16 ms·

GTK 4.0 Released

266 points by hernantz 6y ago

webaholic 6y ago
Does this mean that Gnome 4 is around the corner?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- scaladev 6y ago
  Gnome 4 has gone the way of PHP 6. https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/iu2dbj https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/iu2dbj
- gjsman-1000 6y ago
  There will not be a GNOME 4, but there will be very soon a GNOME 40. (Yes, literally.)
  - dheera 6y ago
    Thinking seriously about moving to KDE with all these schengens happening around Gnome. All the feature removing between 2 to 3 was already annoying. I wanted HiDPI support and productivity effects from Compiz (like drawing on the screen), not a fake Mac.
    - topspin 6y ago
      My weapon of choice is kubuntu since 18.04 LTS. The only complaint I have is that konsole's cut/paste/selection mechanism eventually ceases to work (copy or select does nothing, old buffer contents remain) after a konsole process has been running for a few weeks. Unlike your desire for effects, I prefer KDE because you can still completely disable effects and the compositing that make it performant and get excellent, glitch free remote desktop performance over a fast local network using VNC; almost no perceptible lag in normal development actively. KDE has matured. They took the 4.x fiasco to heart and now KDE development is highly conservative and unobtrusive. I'm frankly amazed; popular Linux desktop environments have such a long history of design failures due to iconoclasts blowing everything up that the current state of KDE seems almost miraculous.
    - ncmncm 6y ago
      I switched to MATE a long time ago, and never regretted it.
    - ziftface 6y ago
      Gnome has its own distinctive feel for me, and it feels entirely different from mac or windows. I don't really understand the hate i keep seeing on here to be honest.
- dyingkneepad 6y ago
  It will still have the same unusable look and feel as Gnome 3, so it doesn't even matter what name they give. It was 9 years ago, but it still hurts me to think about the release of Gnome 3 and all the different ways they went downhill with this once-beautiful project. Seriously, damn the people who took over the direction of Gnome. Now even Wayland development is mostly focused on Gnome. Where's my time machine?
xcambar 6y ago
From the website: > GTK is the core of the GNOME development platform, but it can also be used to write applications for other Linux environments, as well as applications targeting Microsoft Windows and Apple macOS. I'd love for some hn folks to share feedback on portability and overall value of using GTK for multiple platforms. What other engines/platforms exist? I know of Kotlin for mobile/web but besides Electron, I'll have a hard time picking something for desktop apps, should portability be a requirement... PS: I have a love-hate relationship with Electron. I guess I'm not the only one, so I won't elaborate.
- tonyedgecombe 6y ago
  Qt is the main alternative. It's C++ but has bindings for many languages. All cross platform frameworks are a compromise though so you should avoid them unless you know you will definitely need it.
  - ryukafalz 6y ago
    For what it's worth, GTK and Qt (while being cross platform) are also effectively the native toolkits on Linux. So if you're developing for Linux in the first place, you get the cross platform bit for free.
    - tracker1 6y ago
      Of course it also means extra effort to make them less alien on MacOS and Windows. While less than popular, I'm more inclined to just target Electron or Carlo and leave it at that for my UIs. I know that it's much higher overhead, and if I was doing something with a minimal UI, or something that persisted in a tray I'd probably reach for something more minimal. It really depends on the use case. React Native options may be another target that I might look into if I needed native, thought he UI kits aren't quite as interoperable as I'd necessarily like, it's a pretty decent option. I mostly do full-stack service layers with react/web ui these days so anything that leans on what I already do is likely the best use of my time. A browser surface, while massive, memory hungry etc, is still often the best option for any app UI work as it solves so many issues and can run everywhere. It's the combination of those two that make it so appealing. Reducing friction. Of course it's also why we have mobile devices with 4gb+ ram on them these days. edit: would also consider uno with .Net 5 - https://platform.uno/ https://platform.uno/
kfrncs 6y ago
Are the videos not working for anyone else? Firefox on iOS
- floatboth 6y ago
  Looks like iOS still has zero support for webm :/
blibble 6y ago
did they make file dialog usable again? because otherwise I'm still going to go out of my way to avoid using anything based on GTK
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- tristan957 6y ago
  If you use GTK on a KDE system you will get the Qt file chooser dialog assuming the developer of the GTK application is using GtkFileChooserNative. People should really stop complaining without noticing their problem is already fixed, but such is open-source.
  - hda2 6y ago
    People complain because the file chooser is broken for most of their GTK-based apps and not for any of their other apps. Expecting them to link the problem to an invisible factor (API call) is ridiculous and silly, but such is open-source.
- nguyenkien 6y ago
  Yes, they claim they fixed it
CyberRabbi 6y ago
Applications written using the original Win32 API are binary and source compatible with the current version of the API. Why does GTK keep breaking backward compatibility? I understand breaking backwards compatibility a first time, maybe out of a failure to plan ahead, but not multiple times. It would be easy enough to add new subroutines to add more functionality. Is there a reason to change or remove old subroutines of which I’m not aware? Otherwise this is just causing extra work for application developers for no good reason and in many cases killing old stable applications which are no longer developed.
- cycloptic 6y ago
  They break backwards compatibility because there's not really much reason for them not to. The new releases have a lot of refactoring and redesigns that would break things anyway. The old ways are considered deprecated and keeping them around forever complicates the code and has about the same cost as backporting things to an old version. If it's too much work for application developers, the can keep on an old version of the library or maintain a shim. (There are still a lot of GTK2 applications out there, although distros seem to be removing them because nobody is interested in maintaining a shim or backporting things)
  - rwmj 6y ago
    It's a big pain in the neck. This is the nonsense we have to go through to keep virt-p2v working on various old Linux systems (required in itself because those old systems support various obsolete/closed source hardware): https://github.com/libguestfs/virt-p2v/blob/master/gui-gtk2-compat.h https://github.com/libguestfs/virt-p2v/blob/master/gui-gtk2-... https://github.com/libguestfs/virt-p2v/blob/master/gui-gtk3-compat.h https://github.com/libguestfs/virt-p2v/blob/master/gui-gtk3-... And that's just one very small and limited application.
    - cycloptic 6y ago
      I guess I'm confused. The first one looks like backporting of newer functions to get it to work on older GTK versions. The second one looks like shims to work around not wanting to link against deprecated symbols. What could upstream possibly do there? In both cases, the issue seems to be the configuration of the target machine.
butz 6y ago
Any major deprecations when porting programs from GTK3?
- tristan957 6y ago
  This should help you out: https://developer.gnome.org/gtk4/3.99/gtk-migrating-3-to-4.html https://developer.gnome.org/gtk4/3.99/gtk-migrating-3-to-4.h...
- hda2 6y ago
  If you use system tray icons, they've been stripped out. You're expected to use another GUI library like QT to use those.
pregnenolone 6y ago
Jetbrains is working on this https://www.jetbrains.com/lp/compose/ https://www.jetbrains.com/lp/compose/
- floatboth 6y ago
  Uses fucking AWT for windowing (so no Wayland support), uses a hardcoded list of platforms like "linux amd64" (gonna be a huge pain in the ass on BSD/ARM), so rather disappointing from a unix perspective. Of course commercial app developers don't care about any of this, sadly.
  - sam_lowry_ 6y ago
    Fuck Wayland!
josteink 6y ago
Did the Cairo-situation[1] which was aired somewhat prior to this release work out somehow? At the time it did look somewhat dire. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25076197 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25076197
- tristan957 6y ago
  https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/cairo/cairo/-/commit/156cd3eaaebfd8635517c2baf61fcf3627ff7ec2?_sm_au_=iVVPtBL2d2fdtq3VJVcckKstj81vM https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/cairo/cairo/-/commit/156cd3ea... Important note from Bryce Harrington: [On a personal note, this will be my last release for Cairo. My Cairo time availability has been non-existent (particularly this crazy past year). The release process is well documented and hopefully will help whomever picks up the baton from here.] Looks like that the situation was mitigated for this release, but the situation will be more dire the next time someone needs a new Cairo release cut.
cat199 6y ago
can window decorations be turned off?
nailer 6y ago
So does GTK have direct bindings for Wayland, without going through X11 compatibility?
- the_why_of_y 6y ago
  Yes, experimentally since GTK+ 3.2 and Wayland 1.0 protocol since GTK+ 3.8. The backend can be selected with GDK_BACKEND=wayland or GDK_BACKEND=x11 - except in some applications which still force a X11 connection.

GTK 4.0 Released

266 points by hernantz 6y ago

webaholic 6y ago

Does this mean that Gnome 4 is around the corner?

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
scaladev 6y ago
Gnome 4 has gone the way of PHP 6. https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/iu2dbj https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/iu2dbj
gjsman-1000 6y ago
There will not be a GNOME 4, but there will be very soon a GNOME 40. (Yes, literally.)
- dheera 6y ago
  Thinking seriously about moving to KDE with all these schengens happening around Gnome. All the feature removing between 2 to 3 was already annoying. I wanted HiDPI support and productivity effects from Compiz (like drawing on the screen), not a fake Mac.
  - topspin 6y ago
    My weapon of choice is kubuntu since 18.04 LTS. The only complaint I have is that konsole's cut/paste/selection mechanism eventually ceases to work (copy or select does nothing, old buffer contents remain) after a konsole process has been running for a few weeks. Unlike your desire for effects, I prefer KDE because you can still completely disable effects and the compositing that make it performant and get excellent, glitch free remote desktop performance over a fast local network using VNC; almost no perceptible lag in normal development actively. KDE has matured. They took the 4.x fiasco to heart and now KDE development is highly conservative and unobtrusive. I'm frankly amazed; popular Linux desktop environments have such a long history of design failures due to iconoclasts blowing everything up that the current state of KDE seems almost miraculous.
  - ncmncm 6y ago
    I switched to MATE a long time ago, and never regretted it.
  - ziftface 6y ago
    Gnome has its own distinctive feel for me, and it feels entirely different from mac or windows. I don't really understand the hate i keep seeing on here to be honest.
dyingkneepad 6y ago
It will still have the same unusable look and feel as Gnome 3, so it doesn't even matter what name they give. It was 9 years ago, but it still hurts me to think about the release of Gnome 3 and all the different ways they went downhill with this once-beautiful project. Seriously, damn the people who took over the direction of Gnome. Now even Wayland development is mostly focused on Gnome. Where's my time machine?

xcambar 6y ago

From the website: > GTK is the core of the GNOME development platform, but it can also be used to write applications for other Linux environments, as well as applications targeting Microsoft Windows and Apple macOS. I'd love for some hn folks to share feedback on portability and overall value of using GTK for multiple platforms. What other engines/platforms exist? I know of Kotlin for mobile/web but besides Electron, I'll have a hard time picking something for desktop apps, should portability be a requirement... PS: I have a love-hate relationship with Electron. I guess I'm not the only one, so I won't elaborate.

tonyedgecombe 6y ago
Qt is the main alternative. It's C++ but has bindings for many languages. All cross platform frameworks are a compromise though so you should avoid them unless you know you will definitely need it.
- ryukafalz 6y ago
  For what it's worth, GTK and Qt (while being cross platform) are also effectively the native toolkits on Linux. So if you're developing for Linux in the first place, you get the cross platform bit for free.
  - tracker1 6y ago
    Of course it also means extra effort to make them less alien on MacOS and Windows. While less than popular, I'm more inclined to just target Electron or Carlo and leave it at that for my UIs. I know that it's much higher overhead, and if I was doing something with a minimal UI, or something that persisted in a tray I'd probably reach for something more minimal. It really depends on the use case. React Native options may be another target that I might look into if I needed native, thought he UI kits aren't quite as interoperable as I'd necessarily like, it's a pretty decent option. I mostly do full-stack service layers with react/web ui these days so anything that leans on what I already do is likely the best use of my time. A browser surface, while massive, memory hungry etc, is still often the best option for any app UI work as it solves so many issues and can run everywhere. It's the combination of those two that make it so appealing. Reducing friction. Of course it's also why we have mobile devices with 4gb+ ram on them these days. edit: would also consider uno with .Net 5 - https://platform.uno/ https://platform.uno/

kfrncs 6y ago

Are the videos not working for anyone else? Firefox on iOS

floatboth 6y ago
Looks like iOS still has zero support for webm :/

blibble 6y ago

did they make file dialog usable again? because otherwise I'm still going to go out of my way to avoid using anything based on GTK

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
tristan957 6y ago
If you use GTK on a KDE system you will get the Qt file chooser dialog assuming the developer of the GTK application is using GtkFileChooserNative. People should really stop complaining without noticing their problem is already fixed, but such is open-source.
- hda2 6y ago
  People complain because the file chooser is broken for most of their GTK-based apps and not for any of their other apps. Expecting them to link the problem to an invisible factor (API call) is ridiculous and silly, but such is open-source.
nguyenkien 6y ago
Yes, they claim they fixed it

CyberRabbi 6y ago

Applications written using the original Win32 API are binary and source compatible with the current version of the API. Why does GTK keep breaking backward compatibility? I understand breaking backwards compatibility a first time, maybe out of a failure to plan ahead, but not multiple times. It would be easy enough to add new subroutines to add more functionality. Is there a reason to change or remove old subroutines of which I’m not aware? Otherwise this is just causing extra work for application developers for no good reason and in many cases killing old stable applications which are no longer developed.

cycloptic 6y ago
They break backwards compatibility because there's not really much reason for them not to. The new releases have a lot of refactoring and redesigns that would break things anyway. The old ways are considered deprecated and keeping them around forever complicates the code and has about the same cost as backporting things to an old version. If it's too much work for application developers, the can keep on an old version of the library or maintain a shim. (There are still a lot of GTK2 applications out there, although distros seem to be removing them because nobody is interested in maintaining a shim or backporting things)
- rwmj 6y ago
  It's a big pain in the neck. This is the nonsense we have to go through to keep virt-p2v working on various old Linux systems (required in itself because those old systems support various obsolete/closed source hardware): https://github.com/libguestfs/virt-p2v/blob/master/gui-gtk2-compat.h https://github.com/libguestfs/virt-p2v/blob/master/gui-gtk2-... https://github.com/libguestfs/virt-p2v/blob/master/gui-gtk3-compat.h https://github.com/libguestfs/virt-p2v/blob/master/gui-gtk3-... And that's just one very small and limited application.
  - cycloptic 6y ago
    I guess I'm confused. The first one looks like backporting of newer functions to get it to work on older GTK versions. The second one looks like shims to work around not wanting to link against deprecated symbols. What could upstream possibly do there? In both cases, the issue seems to be the configuration of the target machine.

butz 6y ago

Any major deprecations when porting programs from GTK3?

tristan957 6y ago
This should help you out: https://developer.gnome.org/gtk4/3.99/gtk-migrating-3-to-4.html https://developer.gnome.org/gtk4/3.99/gtk-migrating-3-to-4.h...
hda2 6y ago
If you use system tray icons, they've been stripped out. You're expected to use another GUI library like QT to use those.

pregnenolone 6y ago

Jetbrains is working on this https://www.jetbrains.com/lp/compose/ https://www.jetbrains.com/lp/compose/

floatboth 6y ago
Uses fucking AWT for windowing (so no Wayland support), uses a hardcoded list of platforms like "linux amd64" (gonna be a huge pain in the ass on BSD/ARM), so rather disappointing from a unix perspective. Of course commercial app developers don't care about any of this, sadly.
- sam_lowry_ 6y ago
  Fuck Wayland!

josteink 6y ago

Did the Cairo-situation[1] which was aired somewhat prior to this release work out somehow? At the time it did look somewhat dire. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25076197 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25076197

tristan957 6y ago
https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/cairo/cairo/-/commit/156cd3eaaebfd8635517c2baf61fcf3627ff7ec2?_sm_au_=iVVPtBL2d2fdtq3VJVcckKstj81vM https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/cairo/cairo/-/commit/156cd3ea... Important note from Bryce Harrington: [On a personal note, this will be my last release for Cairo. My Cairo time availability has been non-existent (particularly this crazy past year). The release process is well documented and hopefully will help whomever picks up the baton from here.] Looks like that the situation was mitigated for this release, but the situation will be more dire the next time someone needs a new Cairo release cut.

cat199 6y ago

can window decorations be turned off?

nailer 6y ago

So does GTK have direct bindings for Wayland, without going through X11 compatibility?

the_why_of_y 6y ago
Yes, experimentally since GTK+ 3.2 and Wayland 1.0 protocol since GTK+ 3.8. The backend can be selected with GDK_BACKEND=wayland or GDK_BACKEND=x11 - except in some applications which still force a X11 connection.