Month: September 2008

GTK+ 2.14.1 stable release

GTK+ 2.14 adds new functionality while maintaining source and binary compatibility with GTK+ 2.12.

New widgets and objects

  • GdkAppLaunchContext, provides startup notification with g_app_info_launch()
  • GtkMountOperation, can ask for passwords when mounting volumes with g_volume_mount()
  • GtkToolShell, an interface for containers of GtkToolItems

Noteworthy new APIs

  • gtk_show_uri(), a replacement for gnome_vfs_url_show() and gnome_url_show()
  • gtk_widget_get_snapshot(), using pixmap redirection to render snapshots of widgets

Changes in the file chooser

The file chooser uses GIO directly, loadable backends are no longer supported. Autocompletion in the file chooser entry has been improved.

Changes in printing support

The print dialog displays printer status information.
Support for rearranging pages when printing multiple pages per sheet has been added to the cups backend.

Accessibility support

The gail module is shipped with GTK+, GtkBuilder supports accessibility attributes and GtkStatusIcon supports keyboard navigation.

Internationalization support

The compose sequences understood by GTK+’s builtin input method have been synchronized with recent X.org compose sequences, adding a large number of new sequences.
GTK+ no longer uses translations when an application is not translated to the current locale.

gdk-pixbuf changes

  • Support loading OS X icns format
  • Support loading JPEG 2000 images
  • Support loading and saving to GIO streams
  • Use GIO for mime information

GDK changes
GDK uses Xrandr instead of Xinerama to provide more (and dynamic) monitor information. Font configuration changes are now picked up at runtime, without an application restart.

For more details and lists of fixed bugs, see the announcements for the 2.13.x development releases:

About 900 bugs were fixed between 2.12 and 2.14.

See the original announcement for more info and downloads.

GLib 2.18.0 stable release

GLib 2.18 is a stable release adding an incremental improvement in functionality over GLib 2.16 while maintaining binary and source compatibility.

glib-2.18.0.tar.bz2
md5sum: 06e5afe4ce055085dc5fd9fdab527bf7

glib-2.18.0.tar.bz2
md5sum: e55609e7a08755b40d234090f5dfd530

Major new features include:

  • Unicode 5.1 support
  • Support for the latest version of the shared-mime specification, including icons for mime types and content types for volumes
  • Improved internationalization support with g_dgettext(), g_dngettext() and NC_()
  • Support for “subparsers” in GMarkup
  • Support for emblems on icons
  • GIO supports HTTP URIs on Windows

For more details and lists of fixed bugs, see the announcements of the 2.17.x development releases:

GTK+ roadmap notes

GTK+ 2.14 will be released in a few days. This seems like a good time to send out an update on the GTK+ 3 plans.

Once the 2.14 release has happened, we will branch off a 2.90 branch.
Development towards 2.16 will proceed on trunk, in parallel to the 2.90 development.

The goal is to have a 2.16 release by next summer (traditionally targeting Guadec). The following features are already under development and will likely land in 2.16:

  • support for icons in entries
  • better handling of invisible characters
  • flippable boxes, separators, etc
  • resolution independence/font scaling
  • complete offscreen window support
  • extended layout (width-for-height)
  • a tool palette widget
  • a simple list api

The 2.90 release will be feature-wise equivalent to 2.16, with structure contents being completely sealed and deprecated 2.x interfaces removed. 2.90 will be installable in parallel with 2.16.

After the 2.16/2.90 releases, GTK+ 2.x will continue to be supported by bug-fix releases on the 2.16 branch, while the 2.90 branch will move ahead with new feature development, leading to a GTK+ 3 release further down the road.

For more details on the work towards 2.90 and beyond, see the GTK+ 3.0 Tasks page. We will also add more GTK+ 3 information to the GTK+ website in the coming weeks.