docs: Add a section about coordinate systems

diff --git a/docs/reference/gtk/coordinates.md b/docs/reference/gtk/coordinates.md
new file mode 100644 (file)
index 0000000..ac6f209
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docs/reference/gtk/coordinates.md
@@ -0,0 +1,63 @@
+Title: Coordinate systems
+Slug: gtk-coordinates
+
+## Coordinate systems in GTK
+
+Every widget in a window has its own coordinate system that it uses to place its
+child widgets and to interpret events. Most of the time, this fact can be safely
+ignored. The section will explain the details for the few cases when it is important.
+
+## The box model
+
+When it comes to rendering, GTK follows the CSS box model as far as practical.
+
+![](https://www.w3.org/TR/css-box-3/images/box.png)
+
+The CSS stylesheet that is in use determines the sizes (and appearance) of the
+margin, border and padding areas for each widget. The size of the content area
+is determined by GTKs layout algorithm using each widgets measure() and
+size_allocate() vfuncs.
+
+You can learn more about the CSS box model by reading the
+[CSS specification](https://www.w3.org/TR/css-box-3/#box-model).
+
+## Widgets
+
+The content area in the CSS box model is the region that the widget considers its own.
+
+The origin of the widgets coordinate system is the top left corner of the content area,
+and its size is the widgets size. The size can be queried with [method@Gtk.Widget.get_width]
+and [method@Gtk.Widget.get_height]. GTK allows general transformations to position
+widgets (although most of the time, the transformation will be a simple translation).
+The transform to go from one widgets coordinate system to another one can be obtained
+with [method@Gtk.Widget.compute_transform].
+
+When widget APIs expect positions or areas, they need to be expressed in this coordinate
+system, typically called *widget coordinates*. GTK provides a number of APIs to translate
+between different widgets' coordinate systems, such as [method@Gtk.Widget.compute_point]
+or [method@Gtk.Widget.compute_bounds].
+
+Another area that is occasionally relevant are the widgets *bounds*, which is the area
+that a widgets rendering is typically confined to (technically, widgets can draw outside
+of this area, unless clipping is enforced via the [property@Gtk.Widget:overflow] property).
+In CSS terms, the bounds of a widget correspond to the border area.
+
+During GTK's layout algorithm, a parent widget needs to assign size and position to its
+child widgets, by calling [method@Gtk.Widget.allocate] or one of its variants. The size
+that is passed to this function corresponds to the margin area of the child widget in
+the CSS box model.
+
+## Events
+
+Some types of events that are coming from the windowing system have positions associated
+with them (e.g. the pointer position). Such positions are expressed in *surface coordinates*
+which have their origin at the top left corner of the surface.
+
+When interpreting such positions with respect to widgets, you need to keep in mind that
+there is an offset between the top left corner of the surface and the top left corner of
+the topmost widget (typically either a [class@Gtk.Window] or [class@Gtk.Popover]). This
+offset can be obtained with [method@Gtk.Native.get_surface_transform].
+
+This translation is only necessary when dealing with raw events in the form of
+[class@Gdk.Event] structs. Event controllers such as [class@Gtk.GestureClick] report
+positions in the coordinate system of the widget they are attached to.

diff --git a/docs/reference/gtk/gtk4.toml.in b/docs/reference/gtk/gtk4.toml.in
index edca1dfb64a96f9c690e2deb53aebe52daa30576..477c618f767242c1b8b73f07a77c103234efefe3 100644 (file)
--- a/docs/reference/gtk/gtk4.toml.in
+++ b/docs/reference/gtk/gtk4.toml.in
@@ -68,6 +68,7 @@ content_files = [
   "input-handling.md",
   "drag-and-drop.md",
   "drawing-model.md",
+  "coordinates.md",
   "css-overview.md",
   "css-properties.md",
   "section-accessibility.md",

diff --git a/docs/reference/gtk/meson.build b/docs/reference/gtk/meson.build
index 15466ef92431e91363804b0b2708797d433c063e..0954a1b33fa790699ef304d31f8a05ab2708c908 100644 (file)
--- a/docs/reference/gtk/meson.build
+++ b/docs/reference/gtk/meson.build
@@ -17,6 +17,7 @@ expand_content_md_files = [
   'actions.md',
   'input-handling.md',
   'drawing-model.md',
+  'coordinates.md',
   'css-overview.md',
   'css-properties.md',
   'section-accessibility.md',