4 This is GTK+ version 2.13.7. 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 * gdk-pixbuf will use GIO for mime type detection if possible. For
52 this to work, shared-mime-info needs to be installed and XDG_DATA_DIRS
53 set accordingly at configure time. Otherwise, gdk-pixbuf falls
54 back to its built-in sniffing implementation.
56 Release notes for 2.12
57 ======================
59 * gtk_about_dialog_get/set_name() were deprecated in favour of
60 gtk_about_dialog_get/set_program_name(), the GtkAboutDialog now uses the
61 "program-name" property instead of the conflicting "name" property.
63 * The gdk-pixbuf tiff loader now requires libtiff 3.6.0 or later.
65 * Support for Windows 9x/ME has officially been removed. It hasn't worked
68 * The GtkTextBufferTargetInfo enumeration values have been changed from
69 G_MAXUINT-0, G_MAXUINT-1, G_MAXUINT-2, etc, to -1, -2, -3 to stay within
72 * A change in the handling of _NET_WM_USER_TIME properties on toplevel
73 windows can cause deadlock problems with window managers that are using
74 GDK for drawing decorations. In particular, metacity <= 2.18.0 is affected
75 by this. The problem has been fixed in metacity 2.18.1.
77 * Semi-private GtkTextLayout api has changed: new GtkTextLayout method
78 invalidate_cursors(), and new functions gtk_text_layout_invalidate_cursors()
79 and gtk_text_layout_cursors_changed(), which should be used in place of
80 gtk_text_layout_invalidate() and gtk_text_layout_changed() if invalidation
81 is due to marks moved or changed selection; new GtkTextLineDisplay structure
82 member. Source compatibility is preserved; binary compatibility may break
83 only if GtkTextLineDisplay structure was created on stack or as a part
84 of another structure (in particular GnomeCanvas and its clones do not need
87 * Another new signal has been added to GtkNotebook. The new signal
88 is called create-window, so this name can no longer be used for signals
89 in objects derived from GtkNotebook.
91 * The gtk_notebook_set/get_group_id() functions were found to be insufficient
92 and have been deprecated in favour of gtk_notebook_set/get_group().
94 * The move-focus signal has been moved to GtkWidget, to unify the
95 various implementations of this signal in specific widgets. Great care
96 has been taken to make sure that all code using this signal continues
99 * An unused and hardly visible GtkFrame has been removed from the menu
100 widget hierarchy when GtkComboBox::appears-as-list style property is
101 set. Any RC file applying a different style to any widget below the
102 widget path "gtk-combobox-popup-window.GtkFrame" should take into
103 account that the frame no longer exists.
105 * The external print preview application used by GtkPrintOperationPreview
106 is now passed the print settings on the command line with the
107 --print-settings parameter pointing to a temp file containing the
108 settings. The preview application assumes ownership of the file and
109 should delete it once it does not need it anymore. The --print-settings
110 commandline option is understood by Evince 0.9.0 and newer. To use a
111 different print preview application, change the gtk-print-preview-command
112 setting in your gtkrc file, e.g. gtk-print-preview-command = "ggv %f"
114 * GtkMenuShell is now defined as an abstract type. It was already
115 documented as an abstract class, and there is little reason to
118 * The GtkTooltips struct (this is the old tooltips API) is now considered
119 private. Code that used to access this struct, in particular the
120 tips_data_list field, will need to change. All of the old tooltips
121 API has been deprecated in favour of a new implementation and
122 API. This affects all of the gtk_tooltips_ functions, and functions
123 which take a GtkTooltips argument, such as gtk_tool_item_set_tooltip()
124 and gtk_menu_tool_button_set_arrow_tooltip().
126 * The memory management of the GtkRecentManager object has been changed,
127 as using the screen didn't guarantee that the singleton instance was
128 correctly destroyed. The screen-related functions have been deprecated,
129 and should not be used anymore; the GtkRecentManager instance returned by
130 the gtk_recent_manager_get_default() function is guaranteed to be valid
131 for the entire lifetime of an application.
133 * A number of interfaces that have been superseded by newer interfaces for
134 a long time have finally been deprecated. This includes
135 gtk_widget_ref/unref(), gtk_rc_style_ref/unref() and the old file selector.
137 * The various coordinate systems in use in GtkTreeView widgets have
138 been clarified in the documentation, and in the cause of doing so,
139 the functions gtk_tree_view_widget_to_tree_coords() and
140 gtk_tree_view_tree_to_widget_coords() have been deprecated in
141 favour of a new family of gtk_tree_view_convert_ functions.
143 * gtk_menu_item_remove_submenu() has been deprecated in favour of
144 gtk_menu_item_set_submenu (..., NULL).
146 * gtk_default_draw_check() has been fixed to really decrease the
147 indicator size by one pixel to ensure an odd size instead of
148 accidentially increasing it.
149 Consequently, gtk_cell_renderer_toggle_render() could be fixed to
150 not subtract 1 from the size passed to gtk_paint_option(), which
151 was just a workaround for above off-by-two for even sizes (theme
152 engines now get the real indicator size passed).
153 The default toggle size of GtkCheckMenuItem and GtkCellRendererToggle
154 has been changed to 13 to be consistent with GtkCheckButton.
155 The only visible change with default settings is that the indicator in
156 GtkCellRendererToggle has changed its size from 11 to 13 and is now
157 consistent with menus and toggle buttons.
159 * GTK+ has always required that gtk_init() (or a variant thereof) is
160 called before any other GTK+ function. Some applications call functions
161 like gtk_clipboard_get() to check if they need to call gtk_init(),
162 anyway. A change in GLib 2.14 has recently broken this unsupported
163 practise. It is worth pointing out that calling gtk_init() twice
167 Release notes for 2.10
168 ======================
170 * The hexadecimal Unicode input feature has been reworked. It no longer
171 blocks the use of the sixteen Ctrl-Shift-<hex digit> key sequences. Now
172 it only uses Ctrl-Shift-u.
174 * A memory leak in GtkStyle handling has been fixed. This may expose bugs
175 in third-party widgets which forget to call gtk_style_attach() in their
178 * Range widgets like GtkScrollbar now render their arrows insensitive
179 when the slider is at the end. Applications which react to arrow
180 clicks even if the slider is at the end may want to use the new
181 gtk_range_set_[upper/lower]_stepper_sensitivity() functions to
182 prevent the arrows from being rendered insensitive.
184 * GtkObject now uses the "floating reference" support in GObject.
185 GTK_OBJECT_IS_FLOATING() will still work, but direct checking
186 of the GTK_FLOATING flag will no longer detect the floating
187 reference. Details about floating references can be found in the docs:
188 http://developer.gnome.org/doc/API/2.0/gobject/gobject-The-Base-Object-Type.html#floating-ref
190 * Accelerators like (_F) are now stripped from labels when they are
191 displayed in toolbars. If this is not wanted, the feature can be
192 suppressed by inserting a Unicode control character, e.g ZWNJ.
194 * The pixbuf theme engine can now customize expanders (in GtkTreeView
195 and GtkExpander) and resize grips, using the new EXPANDER and
196 RESIZE_GRIP function values.
198 * Dialogs created by gtk_about_dialog_new() no longer hide automatically
199 when the user clicks close. It is the applications responsibility to
200 hide or destroy the dialog.
202 * Several new signals have been added to GtkNotebook. Care has been taken
203 to choose signal names which do not collide with signals added by well-known
204 derived classes. The names which can no longer be used for signals in
205 objects derived from GtkNotebook are page-reordered, page-removed and
208 * Due to the interface changes in the file chooser backend interface,
209 the GTK+ ABI version has been bumped to 2.10.0. Third-party filesystem
210 backends have to be ported to the new interface, other modules, such as
211 theme engines, input method modules or pixbuf loaders have to be rebuilt
212 so that they are installed in the right place for GTK+ to find them.
215 Release notes for 2.8
216 =====================
218 * GTK+ 2.8 and Pango 1.10 require the cairo library.
220 * The default theme has been renamed to "Raleigh". Existing configurations
221 specifying the "Default" theme name should still work.
223 * The GtkTreeView::enable-search property has been changed to control
224 only typeahead search, not the C-f keybinding to start an interactive
225 search. To turn off interactive searching completely, you have to
226 set GtkTreeView::search-column to -1.
228 * The restriction on using the same cell renderer in multiple columns
229 of a GtkTreeView is now more strictly enforced.
231 * In GTK+ 2.8, GtkCalendar uses nl_langinfo() (if available) to determine
232 the first day of the week. Thus, it is possible to select the first day
233 of the week independently from the language, by setting LC_TIME.
235 * In GTK+ 2.8, the gtk-update-icon-cache utility includes image data
236 in the icon caches, which will make the icon cache files larger than
237 the one produced by GTK+ 2.6. This change will reduce the memory
238 overhead of icon themes at runtime, since all GTK+ applications can
239 share the image data in memory.
241 * In 2.8, GDK emits GdkEventGrabBroken events when a keyboard or pointer
242 grab is broken. On X11, this can happen if the same application grabs
243 again, or if the window used for the grab becomes unviewable. It happens
244 more often on Win32. Applications which use grabs should pay attention
245 to these events and do the necessary cleanups when the grab is lost.
246 * The GIOChannel code for sockets on win32 has been rewritten.
247 Applications who make non-trivial use of GIOChannels on win32 should
248 be watched for possible problems.
250 * GLib 2.8 uses atomic operations to implement reference counting, thus
251 g_object_ref/unref, g_closure_ref/sink/unref and g_iochannel_ref/unref
252 can be used without locking in multithreaded applications. Note that
253 other modifications, like concurrent setting of properties still require
256 * g_convert() and related character set conversion functions have been
257 fixed to emit pending shift states and to not cache iconv descriptors
258 across multiple calls, since that is problematic for some encodings.
259 Note that these functions are not suitable for streaming conversions;
260 use g_iconv() to do streaming conversion.
263 Release notes for 2.6
264 =====================
266 * GTK+ 2.6 supports clipboard persistency. To make use of this feature,
267 a clipboard manager following the specification at
268 http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Standards/clipboard-manager-spec
269 must be running. A sample implementation of such a clipboard manager
271 http://people.imendio.com/andersca/archives/clipboard-manager-0.3.tar.gz
272 Applications can use the function gdk_display_supports_clipboard_persistence()
273 to find out if clipboard persistence is available.
275 * Notification on clipboard ownership changes via GdkOwnerChange events
276 requires the XFIXES X extension. Applications can use the function
277 gdk_display_supports_selection_notification() to find out if ownerchip
278 change notification is available.
280 * The icon theme code in GTK+ 2.6 follows the freedesktop.org icon theme
281 specification. Setting the XDG_DATA_DIRS environtment variable may be
282 necessary if your icons aren't installed in the default location
285 * The icon theme code in GTK+ 2.6 can make use of mmap()able cache files
286 to avoid a lot of disk searching overhead. GTK+ includes a utility named
287 gtk-update-icon-cache to generate these cache files. For further details,
288 see the gtk-update-icon-cache man page or the GTK+ documentation.
290 * To reduce code size and improve efficiency, GTK+, when compiled
291 with the GNU toolchain, has separate internal and external entry
292 points for exported functions. The internal names, which begin with
293 IA__, may be seen when debugging a GTK+ program.
295 * The following functions have been deprecated in GTK+ 2.6:
296 gdk_pango_context_set_colormap
297 gtk_cell_renderer_editing_canceled
299 * The new GtkFileChooser widget emphasizes simplicity and thus does
300 not provide a navigation entry by default when opening files.
301 Experienced command line users will likely want to make heavy use of
302 the location dialog brought up by the Control-L key shortcut.
304 * The GTK+ libraries use an '_' prefix to indicate private symbols that
305 must not be used by applications. On some platforms, symbols beginning
306 with prefixes such as _gtk, _gdk, and _pango will be exported
307 from the library, on others not. In no case can applications
308 use these private symbols. In addition to that, GTK+ 2.6 makes several
309 symbols private which were not in any installed header files and
310 were never intended to be exported.
312 * The gdk_pixbuf_xlib library included in the contrib/ directory
313 and the framebuffer GDK backend included in the gdk/linux-fb directory
314 of GTK+ are provided on an as-is basis and have not been tested at all.
315 No guarantees about the degree of workingness or about future
316 compatibility are provided.
318 * On Unix, the assumption of GLib and GTK+ by default is that filenames on
319 the filesystem are encoded in UTF-8 rather than the encoding of the locale;
320 the GTK+ developers consider that having filenames whose interpretation
321 depends on the current locale is fundamentally a bad idea.
323 If you have filenames encoded in the encoding of your locale, then you
324 may want to set the G_FILENAME_ENCODING environment variable:
326 G_FILENAME_ENCODING=@locale
327 export G_FILENAME_ENCODING
329 (Earlier versions of GLib 2.x required a different environment variable
330 setting; G_BROKEN_FILENAMES=1 to achieve the same effect; this
331 is still supported, but G_FILENAME_ENCODING is preferred.)
332 Best integration of GTK+ 2.6 with the environment is achieved by
333 using a UTF-8 locale.
335 On Windows, filenames passed to GTK+ should always be in UTF-8, as
336 in GLib 2.6. This is different than in previous versions of GTK+
337 where the system codepage was used. As in GLib, for DLL ABI
338 stability, applications built against previous versions of GTK+ will
339 use entry points providing the old semantics.
341 When compiling against GTK+ 2.6, applications intended to be
342 portable to Windows must take the UTF-8 file name encoding into
343 consideration, and use the gstdio wrappers to access files whose
344 names have been constructed from strings returned from GTK+ or GLib.
350 Bugs should be reported to the GNOME bug tracking system.
351 (http://bugzilla.gnome.org, product gtk+.) You will need to create an
352 account for yourself.
354 In the bug report please include:
356 * Information about your system. For instance:
358 - What operating system and version
360 - For Linux, what version of the C library
362 And anything else you think is relevant.
364 * How to reproduce the bug.
366 If you can reproduce it with one of the tests or demos built with GTK+,
367 such as demos/gtk-demo/gtk-demo, that would be most convenient. Otherwise,
368 please include a short test program that exhibits the behavior. As a
369 last resort, you can also provide a pointer to a larger piece of software
370 that can be downloaded.
372 * If the bug was a crash, the exact text that was printed out when the
375 * Further information such as stack traces may be useful, but is not
376 necessary. If you do send a stack trace, and the error is an X error,
377 it will be more useful if the stacktrace is produced running the test
378 program with the --sync command line option.
384 Patches should also be submitted to bugzilla.gnome.org. If the patch
385 fixes an existing bug, add the patch as an attachment to that bug
388 Otherwise, enter a new bug report that describes the patch, and attach
389 the patch to that bug report.
391 Bug reports containing patches should include the PATCH keyword in their
392 keyword fields. If the patch adds to or changes the GTK+ programming
393 interface, the API keyword should also be included.
395 Patches should be in unified diff form. (The -u option to GNU diff.)