Re: GTK+ Quartz Project Started
Re: GTK+ Quartz Project Started
- Subject: Re: GTK+ Quartz Project Started
- From: Finlay Dobbie <email@hidden>
- Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 18:26:10 +0100
On Thursday, September 13, 2001, at 11:24 am, Paul Bayley wrote:
Considering GTK doesn't have interface abstraction like Cocoa does, I
don't consider any more a viable multiplatform API than Carbon.
What? GTK does have interface abstraction in GDK. If you look at the 1.3
(unstable) branch, you will see frontends for x11, win32 and linux-fb.
I hope that if you go ahead with this that there is an option to have
GTK apps appear conspicuously different than other mac apps. I can
currently do this with Qt and Swing which I make look like CDE and
Metal respectively due to the fact that not one Qt or Swing app behaves
like a mac app.
Yes, in fact, this will probably be the first thing to attempt. I'm a
bit against an Aqua theme, but using the theme API it might actually be
possible to create a decent looking one, I'm not sure. I personally
found using the Qt/Mac beta a distressing experience, with all those MDI
windows which just felt *WRONG* and looked completely silly since Qt
can't cope with rounded corners, and just filled in the gaps with black
blobs.
GTK has always been used as a utility toolkit for X11 programmers so I
don't see the advantage of porting GTK to Quartz when we already have
rootless X11, but I guess I can't stop you from porting it.
Rootless X11 is no picnic to install (I'm not counting Tenon's
overpriced joke, btw). It has an added overhead. It is less integrated
into the OS X experience (e.g. nonstandard looking window borders, only
one icon in the dock for all X11 apps, inability to have XFree86
applications as double-clickable bundles, etc).
I feel that porting GTK+ would be an interesting project, and might
bring some apps like The Gimp to a wider audience.
-- Finlay