Comments on: GTK+ Matters http://www.atoker.com/blog/2007/10/29/gtk-matters/ There is a third way Tue, 08 Jul 2008 20:54:32 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 By: Nicholas E. Manley http://www.atoker.com/blog/2007/10/29/gtk-matters/#comment-1319 Nicholas E. Manley Wed, 31 Oct 2007 23:45:02 +0000 http://www.atoker.com/blog/2007/10/29/gtk-matters/#comment-1319 Gecko and XUL are hogs and I've completely lost faith in Mozilla. WebKit has better standards support and is much faster. Unfortunately, as a GNOME user, I don't have a lot of options for quality GTK+ web browsers that use WebKit. Midori is still too immature and not widely supported, Epiphany is still mainly Gecko focused; and trust me, I've looked at the source code for Epiphany. It has become way too complex, which is only going to slow down bug fixes and the adding of additional features. I'm working on my own browser at the moment since everything currently out there doesn't meet my standards. I will definitely release it since I know that I am not the only one fed up with the current situation of browsers. Gecko and XUL are hogs and I’ve completely lost faith in Mozilla. WebKit has better standards support and is much faster. Unfortunately, as a GNOME user, I don’t have a lot of options for quality GTK+ web browsers that use WebKit. Midori is still too immature and not widely supported, Epiphany is still mainly Gecko focused; and trust me, I’ve looked at the source code for Epiphany. It has become way too complex, which is only going to slow down bug fixes and the adding of additional features. I’m working on my own browser at the moment since everything currently out there doesn’t meet my standards. I will definitely release it since I know that I am not the only one fed up with the current situation of browsers.

]]> By: Robert O'Callahan http://www.atoker.com/blog/2007/10/29/gtk-matters/#comment-1314 Robert O'Callahan Mon, 29 Oct 2007 20:50:56 +0000 http://www.atoker.com/blog/2007/10/29/gtk-matters/#comment-1314 alp, that's awesome. Glad to hear it! A few more questions, if I may: -- how are you handling combobox dropdowns? Are you instantiating a real widget there? -- how are you handling widget rotation and other transformations? and printing widgets to PDF etc? If you haven't discovered it already, you might find cairo-xlib-utils (which I wrote) useful: http://mxr.mozilla.org/seamonkey/source/gfx/thebes/src/cairo-xlib-utils.h http://mxr.mozilla.org/seamonkey/source/gfx/thebes/src/cairo-xlib-utils.c Basically it lets you take code that expects an X drawable to draw it into, and makes it draw into an arbitrary cairo_t in an arbitrary state. It uses a temporary X pixmap if necessary. When the widget might draw partly transparent, it has to use two temporary pixmaps and do some calculation to recover the alpha values :-(. That's obviously a horrible hack (although corralled inside a decent API IMHO) so... -- given that a lot of GTK themes actually use cairo to draw these days, have you talked to anyone about having GTK expose an API so we can just pass a cairo_t into a version of equivalent of gtk_paint_box etc? There are other things we could talk about, like plugin handling, and the 16-bit-coordinate overflow problem in really tall overflow:auto elements. And if there's anything you want to ask me, feel free. Comments in your blog might not be the best venue though. alp, that’s awesome. Glad to hear it!

A few more questions, if I may:

– how are you handling combobox dropdowns? Are you instantiating a real widget there?

– how are you handling widget rotation and other transformations? and printing widgets to PDF etc? If you haven’t discovered it already, you might find cairo-xlib-utils (which I wrote) useful:
http://mxr.mozilla.org/seamonkey/source/gfx/thebes/src/cairo-xlib-utils.h
http://mxr.mozilla.org/seamonkey/source/gfx/thebes/src/cairo-xlib-utils.c
Basically it lets you take code that expects an X drawable to draw it into, and makes it draw into an arbitrary cairo_t in an arbitrary state. It uses a temporary X pixmap if necessary. When the widget might draw partly transparent, it has to use two temporary pixmaps and do some calculation to recover the alpha values :-(. That’s obviously a horrible hack (although corralled inside a decent API IMHO) so…

– given that a lot of GTK themes actually use cairo to draw these days, have you talked to anyone about having GTK expose an API so we can just pass a cairo_t into a version of equivalent of gtk_paint_box etc?

There are other things we could talk about, like plugin handling, and the 16-bit-coordinate overflow problem in really tall overflow:auto elements. And if there’s anything you want to ask me, feel free. Comments in your blog might not be the best venue though.

]]> By: alp http://www.atoker.com/blog/2007/10/29/gtk-matters/#comment-1313 alp Mon, 29 Oct 2007 20:19:18 +0000 http://www.atoker.com/blog/2007/10/29/gtk-matters/#comment-1313 Robert: There is still some widget instantiation in a few corner cases, but that isn't unique to WebKit. We call gtk_paint_* for nearly all native themed widgets right now, and we are moving towards direct re-use of gtk2drawing.cpp from the Mozilla code-base. The authors of gtk2drawing.cpp have put effort into keeping their code portable and independent of the rest of Mozilla, which is much appreciated. gtk2drawing.cpp handles a lot of quirks that we don't want to have to go through the process of re-discovering and I'm looking forward to sharing this work and contributing back to Mozilla as we make fixes or when the GTK+ style API is improved. Robert: There is still some widget instantiation in a few corner cases, but that isn’t unique to WebKit. We call gtk_paint_* for nearly all native themed widgets right now, and we are moving towards direct re-use of gtk2drawing.cpp from the Mozilla code-base.

The authors of gtk2drawing.cpp have put effort into keeping their code portable and independent of the rest of Mozilla, which is much appreciated.

gtk2drawing.cpp handles a lot of quirks that we don’t want to have to go through the process of re-discovering and I’m looking forward to sharing this work and contributing back to Mozilla as we make fixes or when the GTK+ style API is improved.

]]> By: Robert O'Callahan http://www.atoker.com/blog/2007/10/29/gtk-matters/#comment-1312 Robert O'Callahan Mon, 29 Oct 2007 19:02:55 +0000 http://www.atoker.com/blog/2007/10/29/gtk-matters/#comment-1312 alp, I never meant to question the validity of your work. "Webkit is a good engine and getting it running in GNOME is a good thing", like I said. Can we forget that stuff and discuss how you're doing the GTK styling? Are you instantiating one real GTK widget per HTML element and letting them paint themselves, or are you doing something more like what we do and calling gtk_paint_box etc? alp, I never meant to question the validity of your work. “Webkit is a good engine and getting it running in GNOME is a good thing”, like I said.

Can we forget that stuff and discuss how you’re doing the GTK styling? Are you instantiating one real GTK widget per HTML element and letting them paint themselves, or are you doing something more like what we do and calling gtk_paint_box etc?

]]> By: Karl Lattimer http://www.atoker.com/blog/2007/10/29/gtk-matters/#comment-1310 Karl Lattimer Mon, 29 Oct 2007 14:05:26 +0000 http://www.atoker.com/blog/2007/10/29/gtk-matters/#comment-1310 /me is happy to evangelize webkit/GTK+ on behalf of the project :) just email me with a list of evangelizing topics and I'll be happy to spread the love, word and plain brilliance :) /me is happy to evangelize webkit/GTK+ on behalf of the project :)

just email me with a list of evangelizing topics and I’ll be happy to spread the love, word and plain brilliance :)

]]> By: Ulrik http://www.atoker.com/blog/2007/10/29/gtk-matters/#comment-1309 Ulrik Mon, 29 Oct 2007 13:14:14 +0000 http://www.atoker.com/blog/2007/10/29/gtk-matters/#comment-1309 I really don't want to add any Schadenfreude, but I'm thrilled about this: I think WebKit/Gtk+ does a Tour de Force because of what it is: A reusable easy-hackable featureful free-software library (aka "piece of code"), simply attracting attention for what it is and how well that model corresponds to how "pieces of code" on free systems are used and shared. People from all over simply realize they can use it too. This is the monolithic mozilla vs lighter firefox comparison again: this time we need something truly library-like. The web is bigger than just the web browser and in some years Firefox will have adapted or been marginalized. I really don’t want to add any Schadenfreude, but I’m thrilled about this: I think WebKit/Gtk+ does a Tour de Force because of what it is: A reusable easy-hackable featureful free-software library (aka “piece of code”), simply attracting attention for what it is and how well that model corresponds to how “pieces of code” on free systems are used and shared. People from all over simply realize they can use it too.

This is the monolithic mozilla vs lighter firefox comparison again: this time we need something truly library-like. The web is bigger than just the web browser and in some years Firefox will have adapted or been marginalized.

]]> By: Eagle Eyes http://www.atoker.com/blog/2007/10/29/gtk-matters/#comment-1308 Eagle Eyes Mon, 29 Oct 2007 12:47:09 +0000 http://www.atoker.com/blog/2007/10/29/gtk-matters/#comment-1308 “Apple with too much power over the free desktop...” -- Mozilla developer, typing into Firefox on his Mac Book Pro “Apple with too much power over the free desktop…”

– Mozilla developer, typing into Firefox on his Mac Book Pro

]]> By: alp http://www.atoker.com/blog/2007/10/29/gtk-matters/#comment-1307 alp Mon, 29 Oct 2007 12:46:34 +0000 http://www.atoker.com/blog/2007/10/29/gtk-matters/#comment-1307 Chris: You're quite right. To some extent I think our hands are tied with what we can do given the apparent mismatch between the scrolling models of HTML controls and GTK+ widgets, but there is certainly some room for improvement here. Chris: You’re quite right. To some extent I think our hands are tied with what we can do given the apparent mismatch between the scrolling models of HTML controls and GTK+ widgets, but there is certainly some room for improvement here.

]]> By: Alessandro http://www.atoker.com/blog/2007/10/29/gtk-matters/#comment-1306 Alessandro Mon, 29 Oct 2007 11:50:49 +0000 http://www.atoker.com/blog/2007/10/29/gtk-matters/#comment-1306 I really really appreciate your work, go on, you're defenitely on the right path! :-) I really really appreciate your work, go on, you’re defenitely on the right path! :-)

]]> By: monk-fan http://www.atoker.com/blog/2007/10/29/gtk-matters/#comment-1305 monk-fan Mon, 29 Oct 2007 11:48:36 +0000 http://www.atoker.com/blog/2007/10/29/gtk-matters/#comment-1305 > Give it a few months I'll give you time till 2.22 ;) seriously, this is really cool :) hope to get that soon on my desktop > Give it a few months

I’ll give you time till 2.22 ;)

seriously, this is really cool :) hope to get that soon on my desktop

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