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Posted
by
michael
from the now-better-splash-screens dept.
d3vi1 writes "Pango, Glib & GTK 2.4.0 have been released to the public. See gtk.org in general, or specifically: the announcements for pango, glib and gtk."
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by Anonymous Coward writes:
on Tuesday March 16, 2004 @07:14PM (#8583680)
FTFA:
GTK+ is a multi-platform toolkit for creating graphical user interfaces. Offering a complete set of widgets, GTK+ is suitable for projects ranging from small one-off projects to complete application suites.
GTK+ is free software and part of the GNU Project. However, the licensing terms for GTK+, the GNU LGPL, allow it to be used by all developers, including those developing proprietary software, without any license fees or royalties.
GTK+ is based on three libraries developed by the GTK+ team:
GLib is the low-level core library that forms the basis of GTK+ and GNOME. It provides data structure handling for C, portability wrappers, and interfaces for such runtime functionality as an event loop, threads, dynamic loading, and an object system.
Pango is a library for layout and rendering of text, with an emphasis on internationalization. It forms the core of text and font handling for GTK+-2.0.
The ATK library provides a set of interfaces for accessibility. By supporting the ATK interfaces, an application or toolkit can be used with such tools as screen readers, magnifiers, and alternative input devices.
GTK+ has been designed from the ground up to support a range of languages, not only C/C++. Using GTK+ from languages such as Perl and Python (especially in combination with the Glade GUI builder) provides an effective method of rapid application development.
by Anonymous Coward writes:
on Tuesday March 16, 2004 @07:15PM (#8583696)
2.4 has signinficant new functionallity including the action based toolbar (which I have been waiting for) and bidirectional editing and interface flipping improvements (waiting for that too.) Good work, developers!
The problem is that if you want users to only be able to select a single package type, say *.tgz, you have to spin your own dialog. The current filtering is virtually non-existant. If you do try to use it, it can hide directories that don't have the correct extension.
From the release notice:
"The new GtkFileChooser widgets provide a radically simplified and improved way for users to select files. Application writers now are provided with such capabilities such as customizable filters and previews. The filesystem access is encapsulated as a dynamically loaded module; as an example of what this allows, libgnomeui now provides a gnome-vfs backend for GtkFileChooser so that it has the same view of remote filesystems as applications such Nautilus."
This is cool stuff as it will certainly improve the perception and use of GTK.
by Anonymous Coward writes:
on Tuesday March 16, 2004 @07:31PM (#8583854)
From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) (via Gnome Dictionary, incendentally)
Litigious Li*ti"gious, a. L. litigiosus, fr. litigium dispute, quarrel, fr. litigare: cf. F. litigieux. See Litigation.... 2. Subject to contention; disputable; controvertible; debatable; doubtful; precarious.
I'd say that definition fits. Try using a dictionary next time, smartass.
I hazard a guess that was glibc, not glib. glibc is fundamental to your system - it is the GNU C library. glib is a bunch of nice things that GTK uses.
One of the nice things about Debian is that if I apt-get remove something, before removing it, apt-get will tell me if it's going to have to remove other things that depend on it, and give me the chance to cancel.
Your panel should provide an option to configure which apps are collected into single buttons and which aren't. If your panel doesn't have this feature, make a feature request... it should be quite trivial to implement. It's still not a Gimp problem.
by Anonymous Coward writes:
on Tuesday March 16, 2004 @07:38PM (#8583904)
glib != glibc.
glib is a set of portable data structures and other useful misc. functions. e.g. portable threading, portable 64-bit ints, portable random numbers, portable date/time functions, etc.
It's used primarily by GTK+ (and GTK+ applications).
GTK-- (aka Gtkmm) is the official set of C++ bindings for GTK. (GTK+ is the official set of C bindings._ There have been some other projects to produce C++ bindings for GTK, but AFAIK you would normally use GTK-- if you were using a C++ interface to GTK.
Is there some reason you want to avoid using gtk--?
I don't see that a good thing necessarily. I've gone through the pain of compiling programs that had dozens of libraries needed because the author was too lazy to write a single function.
Having all these libraries an arm reach away has made modern programmers lazy and less knowledgeable. However, I do agree such libraries as GTK+ are needed.
It's a great release. It is something that finally the gnome-ers can get their teeth into. And it's not before time.
For anyone who has been following the good work that the gnome developers have been doing, its starting to look like vindication.
Ok, enough of the back slapping, lets see whats on offer: (PS - release notes for GTK at Gnome 2.6 update release notes [gnome.org]
Font Changes:
Xft and fontconfig use the same backends - whats that mean to you? - better fonts - everything GTK now plays the same game.
Fonts and character shapes can take a scripts 'hints' about a font into account - we win, the font creator wins - its about the best of everyones world.
Using bi-directional text is not forced by the application - it can be extracted or 'hinted' from the original source file itself.
GLIB:
GLIB update to use unicode 4.0 - many, many people benefit.
GLIB correctly recovers children processes.
GRandom is better at seeding. But not cryptographically secure. Yet.
The threading library with GLIB is now "operation or not" on integers and pointers.
There is a way to specify an OO 'singleton' or 'once initialisation'
Extra macros for GObject type writers
Properties can be added to interfaces (verbatim copied)
Private data within an instance can contain private data/references within and object (its not clean what this means in a C context, but I think they mean that it's not exposed).
GTK takes all of the above features, and uses those to make a fantastic release.
Lets give these people time,
They need it.
On most systems, tar is dynamically linked to glibc. It was probably glib (why on *earth* Red Carpet let him remove it without complaining about dependencies is beyond me). If he had his system set up to use gdm and kicked it into runlevel 5 at startup and the guy didn't know how to use CLI utils (I'm guessing this is the case if he's using Red Carpet), this could pretty much screw you over.
The threading library with GLIB is now "operation or not" on integers and pointers.
I think you mean the threading library now supports atomic operations - ie you can do some simple integer/pointer manipulation without needing a mutex in a thread safe fasion. They've introduced equivalents to InterlockedIncrement, InterlockedCompareExchange etc in Win32 and very useful they are too.
Glade2 development has stopped, and there's a full rewrite of Glade going on. The Glade3 code is currently in CVS, and will feature badly-needed features like redo/undo.
My guess is that Glade3 will support the new GTK 2.4 widgets.
1) Red Carpet would have said what it was going to
remove
2) Red Carpet has a CLI, very useful
3) I know how to use a CLI, and I use Red Carpet all the time. By far the easiest way to keep the numerous systems I'm responsible for updated.
This new dialog is not only much more confusing looking, but seems bloated
I disagree. It has many new features compared to the old dialog, and they are cleanly laid out. You have bookmarks now, to quickly go to a folder you use often; there is a preview available now; and there are many different ways to quickly get to the folder you want (e.g. you can go up two folders with one click; you can go to your home directory with one click; etc.)
rather ugly
Matter of taste. That screenshot is using a theme I don't personally like, but in a more soothing theme, the new dialogs look just fine.
and doesn't have the text entry box -- i.e, they removed the one great feature they used to have!
Calm down. The text-entry box is still there if you want it. If it's not showing, as in that screenshot, Ctrl+L will make it appear. If you are a keyboard fan, you shouldn't have much trouble hitting one extra keystroke.
For a Save dialog, you don't even have to hit Ctrl+L; it's only the Open dialog that defaults to mouse-only operation.
I know they're attempting to appeal to inexperienced users, but they always seem to (1) do so in a way that pisses off experienced users, and (2) botch things up in the inexperienced-user case anyway.
During the months of discussion and testing before this release, did you provide any feedback to help them? If not, then perhaps you might want to hold back a bit on the abuse directed towards the GTK developers.
Hopefully someone will come up with a less crappy file-selector and all the major distros (at least debian) will use it.
Hey, it's free software. Fire up your favorite image editor, and start mocking up how it should look. I'm sure OSNews would publish an article [osnews.com] about your new design, and I'm sure that someone, somewhere in the world, would code up a prototype for you. Or you could even code it yourself!
As for me, I am content with the new dialog and I'm looking forward to its arrival in Debian Unstable.
Even better, run debfoster occasionally. Debfoster asks you what packages you want to keep and then removes all packages (including libs) that are not required by the programs you've decided to keep.
Code reuse is the "good" sort of laziness. It saves time, memory (shared libs are good), and it allows for easier centralized testing. Basically code reuse is the sort of laziness that saves time and energy for everyone involved.
Not using a packaging manager is the "bad" sort of laziness.
The problem is that the freetype font rendering library for Linux is unable to use font hints because the required algorithms are patented (by Apple, which seems to like FOSS products unless they encroach on its desktop turf).
The patented hinting algorithms are in the source but #def'ed out by default, you could recompile if you want to. Most people are fine with the replacement auto-hinting though.
by Anonymous Coward writes:
on Wednesday March 17, 2004 @05:44AM (#8587165)
What exactly was wrong with libc5 that glib had to come along and fark up things anyway?
Apart from the fact that you've confused Glib with Glibc, if you really have to ask that question then you wouldn't understand the answer. Suffice it to say that Glibc2 is better than libc5 in many ways, including things like symbol versioning.
Re:As soon as I figure what this things does.... (Score:5, Informative)
GTK+ is a multi-platform toolkit for creating graphical user interfaces. Offering a complete set of widgets, GTK+ is suitable for projects ranging from small one-off projects to complete application suites.
GTK+ is free software and part of the GNU Project. However, the licensing terms for GTK+, the GNU LGPL, allow it to be used by all developers, including those developing proprietary software, without any license fees or royalties.
GTK+ is based on three libraries developed by the GTK+ team:
GLib is the low-level core library that forms the basis of GTK+ and GNOME. It provides data structure handling for C, portability wrappers, and interfaces for such runtime functionality as an event loop, threads, dynamic loading, and an object system.
Pango is a library for layout and rendering of text, with an emphasis on internationalization. It forms the core of text and font handling for GTK+-2.0.
The ATK library provides a set of interfaces for accessibility. By supporting the ATK interfaces, an application or toolkit can be used with such tools as screen readers, magnifiers, and alternative input devices.
GTK+ has been designed from the ground up to support a range of languages, not only C/C++. Using GTK+ from languages such as Perl and Python (especially in combination with the Glade GUI builder) provides an effective method of rapid application development.
This is great (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Separate windows are fine (Score:4, Informative)
Re:KDE compatibility? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:New File Dialog (Score:2, Informative)
Fortunetely, there is an alternative [chello.nl]
GTK Announcement, not GIMP announcment (Score:2, Informative)
GIMP Mailing List Post [mail-archive.com]
It has dockable windows. This is an announcement for GTK 2.4. I don't know whether GIMP 2.0 will use GTK 2.4.
Re:New File Dialog (Score:5, Informative)
From the release notice: "The new GtkFileChooser widgets provide a radically simplified and improved way for users to select files. Application writers now are provided with such capabilities such as customizable filters and previews. The filesystem access is encapsulated as a dynamically loaded module; as an example of what this allows, libgnomeui now provides a gnome-vfs backend for GtkFileChooser so that it has the same view of remote filesystems as applications such Nautilus."
This is cool stuff as it will certainly improve the perception and use of GTK.
not so (Score:4, Informative)
(via Gnome Dictionary, incendentally)
Litigious Li*ti"gious, a. L. litigiosus, fr. litigium dispute, quarrel, fr. litigare: cf. F. litigieux. See Litigation.
2. Subject to contention; disputable; controvertible; debatable; doubtful; precarious.
I'd say that definition fits. Try using a dictionary next time, smartass.
Re:As soon as I figure what this things does.... (Score:2, Informative)
I'd give you links but gnu.org is slow just now.
Re:So.. (Score:3, Informative)
glib is a library with some higher level stuff than the kernel-user glue that is libc.
Jeroen
Re:As soon as I figure what this things does.... (Score:3, Informative)
Does redcarpet not do this?
Re:Separate windows are fine (Score:3, Informative)
Re:So.. (Score:1, Informative)
glib is a set of portable data structures and other useful misc. functions. e.g. portable threading, portable 64-bit ints, portable random numbers, portable date/time functions, etc.
It's used primarily by GTK+ (and GTK+ applications).
Re:C++ Interface? (Score:3, Informative)
Sort of (Score:5, Informative)
Is there some reason you want to avoid using gtk--?
Re:It's the little things.... (Score:5, Informative)
Only these aren't Linux libraries, but GNU ones.
No matter how do you call the GNU/Linux OS, these libraries are under the GNU Project umbrella, they have little to do with Linus Torvalds.
Moreover since they've been adopted by the BSDs and Unices as well, and even run on CygWin, they could also be properly called POSIX-based libraries.
Re:It's the little things.... (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Fileselector (Score:3, Informative)
A quick glance indicates that the pango documentation has fleshed out nicely.
GTK release of 2.4 (Score:5, Informative)
For anyone who has been following the good work that the gnome developers have been doing, its starting to look like vindication.
Ok, enough of the back slapping, lets see whats on offer: (PS - release notes for GTK at Gnome 2.6 update release notes [gnome.org]
Font Changes:Re:As soon as I figure what this things does.... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:New File Dialog (Score:5, Informative)
Re:GTK release of 2.4 (Score:5, Informative)
I think you mean the threading library now supports atomic operations - ie you can do some simple integer/pointer manipulation without needing a mutex in a thread safe fasion. They've introduced equivalents to InterlockedIncrement, InterlockedCompareExchange etc in Win32 and very useful they are too.
Re:file selector (Score:3, Informative)
Re:GTK Announcement, not GIMP announcment (Score:3, Informative)
GIMP 2.0 will use whatever 2.x Gtk+ you have installed, they're all binary compatible.
Re:New File Dialog (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Glade2 (Score:5, Informative)
Glade2 development has stopped, and there's a full rewrite of Glade going on. The Glade3 code is currently in CVS, and will feature badly-needed features like redo/undo.
My guess is that Glade3 will support the new GTK 2.4 widgets.
Re:As soon as I figure what this things does.... (Score:3, Informative)
2) Red Carpet has a CLI, very useful
3) I know how to use a CLI, and I use Red Carpet all the time. By far the easiest way to keep the numerous systems I'm responsible for updated.
Re:New File Dialog (Score:5, Informative)
I disagree. It has many new features compared to the old dialog, and they are cleanly laid out. You have bookmarks now, to quickly go to a folder you use often; there is a preview available now; and there are many different ways to quickly get to the folder you want (e.g. you can go up two folders with one click; you can go to your home directory with one click; etc.)
rather ugly
Matter of taste. That screenshot is using a theme I don't personally like, but in a more soothing theme, the new dialogs look just fine.
and doesn't have the text entry box -- i.e, they removed the one great feature they used to have!
Calm down. The text-entry box is still there if you want it. If it's not showing, as in that screenshot, Ctrl+L will make it appear. If you are a keyboard fan, you shouldn't have much trouble hitting one extra keystroke.
For a Save dialog, you don't even have to hit Ctrl+L; it's only the Open dialog that defaults to mouse-only operation.
I know they're attempting to appeal to inexperienced users, but they always seem to (1) do so in a way that pisses off experienced users, and (2) botch things up in the inexperienced-user case anyway.
During the months of discussion and testing before this release, did you provide any feedback to help them? If not, then perhaps you might want to hold back a bit on the abuse directed towards the GTK developers.
Hopefully someone will come up with a less crappy file-selector and all the major distros (at least debian) will use it.
Hey, it's free software. Fire up your favorite image editor, and start mocking up how it should look. I'm sure OSNews would publish an article [osnews.com] about your new design, and I'm sure that someone, somewhere in the world, would code up a prototype for you. Or you could even code it yourself!
As for me, I am content with the new dialog and I'm looking forward to its arrival in Debian Unstable.
steveha
Re:Any commerical companies using these? (Score:5, Informative)
Opera (QT)
Adobe Photoshop Album (QT)
Re:As soon as I figure what this things does.... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:New File Dialog (Score:2, Informative)
Re:It's the little things.... (Score:3, Informative)
Code reuse is the "good" sort of laziness. It saves time, memory (shared libs are good), and it allows for easier centralized testing. Basically code reuse is the sort of laziness that saves time and energy for everyone involved.
Not using a packaging manager is the "bad" sort of laziness.
Re:It's the little things.... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Your sig (Score:3, Informative)
The problem is that the freetype font rendering library for Linux is unable to use font hints because the required algorithms are patented (by Apple, which seems to like FOSS products unless they encroach on its desktop turf).
The patented hinting algorithms are in the source but #def'ed out by default, you could recompile if you want to. Most people are fine with the replacement auto-hinting though.
Re:So.. (Score:1, Informative)
Apart from the fact that you've confused Glib with Glibc, if you really have to ask that question then you wouldn't understand the answer. Suffice it to say that Glibc2 is better than libc5 in many ways, including things like symbol versioning.