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

[Jeff Franks]

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.
>  
>
I don't agree.  GTK+ 2.6 is the latest  stable. By the time Xfce 4.4 is 
out 6 or 8, or may be 10 months would have passed. By that time GTK+ 2.8 
would have been released (planned for the middle 2005) and 2.4 will be 
quite old.

>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.
>  
>
It sounds a bit like programming-down to your perceived target audience, 
with the exuses like "that's all they'll need, or want, or will 
understand".

>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)
>  
>
Xfce doesn't have to be a geek toy. The new features added to GTK+ 2.6 
have long been present in KDE, and some in GNOME. A few of these 
features were moved from the GNOME libraries into GTK+.  GtkIconView is 
one,  it's a very useful widget and one that Xffm badly needs (I believe 
an icon view for xffm is already being worked on). Trying to navigate a 
huge filing system like Linux with a single expandable/collapsable file 
tree is cumbersome (very OS/2-ish) and not very user friendly.  (Sorry, 
no offence intended.)

>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.
>  
>
Some old software there - one long passed it's end-of-life. RH 7.2 has 
not been supported by RedHat since Feb 2002. Full spupport for RHEL 
ceased on 30/11/2004, and deployment support ends on the 31/5/2005, with 
only maintenance support thereafter.

>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.
>  
>
You don't know this for sure. What did the GTK+ guys say about it?

>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.
>
Xfce has a lot going for it and deserves a wider audience. Xfce 4.2 got 
some very good write-ups because of the improvments you guys made. I 
think targeting GTK+ 2.6 would be a good for Xfce in the long run, 
especially xffm. 

Jeff.