5 ms·

Also GTK4 means they are still at the mercy of GNOME which changes APIs often and without consideration for third parties. Wasn't the whole point of the projec

by sprash 5y ago

Also GTK4 means they are still at the mercy of GNOME which changes APIs often and without consideration for third parties. Wasn't the whole point of the project to emancipate themselves from GNOME? If they rely on GTK they will fail.

cyber_kinetist 5y ago
Then they would need to either 1) do the yak-shaving and create a whole new GUI stack in Rust (which would be an absolute boon to the Rust community but will be a tremendous effort), or 2) switch to Qt (and basically become KDE) Thinking about it, maybe Sciter (https://sciter.com/ https://sciter.com/) would be an okay foundation to build a DE in (lightweight stack, flexible theming, solid Rust bindings). But then it isn’t open source (only the interface is, you need to pay for source access), so maybe not.
- CameronNemo 5y ago
  create a whole new GUI stack in Rust Is there a reason iced is not good enough (other than not being accessible)? https://iced.rs/ https://iced.rs/ https://github.com/iced-rs/iced/issues/552 https://github.com/iced-rs/iced/issues/552
  - pure_simplicity 5y ago
    No stable release yet, and you generally want your DE to be the most dependable bug-free part of your software, especially if you are selling hardware with your own software pre-installed. but looking good so far, gonna check this out for myself. I was rooting for azul, but iced seems to be further ahead
  - gnud 5y ago
    I'm assuming Iced has no A11 support (these projects never do). Probably no RTL support. Possibly no reusable "system" widgets like open/save dialogs.
    - CameronNemo 5y ago
      Can you clarify what you mean by "these projects never do"? Your comment comes across as dismissive. Especially since I already noted that it was lacking a11y in my original comment. Anyway although a11y and i18n support have not been implemented, they are planned. https://github.com/iced-rs/iced/issues/250 https://github.com/iced-rs/iced/issues/250
      - gnud 5y ago
        It wasn't meant as dismissive of the project. It's totally fine to write a UI library that has another focus (games, for example). I'm just tired of those projects being suggested as alternatives to native/GTK/Qt in discussions here and elsewhere. If Iced actually gets cross-platform accessibility support, that's great! Very few projects have that today. More certainly wouldn't hurt. But until it does, you shouldn't base a DE on it. Edit: The issue you linked to is about RTL support. That's also required, but doesn't touch on a11y.
        CameronNemo 5y ago
        My original comment mentioned and linked to the a11y issue.
  - hkmaxpro 5y ago
    Input Method support? (A feature used in various East Asian languages by over a third of the world’s population) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Input_method https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Input_method https://github.com/iced-rs/iced/pull/686 https://github.com/iced-rs/iced/pull/686 See the challenges of properly supporting IME in Druid, another Rust toolkit: https://github.com/linebender/druid/issues/1308 https://github.com/linebender/druid/issues/1308
  - awrmc 5y ago
    Iced looks pretty cool but it's focused on being a cross-platform toolkit and will probably not ever be the best choice for making programs native to Linux, like a desktop environment. If you thought there were enough problems between GTK and Qt with skinning, fonts, keybindings, and all that stuff, adding another toolkit to the mix just makes it worse.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 5y ago
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  - nicoburns 5y ago
    Iced is missing even basic features such as: - Rendering multiple layers - Creating multiple windows - Multiline text layout and editing
- kaba0 5y ago
  Regarding 2, aren’t they basically gnome if they are using gtk, as per your logic?
mixedCase 5y ago
With the transition from version 3 to 4, GTK is now more focused on being a generic UI toolkit, with GTK4-based libadwaita now being the place to be for GNOME-specific patterns.
- sprash 5y ago
  History and experience tells a different story [1]. Never trust a library that is maintained by GNOME. 1.: https://github.com/thestinger/termite https://github.com/thestinger/termite
  - addicted 5y ago
    libadwaita exists solely to move Gnome specific stuff out of GTK into libadwaita. And it's hard to see how an open source project with as many developers as Gnome/GTK have can have some secret agenda that is counter to what they are saying publicly and creating libraries and code publicly to implement.
    - lmm 5y ago
      > it's hard to see how an open source project with as many developers as Gnome/GTK have can have some secret agenda How many serious Gnome/GTK developers are there who are not IBM employees?
      - awrmc 5y ago
        That question is a non-sequitur. But to give you a type of answer, most of libadwaita came out of Purism.
  - awrmc 5y ago
    Checking the response from the maintainer shows another different story: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=679658#c12 https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=679658#c12 >Implementing keyboard selection inside vte means that every terminal based on vte benefits; adding only hooks for you means that all the other terminals get no benefit. The patch being pushed wasn't going to help other projects. The developer of that project was working on a fork of the library but it appears it didn't get much use and was abandoned: https://github.com/thestinger/vte-ng https://github.com/thestinger/vte-ng I don't see much more that anyone from GNOME could have done there.
bmarkovic 5y ago
So XFCe == GNOME and LXDE is GNOME or KDE, depending on which version we're talking about? UI toolkit doesn't equal a desktop environment. There is tons of stuff in the GNOME ecosystem (some of which it will make a lot of sense for System76 to reuse, no doubt) that can be entirely ignored when you're using GTK to, essentially, draw your UI widgets for you.

by sprash 5y ago

cyber_kinetist 5y ago

Then they would need to either 1) do the yak-shaving and create a whole new GUI stack in Rust (which would be an absolute boon to the Rust community but will be a tremendous effort), or 2) switch to Qt (and basically become KDE) Thinking about it, maybe Sciter (https://sciter.com/ https://sciter.com/) would be an okay foundation to build a DE in (lightweight stack, flexible theming, solid Rust bindings). But then it isn’t open source (only the interface is, you need to pay for source access), so maybe not.

CameronNemo 5y ago
create a whole new GUI stack in Rust Is there a reason iced is not good enough (other than not being accessible)? https://iced.rs/ https://iced.rs/ https://github.com/iced-rs/iced/issues/552 https://github.com/iced-rs/iced/issues/552
- pure_simplicity 5y ago
  No stable release yet, and you generally want your DE to be the most dependable bug-free part of your software, especially if you are selling hardware with your own software pre-installed. but looking good so far, gonna check this out for myself. I was rooting for azul, but iced seems to be further ahead
- gnud 5y ago
  I'm assuming Iced has no A11 support (these projects never do). Probably no RTL support. Possibly no reusable "system" widgets like open/save dialogs.
  - CameronNemo 5y ago
    Can you clarify what you mean by "these projects never do"? Your comment comes across as dismissive. Especially since I already noted that it was lacking a11y in my original comment. Anyway although a11y and i18n support have not been implemented, they are planned. https://github.com/iced-rs/iced/issues/250 https://github.com/iced-rs/iced/issues/250
    - gnud 5y ago
      It wasn't meant as dismissive of the project. It's totally fine to write a UI library that has another focus (games, for example). I'm just tired of those projects being suggested as alternatives to native/GTK/Qt in discussions here and elsewhere. If Iced actually gets cross-platform accessibility support, that's great! Very few projects have that today. More certainly wouldn't hurt. But until it does, you shouldn't base a DE on it. Edit: The issue you linked to is about RTL support. That's also required, but doesn't touch on a11y.
      - CameronNemo 5y ago
        My original comment mentioned and linked to the a11y issue.
- hkmaxpro 5y ago
  Input Method support? (A feature used in various East Asian languages by over a third of the world’s population) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Input_method https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Input_method https://github.com/iced-rs/iced/pull/686 https://github.com/iced-rs/iced/pull/686 See the challenges of properly supporting IME in Druid, another Rust toolkit: https://github.com/linebender/druid/issues/1308 https://github.com/linebender/druid/issues/1308
- awrmc 5y ago
  Iced looks pretty cool but it's focused on being a cross-platform toolkit and will probably not ever be the best choice for making programs native to Linux, like a desktop environment. If you thought there were enough problems between GTK and Qt with skinning, fonts, keybindings, and all that stuff, adding another toolkit to the mix just makes it worse.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- nicoburns 5y ago
  Iced is missing even basic features such as: - Rendering multiple layers - Creating multiple windows - Multiline text layout and editing
kaba0 5y ago
Regarding 2, aren’t they basically gnome if they are using gtk, as per your logic?

mixedCase 5y ago

With the transition from version 3 to 4, GTK is now more focused on being a generic UI toolkit, with GTK4-based libadwaita now being the place to be for GNOME-specific patterns.

sprash 5y ago
History and experience tells a different story [1]. Never trust a library that is maintained by GNOME. 1.: https://github.com/thestinger/termite https://github.com/thestinger/termite
- addicted 5y ago
  libadwaita exists solely to move Gnome specific stuff out of GTK into libadwaita. And it's hard to see how an open source project with as many developers as Gnome/GTK have can have some secret agenda that is counter to what they are saying publicly and creating libraries and code publicly to implement.
  - lmm 5y ago
    > it's hard to see how an open source project with as many developers as Gnome/GTK have can have some secret agenda How many serious Gnome/GTK developers are there who are not IBM employees?
    - awrmc 5y ago
      That question is a non-sequitur. But to give you a type of answer, most of libadwaita came out of Purism.
- awrmc 5y ago
  Checking the response from the maintainer shows another different story: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=679658#c12 https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=679658#c12 >Implementing keyboard selection inside vte means that every terminal based on vte benefits; adding only hooks for you means that all the other terminals get no benefit. The patch being pushed wasn't going to help other projects. The developer of that project was working on a fork of the library but it appears it didn't get much use and was abandoned: https://github.com/thestinger/vte-ng https://github.com/thestinger/vte-ng I don't see much more that anyone from GNOME could have done there.

bmarkovic 5y ago

So XFCe == GNOME and LXDE is GNOME or KDE, depending on which version we're talking about? UI toolkit doesn't equal a desktop environment. There is tons of stuff in the GNOME ecosystem (some of which it will make a lot of sense for System76 to reuse, no doubt) that can be entirely ignored when you're using GTK to, essentially, draw your UI widgets for you.