maturita.c

An educational application written in C using GTK 4.

Description

maturita.c is an educational program for high-school and gymnasium students preparing for their maturita exam. The UI is available in Czech and English and is built as a single C file (maturita.c) that renders a modern, CSS-styled GTK 4 interface.

Screenshots

Welcome screen	Subjects ("Předměty")	German learning roadmap

Features

• Welcome screen – branded greeting with a description of the program and a continue button to get started
• Subjects ("Předměty") – adaptive serpentine subject map with 13 subjects
  • only Deutsch is open (round bubble with the German flag); picking it opens the German learning path
  • the other subjects are dimmed/locked placeholders until their content is added
  • layout folds into multiple rows when the window is narrow
• Learning roadmap – adaptive serpentine learning path with 10 units
  • each unit numbered and labeled with its topic (e.g. "Neue Freunde")
  • units 1 and 2 are open; completed units shown in green with a checkmark
  • remaining units dimmed with a lock icon
  • finish node at the end of the path
  • layout folds into multiple rows when the window is narrow
• Back navigation – themed circular back button (top-left) returns to the previous screen
• Unit 1 exercises – "Neue Freunde" opens an interactive bubble map with 13 exercises (dialogs, sentence building, multiple choice, free answers, numbers, verb conjugation, greeting sorting and more), each with German prompts and a check button that reveals the translations
• Unit 2 exercises – "Aus aller Welt" is playable from the start (no need to finish unit 1 first) and offers a bubble map with 19 exercises: verb conjugation, prepositions aus/in, question words, nationalities and countries, spelling/look-and-find tasks, a matching exercise, a number/word game, free-answer "Steckbrief" tasks and a Hangman game with 5 professions
• Progress tracking – completed exercises are marked green; progress is saved per unit to progress/unit1.conf and progress/unit2.conf and restored on startup
• Settings – gear icon in the top-right header opens a panel where you can choose:
  • mode: dark or light, as a segmented control
  • theme: 10 palettes picked from a grid of color swatches
  • language: Czech or English, applied instantly without a restart
  • all three preferences are stored in progress/settings.conf
• Keyboard quit shortcuts – Super/Cmd+Q or Alt+F4 closes the app
• Single-file C codebase, cross-platform (Linux and macOS supported)

Installation

Prerequisites

1. GTK 4 development libraries

macOS:

brew install gtk4

Linux (Debian / Ubuntu):

sudo apt install libgtk-4-dev

Linux (Fedora):

sudo dnf install gtk4-devel

Linux (Arch):

sudo pacman -S gtk4

2. Build tools (compiler, Make, pkg-config)

macOS – install all of these explicitly, they are not preinstalled:

# installs the GNU C compiler, Make, and pkg-config
brew install gcc make pkg-config
# if you prefer Apple's Clang toolchain instead, you can run:
# xcode-select --install

Linux – no need to install gcc, it is already preinstalled on most distributions (it ships with build-essential/base-devel):

# Debian / Ubuntu: make sure you have the base toolchain and pkg-config
sudo apt install build-essential pkg-config

# Fedora
sudo dnf groupinstall "Development Tools"
sudo dnf install pkgconf-pkg-config

# Arch
sudo pacman -S base-devel pkgconf

Building the Application

1. Clone or download this repository
2. Navigate to the project directory
3. Build using the provided Makefile:

make

Or manually:

gcc -o maturita maturita.c `pkg-config --cflags --libs gtk4` -lm

Running the Application

make run

or

./maturita

Usage

When launched, the application shows the welcome screen. From there:

1. Click "Pokračuj" / "Continue" to open the Předměty / Subjects map.
2. Click the Deutsch bubble (German flag) to open the German learning roadmap. The other subjects are locked for now.
3. Browse the units along the path; the roadmap reflows into rows and scrolls if the window is too narrow.
4. Click the "Neue Freunde" node to open unit 1 or "Aus aller Welt" to open unit 2, then pick any bubble to start an exercise. Unit 2 is available even if unit 1 is not finished yet.
5. Use the back button in the top-left corner to return to the previous screen.
6. Open Nastavení / Settings (gear icon, top-right) to switch dark/light mode, pick a color theme, or change the interface language.

Units 1 and 2 are currently implemented. Locked units do nothing – they are placeholders until lessons are added. Completed exercises stay green and are saved per unit to progress/unit1.conf / progress/unit2.conf (created next to the app on first finish).

Keyboard shortcuts

Shortcut	Action
Super/Cmd + Q	Quit application
Alt + F4	Quit application

Project structure

maturita.c              entire application (UI, navigation, themes, exercises)
Makefile                build & run targets
README.md               this file
LICENSE                 MIT license
progress/               created at runtime
  unit1.conf            unit 1 exercise completion state
  unit2.conf            unit 2 exercise completion state
  settings.conf         theme, dark/light mode and language preference

Theming

The app ships with ten palettes – Catppuccin, Nord, Dracula, Rose Pine, Ocean, Gruvbox, Solarized, Everforest, Monokai and One Dark – each available in dark and light mode. Colors are defined as theme palettes in maturita.c and applied through a generated CSS stylesheet (plus matching Cairo colors for the roadmap rails and icons).

Change the look from the in-app settings panel, or edit the palette tables / build_theme_css() in maturita.c and rebuild.

Languages

The interface can be switched between Czech and English from the settings panel; the choice takes effect immediately and is remembered between runs. Translations live in two tables in maturita.c: tr_ui holds interface strings under short keys, while tr_content translates the Czech meanings shown next to the German exercise items and uses the Czech text itself as the key. Widgets are registered with i18n_bind() so apply_language() can retranslate them in place.

German prompts, unit names and exercise titles are learning material and stay German in both languages.

To-Do Plans

Future enhancements planned for maturita.c:

• Wire unit nodes to actual German vocabulary/grammar exercises
  • Unit 1 ("Neue Freunde") – 13 interactive exercises with progress saving
  • Unit 2 ("Aus aller Welt") – 19 interactive exercises (incl. Hangman)
• Lesson progression and unlock system for the remaining units
• Add audio pronunciation features
• Add user settings panel (theme, dark/light mode, language)
• Implement spaced repetition system for vocabulary
• Add listening and reading comprehension exercises
• Add writing practice with feedback
• Expand progress tracking with statistics
• Move CSS styling to an external file
• Split the UI code into multiple files
• Add internationalization support (Czech and English)
• Add more interface languages
• Add unit testing framework

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

Acknowledgments

• Created as a learning exercise in C and GTK programming
• Inspired by language learning applications
• Built with GTK 4 for modern GUI development