GTK+ target version [WAS Re: new dev branch stuff]

[Jasper Huijsmans]

Hi,

Olivier Fourdan wrote:
> Hi all
> 
> On Wed, 2005-01-19 at 10:02 +0100, Jasper Huijsmans wrote:
> 
>>>1) what's our new gtk target for xfce 4.4?  gtk 2.4?
>>
>>If we plan for august, which was mentioned on IRC, then maybe we could aim for
>>2.6 even?
> 
> 
> I think targeting GTK+-2.6 is a bad idea.
> 
> Not because I don't like GTK+-2.6, not even because I don't like the
> features added in 2.6, but simply because of the target audience of
> Xfce.
> 
> I don't want Xfce to be yet another geek toy, requiring all the brand
> new stuff. I think Xfce should be aimed at the most general use, and in
> a corporate environment you very rarely see the latest versions of libs
> or software (think RHEL for example)
> 
> In many places, you'll still find RH 7.2/RHEL 2.1 and gtk+-2.6 doesn't
> work there. Every app that use a text widget (inclufing text input
> field) in 2.6 dies with a "Bad implementation" error.
> 
> An bug in GTK-+2.6? maybe, maybe not. It may simply be that GTK+-2.6 is
> not designed for such old systems anymore. So if we depend on 2.6, we
> shall limit ourselves to the same targets as GTK+-2.6.
> 
> Let's keep in mind that there is no "Xfce centric major distribution".
> RH/Fedora use and promote GNOME, SuSE and Mdk are KDE. It doesn't matter
> for GNOME or KDE to require the latest GTK+ or Qt version because there
> is always a major distribution that will match their requirements,
> whatever it could be. 
> 
> We are not there yet with Xfce IMO.
> 
> Hope you get my point.
> 

Certainly. The counter argument is that we can still target the same big 
distribution(s) as GNOME.

Another argument could be that because of the relatively long period 
between major releases, if we target a conservative gtk version then at 
the end of the cycle for an Xfce branch that will be quite old.

Anyway, I can certainly live with using 2.4. Our biggest problem may 
actually be that gtk tends to subtly change behaviour of widgets between 
2.x and 2.(x+2).

	Jasper