4 This is GTK+ version @GTK_VERSION@. 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 2.18
31 ======================
33 * gtk_tooltip_set_custom now accept a NULL custom_widget to unset the
34 old custom_widget. Custom_widget does not get destroyed when the
38 Release notes for 2.16
39 ======================
41 * Password entries now display a caps-lock warning. This can be turned off
42 with the caps-lock-warning property.
44 * Various orientation-related functions have been deprecated in favour
45 of the new GtkOrientable interface: gtk_scale_button_get_orientation,
46 gtk_scale_button_set_orientation, gtk_toolbar_set_orientation.
48 * The action-proxy interaction has been changed. Widgets that operate as
49 proxies have to implement the GtkActivatable interface now. GtkActivatable
50 implementation are responsible for syncing their appearance with the
51 action and for activating the action. All GTK+ widgets that are commonly
52 used as proxies implement the GtkActivatable interface.
54 * The handling of keyboard shortcuts has been changed, to help with a
55 longstanding complaint about the way GTK+ handles multiple layouts. GTK+
56 now only uses keys from groups other than the current group if they are
57 not present in the current group.
59 Release notes for 2.14
60 ======================
62 * gtkitemfactory.h is now completely deprecated.
63 As gtkactiongroup.h and gtkstock.h no longer include the gtkitemfactory.h
64 header, this might break application using gtk_item_factory_* symbols
65 without including gtkitemfactory.h - even though this behaviour has never
66 been supported in the first place.
68 * The GtkFileSystem semi-private interface has been removed.
69 The GTK+ filechooser implementation now uses GIO directly, which has
70 rendered external filesystem implementations unnecessary. Consequently,
71 the GtkFileSystem interface is no longer available, nor the filechooser
72 will load any GtkFileSystem implementation.
74 * GtkComboBox now renders the popdown button insensitive when
75 the model is empty. Applications which want to populate the list
76 only before displaying it can set gtk_combo_box_set_button_sensitivity
77 to GTK_SENSITIVITY_ON, so that the button is always sensitive or
78 GTK_SENSITIVITY_OFF to make it insensitive respectively.
80 * In the early 2.14.x releases, GtkAdjustment was changed to enforce
81 that values are restricted to the range [lower, upper - page_size].
82 This has always been the documented behaviour, and the recommended
83 practice is to set page_size to 0 when using adjustments for simple
84 scalar values, like in a slider or spin button.
85 Due to the large number of applications that are affected by this
86 change, the behaviour has been reverted to the old behaviour in
87 2.14.3, with an explicit warning that this change will be
90 * gdk-pixbuf will use GIO for mime type detection if possible. For
91 this to work, shared-mime-info needs to be installed and XDG_DATA_DIRS
92 set accordingly at configure time. Otherwise, gdk-pixbuf falls
93 back to its built-in sniffing implementation.
95 Release notes for 2.12
96 ======================
98 * gtk_about_dialog_get/set_name() were deprecated in favour of
99 gtk_about_dialog_get/set_program_name(), the GtkAboutDialog now uses the
100 "program-name" property instead of the conflicting "name" property.
102 * The gdk-pixbuf tiff loader now requires libtiff 3.6.0 or later.
104 * Support for Windows 9x/ME has officially been removed. It hasn't worked
107 * The GtkTextBufferTargetInfo enumeration values have been changed from
108 G_MAXUINT-0, G_MAXUINT-1, G_MAXUINT-2, etc, to -1, -2, -3 to stay within
111 * A change in the handling of _NET_WM_USER_TIME properties on toplevel
112 windows can cause deadlock problems with window managers that are using
113 GDK for drawing decorations. In particular, metacity <= 2.18.0 is affected
114 by this. The problem has been fixed in metacity 2.18.1.
116 * Semi-private GtkTextLayout api has changed: new GtkTextLayout method
117 invalidate_cursors(), and new functions gtk_text_layout_invalidate_cursors()
118 and gtk_text_layout_cursors_changed(), which should be used in place of
119 gtk_text_layout_invalidate() and gtk_text_layout_changed() if invalidation
120 is due to marks moved or changed selection; new GtkTextLineDisplay structure
121 member. Source compatibility is preserved; binary compatibility may break
122 only if GtkTextLineDisplay structure was created on stack or as a part
123 of another structure (in particular GnomeCanvas and its clones do not need
126 * Another new signal has been added to GtkNotebook. The new signal
127 is called create-window, so this name can no longer be used for signals
128 in objects derived from GtkNotebook.
130 * The gtk_notebook_set/get_group_id() functions were found to be insufficient
131 and have been deprecated in favour of gtk_notebook_set/get_group().
133 * The move-focus signal has been moved to GtkWidget, to unify the
134 various implementations of this signal in specific widgets. Great care
135 has been taken to make sure that all code using this signal continues
138 * An unused and hardly visible GtkFrame has been removed from the menu
139 widget hierarchy when GtkComboBox::appears-as-list style property is
140 set. Any RC file applying a different style to any widget below the
141 widget path "gtk-combobox-popup-window.GtkFrame" should take into
142 account that the frame no longer exists.
144 * The external print preview application used by GtkPrintOperationPreview
145 is now passed the print settings on the command line with the
146 --print-settings parameter pointing to a temp file containing the
147 settings. The preview application assumes ownership of the file and
148 should delete it once it does not need it anymore. The --print-settings
149 commandline option is understood by Evince 0.9.0 and newer. To use a
150 different print preview application, change the gtk-print-preview-command
151 setting in your gtkrc file, e.g. gtk-print-preview-command = "ggv %f"
153 * GtkMenuShell is now defined as an abstract type. It was already
154 documented as an abstract class, and there is little reason to
157 * The GtkTooltips struct (this is the old tooltips API) is now considered
158 private. Code that used to access this struct, in particular the
159 tips_data_list field, will need to change. All of the old tooltips
160 API has been deprecated in favour of a new implementation and
161 API. This affects all of the gtk_tooltips_ functions, and functions
162 which take a GtkTooltips argument, such as gtk_tool_item_set_tooltip()
163 and gtk_menu_tool_button_set_arrow_tooltip().
165 * The memory management of the GtkRecentManager object has been changed,
166 as using the screen didn't guarantee that the singleton instance was
167 correctly destroyed. The screen-related functions have been deprecated,
168 and should not be used anymore; the GtkRecentManager instance returned by
169 the gtk_recent_manager_get_default() function is guaranteed to be valid
170 for the entire lifetime of an application.
172 * A number of interfaces that have been superseded by newer interfaces for
173 a long time have finally been deprecated. This includes
174 gtk_widget_ref/unref(), gtk_rc_style_ref/unref() and the old file selector.
176 * The various coordinate systems in use in GtkTreeView widgets have
177 been clarified in the documentation, and in the cause of doing so,
178 the functions gtk_tree_view_widget_to_tree_coords() and
179 gtk_tree_view_tree_to_widget_coords() have been deprecated in
180 favour of a new family of gtk_tree_view_convert_ functions.
182 * gtk_menu_item_remove_submenu() has been deprecated in favour of
183 gtk_menu_item_set_submenu (..., NULL).
185 * gtk_default_draw_check() has been fixed to really decrease the
186 indicator size by one pixel to ensure an odd size instead of
187 accidentially increasing it.
188 Consequently, gtk_cell_renderer_toggle_render() could be fixed to
189 not subtract 1 from the size passed to gtk_paint_option(), which
190 was just a workaround for above off-by-two for even sizes (theme
191 engines now get the real indicator size passed).
192 The default toggle size of GtkCheckMenuItem and GtkCellRendererToggle
193 has been changed to 13 to be consistent with GtkCheckButton.
194 The only visible change with default settings is that the indicator in
195 GtkCellRendererToggle has changed its size from 11 to 13 and is now
196 consistent with menus and toggle buttons.
198 * GTK+ has always required that gtk_init() (or a variant thereof) is
199 called before any other GTK+ function. Some applications call functions
200 like gtk_clipboard_get() to check if they need to call gtk_init(),
201 anyway. A change in GLib 2.14 has recently broken this unsupported
202 practise. It is worth pointing out that calling gtk_init() twice
206 Release notes for 2.10
207 ======================
209 * The hexadecimal Unicode input feature has been reworked. It no longer
210 blocks the use of the sixteen Ctrl-Shift-<hex digit> key sequences. Now
211 it only uses Ctrl-Shift-u.
213 * A memory leak in GtkStyle handling has been fixed. This may expose bugs
214 in third-party widgets which forget to call gtk_style_attach() in their
217 * Range widgets like GtkScrollbar now render their arrows insensitive
218 when the slider is at the end. Applications which react to arrow
219 clicks even if the slider is at the end may want to use the new
220 gtk_range_set_[upper/lower]_stepper_sensitivity() functions to
221 prevent the arrows from being rendered insensitive.
223 * GtkObject now uses the "floating reference" support in GObject.
224 GTK_OBJECT_IS_FLOATING() will still work, but direct checking
225 of the GTK_FLOATING flag will no longer detect the floating
226 reference. Details about floating references can be found in the docs:
227 http://developer.gnome.org/doc/API/2.0/gobject/gobject-The-Base-Object-Type.html#floating-ref
229 * Accelerators like (_F) are now stripped from labels when they are
230 displayed in toolbars. If this is not wanted, the feature can be
231 suppressed by inserting a Unicode control character, e.g ZWNJ.
233 * The pixbuf theme engine can now customize expanders (in GtkTreeView
234 and GtkExpander) and resize grips, using the new EXPANDER and
235 RESIZE_GRIP function values.
237 * Dialogs created by gtk_about_dialog_new() no longer hide automatically
238 when the user clicks close. It is the applications responsibility to
239 hide or destroy the dialog.
241 * Several new signals have been added to GtkNotebook. Care has been taken
242 to choose signal names which do not collide with signals added by well-known
243 derived classes. The names which can no longer be used for signals in
244 objects derived from GtkNotebook are page-reordered, page-removed and
247 * Due to the interface changes in the file chooser backend interface,
248 the GTK+ ABI version has been bumped to 2.10.0. Third-party filesystem
249 backends have to be ported to the new interface, other modules, such as
250 theme engines, input method modules or pixbuf loaders have to be rebuilt
251 so that they are installed in the right place for GTK+ to find them.
254 Release notes for 2.8
255 =====================
257 * GTK+ 2.8 and Pango 1.10 require the cairo library.
259 * The default theme has been renamed to "Raleigh". Existing configurations
260 specifying the "Default" theme name should still work.
262 * The GtkTreeView::enable-search property has been changed to control
263 only typeahead search, not the C-f keybinding to start an interactive
264 search. To turn off interactive searching completely, you have to
265 set GtkTreeView::search-column to -1.
267 * The restriction on using the same cell renderer in multiple columns
268 of a GtkTreeView is now more strictly enforced.
270 * In GTK+ 2.8, GtkCalendar uses nl_langinfo() (if available) to determine
271 the first day of the week. Thus, it is possible to select the first day
272 of the week independently from the language, by setting LC_TIME.
274 * In GTK+ 2.8, the gtk-update-icon-cache utility includes image data
275 in the icon caches, which will make the icon cache files larger than
276 the one produced by GTK+ 2.6. This change will reduce the memory
277 overhead of icon themes at runtime, since all GTK+ applications can
278 share the image data in memory.
280 * In 2.8, GDK emits GdkEventGrabBroken events when a keyboard or pointer
281 grab is broken. On X11, this can happen if the same application grabs
282 again, or if the window used for the grab becomes unviewable. It happens
283 more often on Win32. Applications which use grabs should pay attention
284 to these events and do the necessary cleanups when the grab is lost.
285 * The GIOChannel code for sockets on win32 has been rewritten.
286 Applications who make non-trivial use of GIOChannels on win32 should
287 be watched for possible problems.
289 * GLib 2.8 uses atomic operations to implement reference counting, thus
290 g_object_ref/unref, g_closure_ref/sink/unref and g_iochannel_ref/unref
291 can be used without locking in multithreaded applications. Note that
292 other modifications, like concurrent setting of properties still require
295 * g_convert() and related character set conversion functions have been
296 fixed to emit pending shift states and to not cache iconv descriptors
297 across multiple calls, since that is problematic for some encodings.
298 Note that these functions are not suitable for streaming conversions;
299 use g_iconv() to do streaming conversion.
302 Release notes for 2.6
303 =====================
305 * GTK+ 2.6 supports clipboard persistency. To make use of this feature,
306 a clipboard manager following the specification at
307 http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Standards/clipboard-manager-spec
308 must be running. A sample implementation of such a clipboard manager
310 http://people.imendio.com/andersca/archives/clipboard-manager-0.3.tar.gz
311 Applications can use the function gdk_display_supports_clipboard_persistence()
312 to find out if clipboard persistence is available.
314 * Notification on clipboard ownership changes via GdkOwnerChange events
315 requires the XFIXES X extension. Applications can use the function
316 gdk_display_supports_selection_notification() to find out if ownerchip
317 change notification is available.
319 * The icon theme code in GTK+ 2.6 follows the freedesktop.org icon theme
320 specification. Setting the XDG_DATA_DIRS environtment variable may be
321 necessary if your icons aren't installed in the default location
324 * The icon theme code in GTK+ 2.6 can make use of mmap()able cache files
325 to avoid a lot of disk searching overhead. GTK+ includes a utility named
326 gtk-update-icon-cache to generate these cache files. For further details,
327 see the gtk-update-icon-cache man page or the GTK+ documentation.
329 * To reduce code size and improve efficiency, GTK+, when compiled
330 with the GNU toolchain, has separate internal and external entry
331 points for exported functions. The internal names, which begin with
332 IA__, may be seen when debugging a GTK+ program.
334 * The following functions have been deprecated in GTK+ 2.6:
335 gdk_pango_context_set_colormap
336 gtk_cell_renderer_editing_canceled
338 * The new GtkFileChooser widget emphasizes simplicity and thus does
339 not provide a navigation entry by default when opening files.
340 Experienced command line users will likely want to make heavy use of
341 the location dialog brought up by the Control-L key shortcut.
343 * The GTK+ libraries use an '_' prefix to indicate private symbols that
344 must not be used by applications. On some platforms, symbols beginning
345 with prefixes such as _gtk, _gdk, and _pango will be exported
346 from the library, on others not. In no case can applications
347 use these private symbols. In addition to that, GTK+ 2.6 makes several
348 symbols private which were not in any installed header files and
349 were never intended to be exported.
351 * The gdk_pixbuf_xlib library included in the contrib/ directory
352 and the framebuffer GDK backend included in the gdk/linux-fb directory
353 of GTK+ are provided on an as-is basis and have not been tested at all.
354 No guarantees about the degree of workingness or about future
355 compatibility are provided.
357 * On Unix, the assumption of GLib and GTK+ by default is that filenames on
358 the filesystem are encoded in UTF-8 rather than the encoding of the locale;
359 the GTK+ developers consider that having filenames whose interpretation
360 depends on the current locale is fundamentally a bad idea.
362 If you have filenames encoded in the encoding of your locale, then you
363 may want to set the G_FILENAME_ENCODING environment variable:
365 G_FILENAME_ENCODING=@locale
366 export G_FILENAME_ENCODING
368 (Earlier versions of GLib 2.x required a different environment variable
369 setting; G_BROKEN_FILENAMES=1 to achieve the same effect; this
370 is still supported, but G_FILENAME_ENCODING is preferred.)
371 Best integration of GTK+ 2.6 with the environment is achieved by
372 using a UTF-8 locale.
374 On Windows, filenames passed to GTK+ should always be in UTF-8, as
375 in GLib 2.6. This is different than in previous versions of GTK+
376 where the system codepage was used. As in GLib, for DLL ABI
377 stability, applications built against previous versions of GTK+ will
378 use entry points providing the old semantics.
380 When compiling against GTK+ 2.6, applications intended to be
381 portable to Windows must take the UTF-8 file name encoding into
382 consideration, and use the gstdio wrappers to access files whose
383 names have been constructed from strings returned from GTK+ or GLib.
389 Bugs should be reported to the GNOME bug tracking system.
390 (http://bugzilla.gnome.org, product gtk+.) You will need to create an
391 account for yourself.
393 In the bug report please include:
395 * Information about your system. For instance:
397 - What operating system and version
399 - For Linux, what version of the C library
401 And anything else you think is relevant.
403 * How to reproduce the bug.
405 If you can reproduce it with one of the tests or demos built with GTK+,
406 such as demos/gtk-demo/gtk-demo, that would be most convenient. Otherwise,
407 please include a short test program that exhibits the behavior. As a
408 last resort, you can also provide a pointer to a larger piece of software
409 that can be downloaded.
411 * If the bug was a crash, the exact text that was printed out when the
414 * Further information such as stack traces may be useful, but is not
415 necessary. If you do send a stack trace, and the error is an X error,
416 it will be more useful if the stacktrace is produced running the test
417 program with the --sync command line option.
423 Patches should also be submitted to bugzilla.gnome.org. If the patch
424 fixes an existing bug, add the patch as an attachment to that bug
427 Otherwise, enter a new bug report that describes the patch, and attach
428 the patch to that bug report.
430 Patches should be in unified diff form. (The -up option to GNU diff.)