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How to Install the Gnome Blueprint Markup Language

Blueprint is a markup language for creating graphical user interfaces using the GTK toolkit.

It is developed and maintained by James Westman.

Its main goal is to be an easy-to-learn markup language that enables building graphical interfaces quickly and declaratively.

It’s important to note that the Blueprint markup language does not replace the current standard for building GTK graphical interfaces, since Blueprint code is compiled/transpiled into XML.

As with other GUI frameworks and toolkits, GTK uses the XML format to define the visual part of applications.

This format is widely used and generally well accepted; however, it tends to be hard to read and modify manually.

That difficulty often leads to a steep learning curve, and in many cases, there’s a need for tools that allow visual interface design.

Some examples of such tools are:

The idea behind the Blueprint markup language emerged to make this process easier.

To better understand it, let’s compare the code for the same graphical interface in both markup languages.

To describe a GTK interface in XML (*.ui), you can use the following code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<interface>
    <requires lib="gtk" version="4.0"/>
    <template class="ExampleWindow" parent="GtkApplicationWindow">
        <property name="title">Python (PyGObject) GTK 4.</property>
        <property name="default-width">683</property>
        <property name="default-height">384</property>
        <child type="titlebar">
            <object class="GtkHeaderBar" id="header_bar">
                <child type="end">
                    <object class="GtkMenuButton">
                        <property name="icon-name">open-menu-symbolic</property>
                        <property name="menu-model">primary_menu</property>
                    </object>
                </child>
            </object>
        </child>
    </template>

    <menu id="primary_menu">
        <section>
            <item>
                <attribute name="label" translatable="yes">_Preferences</attribute>
                <attribute name="action">app.preferences</attribute>
            </item>
        </section>
    </menu>
</interface>

The same graphical interface in Blueprint markup language (*.blp) looks like this:

using Gtk 4.0;

template $ExampleWindow: Gtk.ApplicationWindow {
  title: 'Python and GTK: PyGObject Gtk.ApplicationWindow.';
  default-width: 683;
  default-height: 384;

  [titlebar]
  Gtk.HeaderBar header_bar {
    [end]
    Gtk.MenuButton {
      icon-name: 'open-menu-symbolic';
      menu-model: primary_menu;
    }
  }
}

menu primary_menu {
  section {
    item {
      label: _('Preferences');
      action: 'app.preferences';
    }
  }
}

As we can see, the interface code becomes much more readable and simpler with Blueprint markup.

Installation via Repositories

Linux

Arch Linux

Official distribution website: Arch Linux

sudo pacman -S blueprint-compiler

Fedora

Official distribution website: Fedora

sudo dnf install blueprint-compiler

openSUSE Tumbleweed

Official distribution website: openSUSE Tumbleweed

sudo zypper install blueprint-compiler

Ubuntu

Official distribution website: Ubuntu

sudo apt install blueprint-compiler

Microsoft Windows

⚠️ To install blueprint-compiler on Microsoft Windows, MSYS2 must be installed and configured.

Open the MSYS2 terminal and run the following command:

pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-blueprint-compiler

Installation from Source

To get the latest version of blueprint-compiler, you can install it from its source code.

Dependencies

macOS

brew install git meson ninja

Arch Linux

sudo pacman -S git meson ninja

Fedora

sudo dnf install git meson ninja-build

openSUSE Tumbleweed

sudo zypper install git meson ninja

Ubuntu

sudo apt install git meson ninja-build

Microsoft Windows

⚠️ To install blueprint-compiler on Microsoft Windows, MSYS2 must be installed and configured.

Open the MSYS2 terminal and install the following dependencies:

pacman -S git mingw-w64-x86_64-meson mingw-w64-x86_64-ninja

Installation

Once the dependencies are installed, open a terminal and clone the blueprint-compiler repository:

git clone https://gitlab.gnome.org/jwestman/blueprint-compiler.git

⚠️ On Windows, use the MINGW64 terminal from MSYS2.

Next, navigate to the cloned folder:

cd blueprint-compiler

Run the following command:

meson _build

Once the build process finishes, run:

ninja -C _build install

After installation is complete, blueprint-compiler will be available on your system 🚀.

To verify the installation, close the terminal, open it again, and run:

blueprint-compiler --version

Main Commands

To start an interactive setup wizard for a project:

blueprint-compiler port

To convert a *.blp file to *.ui:

blueprint-compiler compile MainWindow.blp --output MainWindow.ui

To see all available options:

blueprint-compiler --help

Extras

Extensions

Some text editors support the Blueprint markup language.

Here are the main ones: