[cairo] problem refreshing cairo surface

[Zoltán Vörös]

Hi All,

I believe, this is a trivial problem, but lacking experience, I can't 
solve it, and I was wondering whether someone could lend a hand here. In 
short, I have a python class that just initialises a drawing area, and I 
would like to use it from somewhere else. It looks like this

class Preview:
     def __init__(self):
         self.da = Gtk.DrawingArea()
         self.da.set_size_request(400, 600)
         self.da.connect('configure-event', self.configure_event)
         self.da.connect('draw', self.on_draw)
         self.da.show()

     def configure_event(self, da, event):
         allocation = da.get_allocation()
         self.surface = 
da.get_window().create_similar_surface(cairo.CONTENT_COLOR,
                                                                 
allocation.width,
                                                                 
allocation.height)

         self.cairo_ctx = cairo.Context(self.surface)
         self.cairo_ctx.set_source_rgb(1, 1, 1)
         self.cairo_ctx.paint()
         return True

     def on_draw(self, da, cairo_ctx):
         cairo_ctx.set_source_surface(self.surface, 0, 0)
         cairo_ctx.paint()
         return True

     pass

Now, in a gui I have a button that calls the following function:


     def on_load(self, widget, data=None):

         self.DA = Preview()
         self.widget('box_preview').pack_start(self.DA.da, True, True, 0)

         self.DA.cairo_ctx.set_source_rgb(1, 0, 0)
         self.DA.cairo_ctx.paint()
         rect = self.DA.da.get_allocation()
         self.DA.da.get_window().invalidate_rect(rect, False)

         print 'here'


The function is executed without errors, and at the end 'here' is 
printed. Yet, the drawing area is not red as I would expect it from the 
line self.DA.cairo_ctx.set_source_rgb(1, 0, 0), but white, as done in 
the initialisation function. Of course, I could pass red as an argument 
to the init function, but that can't be a long-term solution, because I 
actually would like to manipulate the canvas from the main program.
I think I would formulate my question as what should one do in order to 
update the canvas from the main function?
Many thanks for any hints,
Zoltán