Porting panel plugins to Gtk3

[André Miranda]

Hello there guys,
Thanks to Landry's very descriptive commits, I was able to port Xfce
Panel's single most important plugin: Xfce4-Eyes-Plugin!
Jokes apart, I just wanted to try it out with a simple plugin before
porting others.
Here is code: https://github.com/andreldm/xfce4-eyes-plugin
(how convenient a push request would be...)

Cheers,
André Miranda

On Sun, May 1, 2016 at 9:02 AM, Landry Breuil <landry at xfce.org> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> so, if we want to have Xfce 4.14 with Gtk+3 in a foreseeable future, at
> some point porting has to resume/restart.. in the past days, i've spent
> some time porting *some* of the panel plugins i *somewhat* maintain, and
> here are some tips and tricks:
>
> * i'm targetting Gtk+3 only, bye-bye Gtk+2. Technically it would be
>   doable to support both with some #ifdefs, but is there a point..
> * i'm going for a feature-parity target first. No UI revamp, no
>   revolution. Ideally, i'd like to move dialog construction to .ui files
> / GtkBuilder, that might come next. Same thing, using cairo drawing
> instead of abusing progressbars for monitors/meters might be nice,
> maybe next.
> * devhelp is your friend to browse the Gtk+3 doc, as is
> https://developer.gnome.org/gtk3/stable/
> * there's an ongoing discussion to know if we finally target 3.14 or
>   3.20, as there are some 'breaking' changes wrt styling in >= 3.16 with
> css providers (see
> https://blogs.gnome.org/mclasen/2016/04/29/yet-another-gtk-update/)
> * styling that worked in 3.14 is considered deprecated in 3.16/3.20, so
>   has to be #ifdef'ed, see for example
> http://git.xfce.org/panel-plugins/xfce4-systemload-plugin/tree/panel-plugin/systemload.c#n448
> * most of the changes are mechanical, Replacing XfceHVBox /
>   GtkHBox/GtkVBox by GtkBox, using GtkOrientable, replacing GtkTable by
> GtkGrid, replacing GTK_STOCK* macros by their gtk equivalent names,
> replacing GtkToggleButton/GtkCheckBox by GtkSwitch, replacing GdkColor
> by GdkRGBA, usinc GtkCssProvider instead of setting bg/base colors.. all
> this is documented in Gtk+3 doc when a widget is deprecated, and the
> general migration doc is here :
> https://developer.gnome.org/gtk3/stable/gtk-migrating-2-to-3.html
>
> So far, i've ported over the following plugins (have a look at the
> commits to see what changes are needed):
>
> http://git.xfce.org/panel-plugins/xfce4-systemload-plugin/log/
> http://git.xfce.org/panel-plugins/xfce4-mpc-plugin/log/
> http://git.xfce.org/panel-plugins/xfce4-diskperf-plugin/log/
> http://git.xfce.org/panel-plugins/xfce4-fsguard-plugin/log/
> http://git.xfce.org/panel-plugins/xfce4-datetime-plugin/log/
> http://git.xfce.org/panel-plugins/xfce4-smartbookmark-plugin/log/
>
> Not everything is perfect, but things are moving nicely.
>
> To 'compare' gtk2 and gtk3 version and have both in the same panel, i
> use the following trick (for a 'foo' panel plugin):
>   * in /usr/share/xfce4/panel/plugins/, copy foo.desktop to foo-git.desktop
>   * in foo-git.desktop, only keep untranslated Name/Comment and append
> 'git' to Name to differentiate plugins
>   * append X-XFCE-API=2.0 to foo-git.desktop
>   * append '-git' to X-XFCE-Module line
>   * symlink path/to/my/workdir/panel-plugin/.libs/libfoo.so to
> /usr/lib/xfce4/panel/plugins/libfoo-git.so
>
> xfce4-panel -a should allow you to load the git version of the plugin,
> without overwriting the 'released' gtk2 version.
>
> Mandatory screenshots using clearklooks theme, one with gtk3 versions
> http://i.imgur.com/UwZEaGN.png (not all the checkbox are migrated to
> gtkswitch, and i know systemload dialog is a bit huge...)
> and the same thing with the last release of the same plugins
> http://i.imgur.com/aS44yQV.png and the two panels with the same plugins
> loaded using default config. Okay, progressbars dont look the same,
> buttons might be a git bigger...
>
> All that to say that it's an easy task for someone who wants to start
> playing with gtk code and porting to gtk3 - all help on this is welcome!
> If there's a plugin you use and care about, and that looks
> abandoned/unmaintained, grab the git master, try to apply the same
> changes, and post patches to bugzilla/the list.
>
> Of course, feedback, criticism and testing are welcome! I've only tested
> those changes on my OpenBSD desktop with Gtk 3.20.3..
>
> Landry
> _______________________________________________
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> Xfce4-dev at xfce.org
> https://mail.xfce.org/mailman/listinfo/xfce4-dev
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