[Texmacs-dev] Fw: about GTK portability to windows !!!

[Pablo Ruiz Múzquiz]

Hello all.

As I see you are considering different GUI widgets for TeXmacs, I decided to 
ask Catherine Allen who was already used GTK for a cross-platform application 
(sort of telnet client used to connect to MUD servers with many addons, Papaya 
-> http://www.gtk-papaya.org).

Here is her answer, I hope you find it useful.

Best regards,

Pablo Ruiz Múzquiz
alqua.com | elenya.net

PS: Thank you, Catherine!
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Begin forwarded message:

Date: Tue, 30 Jul 2002 12:36:20 +0100 (BST)
From: Catherine Allen <address@hidden>
To: Pablo Ruiz Múzquiz <address@hidden>
Subject: Re: about GTK portability to windows

On Tue, 30 Jul 2002, Pablo Ruiz Múzquiz wrote:

> Could you please write a brief text (25 lines, not more needed) about
> the portability issues regarding GTK (GTK 2.0)?

A few more than 25 here - it's hard to be that concise. :)

> The text should be focused on Menu problems, Advantages and
> disadvantages of using GTK in windows and if there are any unsolved
> stuff that you consider critical.

The main advantage for using GTK for me is that my application will run on 
any POSIX 1.0 compliant platform that the GTK has been ported to.  The GTK 
also provides some basic functionality, such as linked lists.  Again this 
functionality works on all platforms that GTK works on.  It is important, 
however, to make sure that any non-GTK functions called (C library etc) 
are available on all intended platforms.

There are some minor problems with GTK on Windows.  Firstly the GUI
doesn't look quite what people expect: the widgets look a bit different.  
Fortunately most users aren't bothered by this.  Secondly, in GTK 2.0.0
fonts were an issue - the default font size in Windows XP was so tiny it
was illegible, yet on other versions of Windows it was perfectly sized.  
This may have been fixed in GTK 2.0.3, which is the latest available for
Windows.  I haven't had chance to test this yet.

The other problems are that GTK 2.0 needs more than just the DLLs to
function properly in a client program.  Without some auxilliary files
pixmaps and fonts won't render. Your users will either need to install GTK
2.0 properly, or you will need to provide these files in addition to the
DLLs in your distribution.  If you want to know which files these are,
check the Papaya win32 distribution.  (http://www.gtk-papaya.org/)

GTK apps will build happily in VC++ (5.0 and 6.0) and also under 
gcc/cygwin.  However, my GTK application won't execute when built under 
gcc/cygwin on Windows XP.  I suspect this is related to similar bugs 
reported by other users on the cygwin mailing lists.

I haven't noticed any particular issues relating to menus on any platform
using GTK.  All platforms behave consistently.  One thing that needs to be
watched is the translations.  GTK (pango) expects to have its strings in
UTF8 format and gets very upset when they are not - to the extent that it 
only displays the first bit of the string up until an invalid character is 
seen.  It's important to make sure that the translated files are in UTF8 - 
you can use iconv to convert from one encoding to another.

Overall, using GTK on Windows is a viable option if the aim is to have a 
cross platform program.  I'd think twice about using GTK on Windows if 
Windows was the only platform the program would work on due to the tedium 
of setting up the compilation environment and the difficulties of 
distributing the required elements to end users.

Cath
-- 
address@hidden
http://www.lancs.ac.uk/~allenc/