+
+ <para>This document comes with full examples, usually stored
+ on disk in <filename><emphasis>datadir</emphasis>/clutter-1.0/cookbook/examples</filename>
+ directory.</para>
+
+ <para>Each example can be compiled using:</para>
+
+ <informalexample>
+ <programlisting>
+cc \
+ `pkg-config --cflags clutter-1.0` \
+ -o <emphasis>example</emphasis> <emphasis>example</emphasis>.c \
+ `pkg-config --libs clutter-1.0`
+ </programlisting>
+ </informalexample>
+
+ <para>substituting the <emphasis>example</emphasis> with in the
+ line above with the name of the example.</para>
+
+ </section>
+
</section>
<section>
<para>This book has been written taking the inspiration from the Perl
Cookbook, authored by Tom Christiansen and Nathan Torkington.</para>
+ <para>This book would not have been possible without the existence of
+ the Clutter library itself, and without the help and contributions of
+ all the people that have been working on it every day.</para>
+
+ <section>
+ <title>Acknowledgments from Emmanuele</title>
+
+ <para>To Matthew, for starting the flame. To Robert and Neil, for
+ keeping it ablaze.</para>
+
+ <para>To Marta, for her love and patience.</para>
+ </section>
+
+ <section>
+ <title>Acknowledgements from Elliot</title>
+ </section>
+
</section>
<section>
<title>Where to get Clutter</title>
- <para>You can obtain Clutter from <ulink url="&appurl;">&appurl;</ulink>.</para>
+ <para>You can obtain the Clutter source code ready for compilation
+ from <ulink url="&appurl;">&appurl;</ulink>.</para>
<para>Clutter is also available on all major GNU/Linux distributions,
in various package formats.</para>