After you have created and saved your glade layout, you load it like this:
self.xml = gtk.glade.XML('chat-2.glade')
This creates the layout for you. To get references to the various widgets:
self.entry = self.xml.get_widget('entry')
Connect the signals and handlers like before, or like this:
signals = {'sendMessage': self.sendMessage} self.xml.signal_autoconnect(signals)