4 This is GTK+ version 2.14.2. 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'
29 Release notes for 2.16
30 ======================
31 * The attributes set with gtk_label_set_attributes will now be applied
32 and merged with any other attributes previously effected by way
33 of the GtkLabel:use-underline or GtkLabel:use-markup properties.
34 While it is not recommended to mix markup strings with manually set
35 attributes, if you must; know that the attributes will be applied
36 to the label after the markup string is parsed.
38 Release notes for 2.14
39 ======================
41 * gtkitemfactory.h is now completely deprecated.
42 As gtkactiongroup.h and gtkstock.h no longer include the gtkitemfactory.h
43 header, this might break application using gtk_item_factory_* symbols
44 without including gtkitemfactory.h - even though this behaviour has never
45 been supported in the first place.
47 * The GtkFileSystem semi-private interface has been removed.
48 The GTK+ filechooser implementation now uses GIO directly, which has
49 rendered external filesystem implementations unnecessary. Consequently,
50 the GtkFileSystem interface is no longer available, nor the filechooser
51 will load any GtkFileSystem implementation.
53 * GtkComboBox now renders the popdown button insensitive when
54 the model is empty. Applications which want to populate the list
55 only before displaying it can set gtk_combo_box_set_button_sensitivity
56 to GTK_SENSITIVITY_ON, so that the button is always sensitive or
57 GTK_SENSITIVITY_OFF to make it insensitive respectively.
59 * GtkAdjustment now enforces that values are restricted to the
60 range [lower, upper - page_size]. This has always been the documented
61 behaviour, and the recommended practice is to set page_size to 0
62 when using adjustments for simple scalar values, like in a slider
65 * gdk-pixbuf will use GIO for mime type detection if possible. For
66 this to work, shared-mime-info needs to be installed and XDG_DATA_DIRS
67 set accordingly at configure time. Otherwise, gdk-pixbuf falls
68 back to its built-in sniffing implementation.
70 Release notes for 2.12
71 ======================
73 * gtk_about_dialog_get/set_name() were deprecated in favour of
74 gtk_about_dialog_get/set_program_name(), the GtkAboutDialog now uses the
75 "program-name" property instead of the conflicting "name" property.
77 * The gdk-pixbuf tiff loader now requires libtiff 3.6.0 or later.
79 * Support for Windows 9x/ME has officially been removed. It hasn't worked
82 * The GtkTextBufferTargetInfo enumeration values have been changed from
83 G_MAXUINT-0, G_MAXUINT-1, G_MAXUINT-2, etc, to -1, -2, -3 to stay within
86 * A change in the handling of _NET_WM_USER_TIME properties on toplevel
87 windows can cause deadlock problems with window managers that are using
88 GDK for drawing decorations. In particular, metacity <= 2.18.0 is affected
89 by this. The problem has been fixed in metacity 2.18.1.
91 * Semi-private GtkTextLayout api has changed: new GtkTextLayout method
92 invalidate_cursors(), and new functions gtk_text_layout_invalidate_cursors()
93 and gtk_text_layout_cursors_changed(), which should be used in place of
94 gtk_text_layout_invalidate() and gtk_text_layout_changed() if invalidation
95 is due to marks moved or changed selection; new GtkTextLineDisplay structure
96 member. Source compatibility is preserved; binary compatibility may break
97 only if GtkTextLineDisplay structure was created on stack or as a part
98 of another structure (in particular GnomeCanvas and its clones do not need
101 * Another new signal has been added to GtkNotebook. The new signal
102 is called create-window, so this name can no longer be used for signals
103 in objects derived from GtkNotebook.
105 * The gtk_notebook_set/get_group_id() functions were found to be insufficient
106 and have been deprecated in favour of gtk_notebook_set/get_group().
108 * The move-focus signal has been moved to GtkWidget, to unify the
109 various implementations of this signal in specific widgets. Great care
110 has been taken to make sure that all code using this signal continues
113 * An unused and hardly visible GtkFrame has been removed from the menu
114 widget hierarchy when GtkComboBox::appears-as-list style property is
115 set. Any RC file applying a different style to any widget below the
116 widget path "gtk-combobox-popup-window.GtkFrame" should take into
117 account that the frame no longer exists.
119 * The external print preview application used by GtkPrintOperationPreview
120 is now passed the print settings on the command line with the
121 --print-settings parameter pointing to a temp file containing the
122 settings. The preview application assumes ownership of the file and
123 should delete it once it does not need it anymore. The --print-settings
124 commandline option is understood by Evince 0.9.0 and newer. To use a
125 different print preview application, change the gtk-print-preview-command
126 setting in your gtkrc file, e.g. gtk-print-preview-command = "ggv %f"
128 * GtkMenuShell is now defined as an abstract type. It was already
129 documented as an abstract class, and there is little reason to
132 * The GtkTooltips struct (this is the old tooltips API) is now considered
133 private. Code that used to access this struct, in particular the
134 tips_data_list field, will need to change. All of the old tooltips
135 API has been deprecated in favour of a new implementation and
136 API. This affects all of the gtk_tooltips_ functions, and functions
137 which take a GtkTooltips argument, such as gtk_tool_item_set_tooltip()
138 and gtk_menu_tool_button_set_arrow_tooltip().
140 * The memory management of the GtkRecentManager object has been changed,
141 as using the screen didn't guarantee that the singleton instance was
142 correctly destroyed. The screen-related functions have been deprecated,
143 and should not be used anymore; the GtkRecentManager instance returned by
144 the gtk_recent_manager_get_default() function is guaranteed to be valid
145 for the entire lifetime of an application.
147 * A number of interfaces that have been superseded by newer interfaces for
148 a long time have finally been deprecated. This includes
149 gtk_widget_ref/unref(), gtk_rc_style_ref/unref() and the old file selector.
151 * The various coordinate systems in use in GtkTreeView widgets have
152 been clarified in the documentation, and in the cause of doing so,
153 the functions gtk_tree_view_widget_to_tree_coords() and
154 gtk_tree_view_tree_to_widget_coords() have been deprecated in
155 favour of a new family of gtk_tree_view_convert_ functions.
157 * gtk_menu_item_remove_submenu() has been deprecated in favour of
158 gtk_menu_item_set_submenu (..., NULL).
160 * gtk_default_draw_check() has been fixed to really decrease the
161 indicator size by one pixel to ensure an odd size instead of
162 accidentially increasing it.
163 Consequently, gtk_cell_renderer_toggle_render() could be fixed to
164 not subtract 1 from the size passed to gtk_paint_option(), which
165 was just a workaround for above off-by-two for even sizes (theme
166 engines now get the real indicator size passed).
167 The default toggle size of GtkCheckMenuItem and GtkCellRendererToggle
168 has been changed to 13 to be consistent with GtkCheckButton.
169 The only visible change with default settings is that the indicator in
170 GtkCellRendererToggle has changed its size from 11 to 13 and is now
171 consistent with menus and toggle buttons.
173 * GTK+ has always required that gtk_init() (or a variant thereof) is
174 called before any other GTK+ function. Some applications call functions
175 like gtk_clipboard_get() to check if they need to call gtk_init(),
176 anyway. A change in GLib 2.14 has recently broken this unsupported
177 practise. It is worth pointing out that calling gtk_init() twice
181 Release notes for 2.10
182 ======================
184 * The hexadecimal Unicode input feature has been reworked. It no longer
185 blocks the use of the sixteen Ctrl-Shift-<hex digit> key sequences. Now
186 it only uses Ctrl-Shift-u.
188 * A memory leak in GtkStyle handling has been fixed. This may expose bugs
189 in third-party widgets which forget to call gtk_style_attach() in their
192 * Range widgets like GtkScrollbar now render their arrows insensitive
193 when the slider is at the end. Applications which react to arrow
194 clicks even if the slider is at the end may want to use the new
195 gtk_range_set_[upper/lower]_stepper_sensitivity() functions to
196 prevent the arrows from being rendered insensitive.
198 * GtkObject now uses the "floating reference" support in GObject.
199 GTK_OBJECT_IS_FLOATING() will still work, but direct checking
200 of the GTK_FLOATING flag will no longer detect the floating
201 reference. Details about floating references can be found in the docs:
202 http://developer.gnome.org/doc/API/2.0/gobject/gobject-The-Base-Object-Type.html#floating-ref
204 * Accelerators like (_F) are now stripped from labels when they are
205 displayed in toolbars. If this is not wanted, the feature can be
206 suppressed by inserting a Unicode control character, e.g ZWNJ.
208 * The pixbuf theme engine can now customize expanders (in GtkTreeView
209 and GtkExpander) and resize grips, using the new EXPANDER and
210 RESIZE_GRIP function values.
212 * Dialogs created by gtk_about_dialog_new() no longer hide automatically
213 when the user clicks close. It is the applications responsibility to
214 hide or destroy the dialog.
216 * Several new signals have been added to GtkNotebook. Care has been taken
217 to choose signal names which do not collide with signals added by well-known
218 derived classes. The names which can no longer be used for signals in
219 objects derived from GtkNotebook are page-reordered, page-removed and
222 * Due to the interface changes in the file chooser backend interface,
223 the GTK+ ABI version has been bumped to 2.10.0. Third-party filesystem
224 backends have to be ported to the new interface, other modules, such as
225 theme engines, input method modules or pixbuf loaders have to be rebuilt
226 so that they are installed in the right place for GTK+ to find them.
229 Release notes for 2.8
230 =====================
232 * GTK+ 2.8 and Pango 1.10 require the cairo library.
234 * The default theme has been renamed to "Raleigh". Existing configurations
235 specifying the "Default" theme name should still work.
237 * The GtkTreeView::enable-search property has been changed to control
238 only typeahead search, not the C-f keybinding to start an interactive
239 search. To turn off interactive searching completely, you have to
240 set GtkTreeView::search-column to -1.
242 * The restriction on using the same cell renderer in multiple columns
243 of a GtkTreeView is now more strictly enforced.
245 * In GTK+ 2.8, GtkCalendar uses nl_langinfo() (if available) to determine
246 the first day of the week. Thus, it is possible to select the first day
247 of the week independently from the language, by setting LC_TIME.
249 * In GTK+ 2.8, the gtk-update-icon-cache utility includes image data
250 in the icon caches, which will make the icon cache files larger than
251 the one produced by GTK+ 2.6. This change will reduce the memory
252 overhead of icon themes at runtime, since all GTK+ applications can
253 share the image data in memory.
255 * In 2.8, GDK emits GdkEventGrabBroken events when a keyboard or pointer
256 grab is broken. On X11, this can happen if the same application grabs
257 again, or if the window used for the grab becomes unviewable. It happens
258 more often on Win32. Applications which use grabs should pay attention
259 to these events and do the necessary cleanups when the grab is lost.
260 * The GIOChannel code for sockets on win32 has been rewritten.
261 Applications who make non-trivial use of GIOChannels on win32 should
262 be watched for possible problems.
264 * GLib 2.8 uses atomic operations to implement reference counting, thus
265 g_object_ref/unref, g_closure_ref/sink/unref and g_iochannel_ref/unref
266 can be used without locking in multithreaded applications. Note that
267 other modifications, like concurrent setting of properties still require
270 * g_convert() and related character set conversion functions have been
271 fixed to emit pending shift states and to not cache iconv descriptors
272 across multiple calls, since that is problematic for some encodings.
273 Note that these functions are not suitable for streaming conversions;
274 use g_iconv() to do streaming conversion.
277 Release notes for 2.6
278 =====================
280 * GTK+ 2.6 supports clipboard persistency. To make use of this feature,
281 a clipboard manager following the specification at
282 http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Standards/clipboard-manager-spec
283 must be running. A sample implementation of such a clipboard manager
285 http://people.imendio.com/andersca/archives/clipboard-manager-0.3.tar.gz
286 Applications can use the function gdk_display_supports_clipboard_persistence()
287 to find out if clipboard persistence is available.
289 * Notification on clipboard ownership changes via GdkOwnerChange events
290 requires the XFIXES X extension. Applications can use the function
291 gdk_display_supports_selection_notification() to find out if ownerchip
292 change notification is available.
294 * The icon theme code in GTK+ 2.6 follows the freedesktop.org icon theme
295 specification. Setting the XDG_DATA_DIRS environtment variable may be
296 necessary if your icons aren't installed in the default location
299 * The icon theme code in GTK+ 2.6 can make use of mmap()able cache files
300 to avoid a lot of disk searching overhead. GTK+ includes a utility named
301 gtk-update-icon-cache to generate these cache files. For further details,
302 see the gtk-update-icon-cache man page or the GTK+ documentation.
304 * To reduce code size and improve efficiency, GTK+, when compiled
305 with the GNU toolchain, has separate internal and external entry
306 points for exported functions. The internal names, which begin with
307 IA__, may be seen when debugging a GTK+ program.
309 * The following functions have been deprecated in GTK+ 2.6:
310 gdk_pango_context_set_colormap
311 gtk_cell_renderer_editing_canceled
313 * The new GtkFileChooser widget emphasizes simplicity and thus does
314 not provide a navigation entry by default when opening files.
315 Experienced command line users will likely want to make heavy use of
316 the location dialog brought up by the Control-L key shortcut.
318 * The GTK+ libraries use an '_' prefix to indicate private symbols that
319 must not be used by applications. On some platforms, symbols beginning
320 with prefixes such as _gtk, _gdk, and _pango will be exported
321 from the library, on others not. In no case can applications
322 use these private symbols. In addition to that, GTK+ 2.6 makes several
323 symbols private which were not in any installed header files and
324 were never intended to be exported.
326 * The gdk_pixbuf_xlib library included in the contrib/ directory
327 and the framebuffer GDK backend included in the gdk/linux-fb directory
328 of GTK+ are provided on an as-is basis and have not been tested at all.
329 No guarantees about the degree of workingness or about future
330 compatibility are provided.
332 * On Unix, the assumption of GLib and GTK+ by default is that filenames on
333 the filesystem are encoded in UTF-8 rather than the encoding of the locale;
334 the GTK+ developers consider that having filenames whose interpretation
335 depends on the current locale is fundamentally a bad idea.
337 If you have filenames encoded in the encoding of your locale, then you
338 may want to set the G_FILENAME_ENCODING environment variable:
340 G_FILENAME_ENCODING=@locale
341 export G_FILENAME_ENCODING
343 (Earlier versions of GLib 2.x required a different environment variable
344 setting; G_BROKEN_FILENAMES=1 to achieve the same effect; this
345 is still supported, but G_FILENAME_ENCODING is preferred.)
346 Best integration of GTK+ 2.6 with the environment is achieved by
347 using a UTF-8 locale.
349 On Windows, filenames passed to GTK+ should always be in UTF-8, as
350 in GLib 2.6. This is different than in previous versions of GTK+
351 where the system codepage was used. As in GLib, for DLL ABI
352 stability, applications built against previous versions of GTK+ will
353 use entry points providing the old semantics.
355 When compiling against GTK+ 2.6, applications intended to be
356 portable to Windows must take the UTF-8 file name encoding into
357 consideration, and use the gstdio wrappers to access files whose
358 names have been constructed from strings returned from GTK+ or GLib.
364 Bugs should be reported to the GNOME bug tracking system.
365 (http://bugzilla.gnome.org, product gtk+.) You will need to create an
366 account for yourself.
368 In the bug report please include:
370 * Information about your system. For instance:
372 - What operating system and version
374 - For Linux, what version of the C library
376 And anything else you think is relevant.
378 * How to reproduce the bug.
380 If you can reproduce it with one of the tests or demos built with GTK+,
381 such as demos/gtk-demo/gtk-demo, that would be most convenient. Otherwise,
382 please include a short test program that exhibits the behavior. As a
383 last resort, you can also provide a pointer to a larger piece of software
384 that can be downloaded.
386 * If the bug was a crash, the exact text that was printed out when the
389 * Further information such as stack traces may be useful, but is not
390 necessary. If you do send a stack trace, and the error is an X error,
391 it will be more useful if the stacktrace is produced running the test
392 program with the --sync command line option.
398 Patches should also be submitted to bugzilla.gnome.org. If the patch
399 fixes an existing bug, add the patch as an attachment to that bug
402 Otherwise, enter a new bug report that describes the patch, and attach
403 the patch to that bug report.
405 Bug reports containing patches should include the PATCH keyword in their
406 keyword fields. If the patch adds to or changes the GTK+ programming
407 interface, the API keyword should also be included.
409 Patches should be in unified diff form. (The -u option to GNU diff.)