4 This is GTK+ version 2.16.0. GTK+ is a multi-platform toolkit for
5 creating graphical user interfaces. Offering a complete set of widgets,
6 GTK+ is suitable for projects ranging from small one-off projects to
7 complete application suites.
9 GTK+ is free software and part of the GNU Project. However, the
10 licensing terms for GTK+, the GNU LGPL, allow it to be used by all
11 developers, including those developing proprietary software, without any
12 license fees or royalties.
14 The official ftp site is:
15 ftp://ftp.gtk.org/pub/gtk
17 The official web site is:
20 Information about mailing lists can be found at
21 http://www.gtk.org/mailinglists.html
27 See the file 'INSTALL'
30 Release notes for 2.14
31 ======================
33 * gtkitemfactory.h is now completely deprecated.
34 As gtkactiongroup.h and gtkstock.h no longer include the gtkitemfactory.h
35 header, this might break application using gtk_item_factory_* symbols
36 without including gtkitemfactory.h - even though this behaviour has never
37 been supported in the first place.
39 * The GtkFileSystem semi-private interface has been removed.
40 The GTK+ filechooser implementation now uses GIO directly, which has
41 rendered external filesystem implementations unnecessary. Consequently,
42 the GtkFileSystem interface is no longer available, nor the filechooser
43 will load any GtkFileSystem implementation.
45 * GtkComboBox now renders the popdown button insensitive when
46 the model is empty. Applications which want to populate the list
47 only before displaying it can set gtk_combo_box_set_button_sensitivity
48 to GTK_SENSITIVITY_ON, so that the button is always sensitive or
49 GTK_SENSITIVITY_OFF to make it insensitive respectively.
51 * GtkAdjustment now enforces that values are restricted to the
52 range [lower, upper - page_size]. This has always been the documented
53 behaviour, and the recommended practice is to set page_size to 0
54 when using adjustments for simple scalar values, like in a slider
57 * gdk-pixbuf will use GIO for mime type detection if possible. For
58 this to work, shared-mime-info needs to be installed and XDG_DATA_DIRS
59 set accordingly at configure time. Otherwise, gdk-pixbuf falls
60 back to its built-in sniffing implementation.
62 Release notes for 2.12
63 ======================
65 * gtk_about_dialog_get/set_name() were deprecated in favour of
66 gtk_about_dialog_get/set_program_name(), the GtkAboutDialog now uses the
67 "program-name" property instead of the conflicting "name" property.
69 * The gdk-pixbuf tiff loader now requires libtiff 3.6.0 or later.
71 * Support for Windows 9x/ME has officially been removed. It hasn't worked
74 * The GtkTextBufferTargetInfo enumeration values have been changed from
75 G_MAXUINT-0, G_MAXUINT-1, G_MAXUINT-2, etc, to -1, -2, -3 to stay within
78 * A change in the handling of _NET_WM_USER_TIME properties on toplevel
79 windows can cause deadlock problems with window managers that are using
80 GDK for drawing decorations. In particular, metacity <= 2.18.0 is affected
81 by this. The problem has been fixed in metacity 2.18.1.
83 * Semi-private GtkTextLayout api has changed: new GtkTextLayout method
84 invalidate_cursors(), and new functions gtk_text_layout_invalidate_cursors()
85 and gtk_text_layout_cursors_changed(), which should be used in place of
86 gtk_text_layout_invalidate() and gtk_text_layout_changed() if invalidation
87 is due to marks moved or changed selection; new GtkTextLineDisplay structure
88 member. Source compatibility is preserved; binary compatibility may break
89 only if GtkTextLineDisplay structure was created on stack or as a part
90 of another structure (in particular GnomeCanvas and its clones do not need
93 * Another new signal has been added to GtkNotebook. The new signal
94 is called create-window, so this name can no longer be used for signals
95 in objects derived from GtkNotebook.
97 * The gtk_notebook_set/get_group_id() functions were found to be insufficient
98 and have been deprecated in favour of gtk_notebook_set/get_group().
100 * The move-focus signal has been moved to GtkWidget, to unify the
101 various implementations of this signal in specific widgets. Great care
102 has been taken to make sure that all code using this signal continues
105 * An unused and hardly visible GtkFrame has been removed from the menu
106 widget hierarchy when GtkComboBox::appears-as-list style property is
107 set. Any RC file applying a different style to any widget below the
108 widget path "gtk-combobox-popup-window.GtkFrame" should take into
109 account that the frame no longer exists.
111 * The external print preview application used by GtkPrintOperationPreview
112 is now passed the print settings on the command line with the
113 --print-settings parameter pointing to a temp file containing the
114 settings. The preview application assumes ownership of the file and
115 should delete it once it does not need it anymore. The --print-settings
116 commandline option is understood by Evince 0.9.0 and newer. To use a
117 different print preview application, change the gtk-print-preview-command
118 setting in your gtkrc file, e.g. gtk-print-preview-command = "ggv %f"
120 * GtkMenuShell is now defined as an abstract type. It was already
121 documented as an abstract class, and there is little reason to
124 * The GtkTooltips struct (this is the old tooltips API) is now considered
125 private. Code that used to access this struct, in particular the
126 tips_data_list field, will need to change. All of the old tooltips
127 API has been deprecated in favour of a new implementation and
128 API. This affects all of the gtk_tooltips_ functions, and functions
129 which take a GtkTooltips argument, such as gtk_tool_item_set_tooltip()
130 and gtk_menu_tool_button_set_arrow_tooltip().
132 * The memory management of the GtkRecentManager object has been changed,
133 as using the screen didn't guarantee that the singleton instance was
134 correctly destroyed. The screen-related functions have been deprecated,
135 and should not be used anymore; the GtkRecentManager instance returned by
136 the gtk_recent_manager_get_default() function is guaranteed to be valid
137 for the entire lifetime of an application.
139 * A number of interfaces that have been superseded by newer interfaces for
140 a long time have finally been deprecated. This includes
141 gtk_widget_ref/unref(), gtk_rc_style_ref/unref() and the old file selector.
143 * The various coordinate systems in use in GtkTreeView widgets have
144 been clarified in the documentation, and in the cause of doing so,
145 the functions gtk_tree_view_widget_to_tree_coords() and
146 gtk_tree_view_tree_to_widget_coords() have been deprecated in
147 favour of a new family of gtk_tree_view_convert_ functions.
149 * gtk_menu_item_remove_submenu() has been deprecated in favour of
150 gtk_menu_item_set_submenu (..., NULL).
152 * gtk_default_draw_check() has been fixed to really decrease the
153 indicator size by one pixel to ensure an odd size instead of
154 accidentially increasing it.
155 Consequently, gtk_cell_renderer_toggle_render() could be fixed to
156 not subtract 1 from the size passed to gtk_paint_option(), which
157 was just a workaround for above off-by-two for even sizes (theme
158 engines now get the real indicator size passed).
159 The default toggle size of GtkCheckMenuItem and GtkCellRendererToggle
160 has been changed to 13 to be consistent with GtkCheckButton.
161 The only visible change with default settings is that the indicator in
162 GtkCellRendererToggle has changed its size from 11 to 13 and is now
163 consistent with menus and toggle buttons.
165 * GTK+ has always required that gtk_init() (or a variant thereof) is
166 called before any other GTK+ function. Some applications call functions
167 like gtk_clipboard_get() to check if they need to call gtk_init(),
168 anyway. A change in GLib 2.14 has recently broken this unsupported
169 practise. It is worth pointing out that calling gtk_init() twice
173 Release notes for 2.10
174 ======================
176 * The hexadecimal Unicode input feature has been reworked. It no longer
177 blocks the use of the sixteen Ctrl-Shift-<hex digit> key sequences. Now
178 it only uses Ctrl-Shift-u.
180 * A memory leak in GtkStyle handling has been fixed. This may expose bugs
181 in third-party widgets which forget to call gtk_style_attach() in their
184 * Range widgets like GtkScrollbar now render their arrows insensitive
185 when the slider is at the end. Applications which react to arrow
186 clicks even if the slider is at the end may want to use the new
187 gtk_range_set_[upper/lower]_stepper_sensitivity() functions to
188 prevent the arrows from being rendered insensitive.
190 * GtkObject now uses the "floating reference" support in GObject.
191 GTK_OBJECT_IS_FLOATING() will still work, but direct checking
192 of the GTK_FLOATING flag will no longer detect the floating
193 reference. Details about floating references can be found in the docs:
194 http://developer.gnome.org/doc/API/2.0/gobject/gobject-The-Base-Object-Type.html#floating-ref
196 * Accelerators like (_F) are now stripped from labels when they are
197 displayed in toolbars. If this is not wanted, the feature can be
198 suppressed by inserting a Unicode control character, e.g ZWNJ.
200 * The pixbuf theme engine can now customize expanders (in GtkTreeView
201 and GtkExpander) and resize grips, using the new EXPANDER and
202 RESIZE_GRIP function values.
204 * Dialogs created by gtk_about_dialog_new() no longer hide automatically
205 when the user clicks close. It is the applications responsibility to
206 hide or destroy the dialog.
208 * Several new signals have been added to GtkNotebook. Care has been taken
209 to choose signal names which do not collide with signals added by well-known
210 derived classes. The names which can no longer be used for signals in
211 objects derived from GtkNotebook are page-reordered, page-removed and
214 * Due to the interface changes in the file chooser backend interface,
215 the GTK+ ABI version has been bumped to 2.10.0. Third-party filesystem
216 backends have to be ported to the new interface, other modules, such as
217 theme engines, input method modules or pixbuf loaders have to be rebuilt
218 so that they are installed in the right place for GTK+ to find them.
221 Release notes for 2.8
222 =====================
224 * GTK+ 2.8 and Pango 1.10 require the cairo library.
226 * The default theme has been renamed to "Raleigh". Existing configurations
227 specifying the "Default" theme name should still work.
229 * The GtkTreeView::enable-search property has been changed to control
230 only typeahead search, not the C-f keybinding to start an interactive
231 search. To turn off interactive searching completely, you have to
232 set GtkTreeView::search-column to -1.
234 * The restriction on using the same cell renderer in multiple columns
235 of a GtkTreeView is now more strictly enforced.
237 * In GTK+ 2.8, GtkCalendar uses nl_langinfo() (if available) to determine
238 the first day of the week. Thus, it is possible to select the first day
239 of the week independently from the language, by setting LC_TIME.
241 * In GTK+ 2.8, the gtk-update-icon-cache utility includes image data
242 in the icon caches, which will make the icon cache files larger than
243 the one produced by GTK+ 2.6. This change will reduce the memory
244 overhead of icon themes at runtime, since all GTK+ applications can
245 share the image data in memory.
247 * In 2.8, GDK emits GdkEventGrabBroken events when a keyboard or pointer
248 grab is broken. On X11, this can happen if the same application grabs
249 again, or if the window used for the grab becomes unviewable. It happens
250 more often on Win32. Applications which use grabs should pay attention
251 to these events and do the necessary cleanups when the grab is lost.
252 * The GIOChannel code for sockets on win32 has been rewritten.
253 Applications who make non-trivial use of GIOChannels on win32 should
254 be watched for possible problems.
256 * GLib 2.8 uses atomic operations to implement reference counting, thus
257 g_object_ref/unref, g_closure_ref/sink/unref and g_iochannel_ref/unref
258 can be used without locking in multithreaded applications. Note that
259 other modifications, like concurrent setting of properties still require
262 * g_convert() and related character set conversion functions have been
263 fixed to emit pending shift states and to not cache iconv descriptors
264 across multiple calls, since that is problematic for some encodings.
265 Note that these functions are not suitable for streaming conversions;
266 use g_iconv() to do streaming conversion.
269 Release notes for 2.6
270 =====================
272 * GTK+ 2.6 supports clipboard persistency. To make use of this feature,
273 a clipboard manager following the specification at
274 http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Standards/clipboard-manager-spec
275 must be running. A sample implementation of such a clipboard manager
277 http://people.imendio.com/andersca/archives/clipboard-manager-0.3.tar.gz
278 Applications can use the function gdk_display_supports_clipboard_persistence()
279 to find out if clipboard persistence is available.
281 * Notification on clipboard ownership changes via GdkOwnerChange events
282 requires the XFIXES X extension. Applications can use the function
283 gdk_display_supports_selection_notification() to find out if ownerchip
284 change notification is available.
286 * The icon theme code in GTK+ 2.6 follows the freedesktop.org icon theme
287 specification. Setting the XDG_DATA_DIRS environtment variable may be
288 necessary if your icons aren't installed in the default location
291 * The icon theme code in GTK+ 2.6 can make use of mmap()able cache files
292 to avoid a lot of disk searching overhead. GTK+ includes a utility named
293 gtk-update-icon-cache to generate these cache files. For further details,
294 see the gtk-update-icon-cache man page or the GTK+ documentation.
296 * To reduce code size and improve efficiency, GTK+, when compiled
297 with the GNU toolchain, has separate internal and external entry
298 points for exported functions. The internal names, which begin with
299 IA__, may be seen when debugging a GTK+ program.
301 * The following functions have been deprecated in GTK+ 2.6:
302 gdk_pango_context_set_colormap
303 gtk_cell_renderer_editing_canceled
305 * The new GtkFileChooser widget emphasizes simplicity and thus does
306 not provide a navigation entry by default when opening files.
307 Experienced command line users will likely want to make heavy use of
308 the location dialog brought up by the Control-L key shortcut.
310 * The GTK+ libraries use an '_' prefix to indicate private symbols that
311 must not be used by applications. On some platforms, symbols beginning
312 with prefixes such as _gtk, _gdk, and _pango will be exported
313 from the library, on others not. In no case can applications
314 use these private symbols. In addition to that, GTK+ 2.6 makes several
315 symbols private which were not in any installed header files and
316 were never intended to be exported.
318 * The gdk_pixbuf_xlib library included in the contrib/ directory
319 and the framebuffer GDK backend included in the gdk/linux-fb directory
320 of GTK+ are provided on an as-is basis and have not been tested at all.
321 No guarantees about the degree of workingness or about future
322 compatibility are provided.
324 * On Unix, the assumption of GLib and GTK+ by default is that filenames on
325 the filesystem are encoded in UTF-8 rather than the encoding of the locale;
326 the GTK+ developers consider that having filenames whose interpretation
327 depends on the current locale is fundamentally a bad idea.
329 If you have filenames encoded in the encoding of your locale, then you
330 may want to set the G_FILENAME_ENCODING environment variable:
332 G_FILENAME_ENCODING=@locale
333 export G_FILENAME_ENCODING
335 (Earlier versions of GLib 2.x required a different environment variable
336 setting; G_BROKEN_FILENAMES=1 to achieve the same effect; this
337 is still supported, but G_FILENAME_ENCODING is preferred.)
338 Best integration of GTK+ 2.6 with the environment is achieved by
339 using a UTF-8 locale.
341 On Windows, filenames passed to GTK+ should always be in UTF-8, as
342 in GLib 2.6. This is different than in previous versions of GTK+
343 where the system codepage was used. As in GLib, for DLL ABI
344 stability, applications built against previous versions of GTK+ will
345 use entry points providing the old semantics.
347 When compiling against GTK+ 2.6, applications intended to be
348 portable to Windows must take the UTF-8 file name encoding into
349 consideration, and use the gstdio wrappers to access files whose
350 names have been constructed from strings returned from GTK+ or GLib.
356 Bugs should be reported to the GNOME bug tracking system.
357 (http://bugzilla.gnome.org, product gtk+.) You will need to create an
358 account for yourself.
360 In the bug report please include:
362 * Information about your system. For instance:
364 - What operating system and version
366 - For Linux, what version of the C library
368 And anything else you think is relevant.
370 * How to reproduce the bug.
372 If you can reproduce it with one of the tests or demos built with GTK+,
373 such as demos/gtk-demo/gtk-demo, that would be most convenient. Otherwise,
374 please include a short test program that exhibits the behavior. As a
375 last resort, you can also provide a pointer to a larger piece of software
376 that can be downloaded.
378 * If the bug was a crash, the exact text that was printed out when the
381 * Further information such as stack traces may be useful, but is not
382 necessary. If you do send a stack trace, and the error is an X error,
383 it will be more useful if the stacktrace is produced running the test
384 program with the --sync command line option.
390 Patches should also be submitted to bugzilla.gnome.org. If the patch
391 fixes an existing bug, add the patch as an attachment to that bug
394 Otherwise, enter a new bug report that describes the patch, and attach
395 the patch to that bug report.
397 Bug reports containing patches should include the PATCH keyword in their
398 keyword fields. If the patch adds to or changes the GTK+ programming
399 interface, the API keyword should also be included.
401 Patches should be in unified diff form. (The -u option to GNU diff.)