Month: September 2009

GTK+ 2.18 stable release

GTK+ 2.18 adds new functionality while maintaining source and binary compatibility with GTK+ 2.16. Highlights of new features and improvements in GTK+ 2.18 are:

GtkInfoBar
A new widget to show a transient ‘message area’ inside a content pane. The API is similar to GtkDialog and supports theming for different message types (warnings, errors, etc)

GtkBuilder

  • Scale marks can be specified in builder markup
  • GtkAssistant action widgets can be added in builder markup

GtkLabel
GtkLabel can show embedded URLs, much like SexyUrlLabe

GtkEntry
GtkEntry has been refactored to follow the model-view pattern, with GtkEntryBuffer as model. One intended use case for this is to support ‘secure memory’ for password entries

File chooser

  • Backup files are hidden by default
  • GTK+ remembers the sorting state of the file list
  • File sizes are shown by default
  • The ‘Create Folder’ button can be disabled with the the ::create-folders property

Printing support

  • GTK+ supports authentication against CUPS servers
  • A backend for the PAPI printing system has been added
  • The file and lpr backends can print multiple pages per sheet
  • The file backend can produce svg files
  • GTK+ supports printing an application-defined ‘selection’ in addition to the usual page ranges
  • The print dialog can optinally include the page setup controls, avoiding the need for a separate page setup dialog in many situations

Theming support

  • The bullet character used in invisible entries can be set by themes with the ::invisible-char style property
  • The file chooser can show different icons for xdg user dirs. The icon names are folder-documents, folder-download, folder-music, folder-pictures, folder-publicshare, folder-templates and folder-video
  • The GtkInfoBar uses symbolic colors for theming its background color depending on the message type. The color names are info_fg_color, info_bg_color, warning_fg_color”, warning_bg_color, etc.

GDK changes
GDK has been rewritten to use ‘client-side windows’. This means that GDK maintains its own window hierarchy and only uses X windows where it is necessary or explicitly requested. Some of the benefits of this change are

  • Reduced flicker
  • The ability to do transformed and animated rendering of widgets
  • Easier embedding of GTK+ widgets, e.g. into Clutter scene graphs

    • See gdk-demo for some simple examples of client-side windows in action. See the documentation for information about possible problems when moving to client-side windows.

For more details and lists of fixed bugs, see the
announcements for the 2.17.x development releases: 2.17.0, 2.17.1, 2.17.2, 2.17.3, 2.17.4, 2.17.5, 2.17.6, 2.17.8, 2.17.9, 2.17.10, 2.17.11

GLib 2.22 Stable Release

GLib 2.22 is a stable release adding an incremental improvement in functionality over GLib 2.20 while maintaining binary and source compatibility.

Major new features include:

  • GArray, GPtrArray, GByteArray, GTree and GMappedFile can be reference counted.
  • GLib can be forced to reload the XDG user directory mapping.
  • The GLib mainloop supports per-thread default contexts.
  • GIO now provides types and methods for IP addresses and UNIX domain socket addresses.
  • GResolver provides asynchronous and cancellable APIs for resolving hostnames, reverse lookup of IP addresses and resolving SRV records.
  • Support for network IO has been added to GIO, including low-level socket API and high-level API for network connections and services.
  • GIOStream and its subclasses have gained support for read-write access.
  • GIO supports starting and stopping of drives, which can be used in connection with external hard disk enclosures, disk arrays, iSCSI devices, etc.
  • GIO supports user interaction during unmount and eject operations.
  • GIO can store and retrieve per-file metadata.

For more details and lists of fixed bugs, see the announcements of the 2.21.x development releases: 2.21.0, 2.21.1, 2.21.2, 2.21.3, 2.21.4, 2.21.5 and 2.21.6