draw an image to gtk.DrawingArea?

Question

I'm writing a PyGtk paint program based on the basic tutorial found here.

Is there any way to add an image to the drawing area so that you can still draw over the image? Like a stamp, or an imported photo for example. I've tried adding a gtk.Image() but gtk.DrawingArea object has no attribute add.

self.window = gtk.Window((gtk.WINDOW_TOPLEVEL))
self.window.set_title ("Canvas")
self.window.set_position(gtk.WIN_POS_CENTER)
hbox = gtk.HBox(False, 0)
self.window.add(hbox)
self.window.set_resizable(False)

# Create the drawing area
drawing_area = gtk.DrawingArea()
drawing_area.set_size_request(screenWidth-350, screenHeight-100)
hbox.pack_start(drawing_area, True, True, 0)
drawing_area.show()

Answer 1

You have to draw the image (as a gtk.gdk.Pixbuf, not gtk.Image) onto the backing pixmap yourself using gtk.gdk.Drawable.draw_pixbuf(). Only container widgets (widgets that can contain other widgets) have an add() method, and gtk.DrawingArea is not one.

pixbuf = gtk.gdk.pixbuf_new_from_file(image_filename) #one way to load a pixbuf
pixmap.draw_pixbuf(None, pixbuf, 0, 0, x, y, -1, -1, gtk.gdk.RGB_DITHER_NONE, 0, 0)