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
37 * JPEG2000 support is no longer enabled by default. It must be
38 explicitly turned on, by passing --with-libjasper to configure.
40 * GDK has been reworked to implement 'client-side windows'. This offers
41 exciting new possibilities, such as transformed, offscreen rendering,
42 but it breaks some long-standing assumptions that applications may
43 have about GDK windows. Setting the environment variable
44 GDK_NATIVE_WINDOWS makes GDK create a native X11 window for each
45 GDK window, which might make problematic applications work better.
47 * GTK+ calls signal (SIGPIPE, SIG_IGN) during initialization, to ignore
48 SIGPIPE signals, since these are almost never wanted in graphical
49 applications. If you do need to handle SIGPIPE for some reason, reset
50 the handler after gtk_init(), but notice that other libraries (e.g.
51 libdbus or gvfs) might do similar things.
53 Release notes for 2.16
54 ======================
56 * Password entries now display a caps-lock warning. This can be turned off
57 with the caps-lock-warning property.
59 * Various orientation-related functions have been deprecated in favour
60 of the new GtkOrientable interface: gtk_scale_button_get_orientation,
61 gtk_scale_button_set_orientation, gtk_toolbar_set_orientation.
63 * The action-proxy interaction has been changed. Widgets that operate as
64 proxies have to implement the GtkActivatable interface now. GtkActivatable
65 implementation are responsible for syncing their appearance with the
66 action and for activating the action. All GTK+ widgets that are commonly
67 used as proxies implement the GtkActivatable interface.
69 * The handling of keyboard shortcuts has been changed, to help with a
70 longstanding complaint about the way GTK+ handles multiple layouts. GTK+
71 now only uses keys from groups other than the current group if they are
72 not present in the current group.
74 Release notes for 2.14
75 ======================
77 * gtkitemfactory.h is now completely deprecated.
78 As gtkactiongroup.h and gtkstock.h no longer include the gtkitemfactory.h
79 header, this might break application using gtk_item_factory_* symbols
80 without including gtkitemfactory.h - even though this behaviour has never
81 been supported in the first place.
83 * The GtkFileSystem semi-private interface has been removed.
84 The GTK+ filechooser implementation now uses GIO directly, which has
85 rendered external filesystem implementations unnecessary. Consequently,
86 the GtkFileSystem interface is no longer available, nor the filechooser
87 will load any GtkFileSystem implementation.
89 * GtkComboBox now renders the popdown button insensitive when
90 the model is empty. Applications which want to populate the list
91 only before displaying it can set gtk_combo_box_set_button_sensitivity
92 to GTK_SENSITIVITY_ON, so that the button is always sensitive or
93 GTK_SENSITIVITY_OFF to make it insensitive respectively.
95 * In the early 2.14.x releases, GtkAdjustment was changed to enforce
96 that values are restricted to the range [lower, upper - page_size].
97 This has always been the documented behaviour, and the recommended
98 practice is to set page_size to 0 when using adjustments for simple
99 scalar values, like in a slider or spin button.
100 Due to the large number of applications that are affected by this
101 change, the behaviour has been reverted to the old behaviour in
102 2.14.3, with an explicit warning that this change will be
103 reintroduced in 2.90.
105 * gdk-pixbuf will use GIO for mime type detection if possible. For
106 this to work, shared-mime-info needs to be installed and XDG_DATA_DIRS
107 set accordingly at configure time. Otherwise, gdk-pixbuf falls
108 back to its built-in sniffing implementation.
110 Release notes for 2.12
111 ======================
113 * gtk_about_dialog_get/set_name() were deprecated in favour of
114 gtk_about_dialog_get/set_program_name(), the GtkAboutDialog now uses the
115 "program-name" property instead of the conflicting "name" property.
117 * The gdk-pixbuf tiff loader now requires libtiff 3.6.0 or later.
119 * Support for Windows 9x/ME has officially been removed. It hasn't worked
122 * The GtkTextBufferTargetInfo enumeration values have been changed from
123 G_MAXUINT-0, G_MAXUINT-1, G_MAXUINT-2, etc, to -1, -2, -3 to stay within
126 * A change in the handling of _NET_WM_USER_TIME properties on toplevel
127 windows can cause deadlock problems with window managers that are using
128 GDK for drawing decorations. In particular, metacity <= 2.18.0 is affected
129 by this. The problem has been fixed in metacity 2.18.1.
131 * Semi-private GtkTextLayout api has changed: new GtkTextLayout method
132 invalidate_cursors(), and new functions gtk_text_layout_invalidate_cursors()
133 and gtk_text_layout_cursors_changed(), which should be used in place of
134 gtk_text_layout_invalidate() and gtk_text_layout_changed() if invalidation
135 is due to marks moved or changed selection; new GtkTextLineDisplay structure
136 member. Source compatibility is preserved; binary compatibility may break
137 only if GtkTextLineDisplay structure was created on stack or as a part
138 of another structure (in particular GnomeCanvas and its clones do not need
141 * Another new signal has been added to GtkNotebook. The new signal
142 is called create-window, so this name can no longer be used for signals
143 in objects derived from GtkNotebook.
145 * The gtk_notebook_set/get_group_id() functions were found to be insufficient
146 and have been deprecated in favour of gtk_notebook_set/get_group().
148 * The move-focus signal has been moved to GtkWidget, to unify the
149 various implementations of this signal in specific widgets. Great care
150 has been taken to make sure that all code using this signal continues
153 * An unused and hardly visible GtkFrame has been removed from the menu
154 widget hierarchy when GtkComboBox::appears-as-list style property is
155 set. Any RC file applying a different style to any widget below the
156 widget path "gtk-combobox-popup-window.GtkFrame" should take into
157 account that the frame no longer exists.
159 * The external print preview application used by GtkPrintOperationPreview
160 is now passed the print settings on the command line with the
161 --print-settings parameter pointing to a temp file containing the
162 settings. The preview application assumes ownership of the file and
163 should delete it once it does not need it anymore. The --print-settings
164 commandline option is understood by Evince 0.9.0 and newer. To use a
165 different print preview application, change the gtk-print-preview-command
166 setting in your gtkrc file, e.g. gtk-print-preview-command = "ggv %f"
168 * GtkMenuShell is now defined as an abstract type. It was already
169 documented as an abstract class, and there is little reason to
172 * The GtkTooltips struct (this is the old tooltips API) is now considered
173 private. Code that used to access this struct, in particular the
174 tips_data_list field, will need to change. All of the old tooltips
175 API has been deprecated in favour of a new implementation and
176 API. This affects all of the gtk_tooltips_ functions, and functions
177 which take a GtkTooltips argument, such as gtk_tool_item_set_tooltip()
178 and gtk_menu_tool_button_set_arrow_tooltip().
180 * The memory management of the GtkRecentManager object has been changed,
181 as using the screen didn't guarantee that the singleton instance was
182 correctly destroyed. The screen-related functions have been deprecated,
183 and should not be used anymore; the GtkRecentManager instance returned by
184 the gtk_recent_manager_get_default() function is guaranteed to be valid
185 for the entire lifetime of an application.
187 * A number of interfaces that have been superseded by newer interfaces for
188 a long time have finally been deprecated. This includes
189 gtk_widget_ref/unref(), gtk_rc_style_ref/unref() and the old file selector.
191 * The various coordinate systems in use in GtkTreeView widgets have
192 been clarified in the documentation, and in the cause of doing so,
193 the functions gtk_tree_view_widget_to_tree_coords() and
194 gtk_tree_view_tree_to_widget_coords() have been deprecated in
195 favour of a new family of gtk_tree_view_convert_ functions.
197 * gtk_menu_item_remove_submenu() has been deprecated in favour of
198 gtk_menu_item_set_submenu (..., NULL).
200 * gtk_default_draw_check() has been fixed to really decrease the
201 indicator size by one pixel to ensure an odd size instead of
202 accidentially increasing it.
203 Consequently, gtk_cell_renderer_toggle_render() could be fixed to
204 not subtract 1 from the size passed to gtk_paint_option(), which
205 was just a workaround for above off-by-two for even sizes (theme
206 engines now get the real indicator size passed).
207 The default toggle size of GtkCheckMenuItem and GtkCellRendererToggle
208 has been changed to 13 to be consistent with GtkCheckButton.
209 The only visible change with default settings is that the indicator in
210 GtkCellRendererToggle has changed its size from 11 to 13 and is now
211 consistent with menus and toggle buttons.
213 * GTK+ has always required that gtk_init() (or a variant thereof) is
214 called before any other GTK+ function. Some applications call functions
215 like gtk_clipboard_get() to check if they need to call gtk_init(),
216 anyway. A change in GLib 2.14 has recently broken this unsupported
217 practise. It is worth pointing out that calling gtk_init() twice
221 Release notes for 2.10
222 ======================
224 * The hexadecimal Unicode input feature has been reworked. It no longer
225 blocks the use of the sixteen Ctrl-Shift-<hex digit> key sequences. Now
226 it only uses Ctrl-Shift-u.
228 * A memory leak in GtkStyle handling has been fixed. This may expose bugs
229 in third-party widgets which forget to call gtk_style_attach() in their
232 * Range widgets like GtkScrollbar now render their arrows insensitive
233 when the slider is at the end. Applications which react to arrow
234 clicks even if the slider is at the end may want to use the new
235 gtk_range_set_[upper/lower]_stepper_sensitivity() functions to
236 prevent the arrows from being rendered insensitive.
238 * GtkObject now uses the "floating reference" support in GObject.
239 GTK_OBJECT_IS_FLOATING() will still work, but direct checking
240 of the GTK_FLOATING flag will no longer detect the floating
241 reference. Details about floating references can be found in the docs:
242 http://developer.gnome.org/doc/API/2.0/gobject/gobject-The-Base-Object-Type.html#floating-ref
244 * Accelerators like (_F) are now stripped from labels when they are
245 displayed in toolbars. If this is not wanted, the feature can be
246 suppressed by inserting a Unicode control character, e.g ZWNJ.
248 * The pixbuf theme engine can now customize expanders (in GtkTreeView
249 and GtkExpander) and resize grips, using the new EXPANDER and
250 RESIZE_GRIP function values.
252 * Dialogs created by gtk_about_dialog_new() no longer hide automatically
253 when the user clicks close. It is the applications responsibility to
254 hide or destroy the dialog.
256 * Several new signals have been added to GtkNotebook. Care has been taken
257 to choose signal names which do not collide with signals added by well-known
258 derived classes. The names which can no longer be used for signals in
259 objects derived from GtkNotebook are page-reordered, page-removed and
262 * Due to the interface changes in the file chooser backend interface,
263 the GTK+ ABI version has been bumped to 2.10.0. Third-party filesystem
264 backends have to be ported to the new interface, other modules, such as
265 theme engines, input method modules or pixbuf loaders have to be rebuilt
266 so that they are installed in the right place for GTK+ to find them.
269 Release notes for 2.8
270 =====================
272 * GTK+ 2.8 and Pango 1.10 require the cairo library.
274 * The default theme has been renamed to "Raleigh". Existing configurations
275 specifying the "Default" theme name should still work.
277 * The GtkTreeView::enable-search property has been changed to control
278 only typeahead search, not the C-f keybinding to start an interactive
279 search. To turn off interactive searching completely, you have to
280 set GtkTreeView::search-column to -1.
282 * The restriction on using the same cell renderer in multiple columns
283 of a GtkTreeView is now more strictly enforced.
285 * In GTK+ 2.8, GtkCalendar uses nl_langinfo() (if available) to determine
286 the first day of the week. Thus, it is possible to select the first day
287 of the week independently from the language, by setting LC_TIME.
289 * In GTK+ 2.8, the gtk-update-icon-cache utility includes image data
290 in the icon caches, which will make the icon cache files larger than
291 the one produced by GTK+ 2.6. This change will reduce the memory
292 overhead of icon themes at runtime, since all GTK+ applications can
293 share the image data in memory.
295 * In 2.8, GDK emits GdkEventGrabBroken events when a keyboard or pointer
296 grab is broken. On X11, this can happen if the same application grabs
297 again, or if the window used for the grab becomes unviewable. It happens
298 more often on Win32. Applications which use grabs should pay attention
299 to these events and do the necessary cleanups when the grab is lost.
300 * The GIOChannel code for sockets on win32 has been rewritten.
301 Applications who make non-trivial use of GIOChannels on win32 should
302 be watched for possible problems.
304 * GLib 2.8 uses atomic operations to implement reference counting, thus
305 g_object_ref/unref, g_closure_ref/sink/unref and g_iochannel_ref/unref
306 can be used without locking in multithreaded applications. Note that
307 other modifications, like concurrent setting of properties still require
310 * g_convert() and related character set conversion functions have been
311 fixed to emit pending shift states and to not cache iconv descriptors
312 across multiple calls, since that is problematic for some encodings.
313 Note that these functions are not suitable for streaming conversions;
314 use g_iconv() to do streaming conversion.
317 Release notes for 2.6
318 =====================
320 * GTK+ 2.6 supports clipboard persistency. To make use of this feature,
321 a clipboard manager following the specification at
322 http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Standards/clipboard-manager-spec
323 must be running. A sample implementation of such a clipboard manager
325 http://people.imendio.com/andersca/archives/clipboard-manager-0.3.tar.gz
326 Applications can use the function gdk_display_supports_clipboard_persistence()
327 to find out if clipboard persistence is available.
329 * Notification on clipboard ownership changes via GdkOwnerChange events
330 requires the XFIXES X extension. Applications can use the function
331 gdk_display_supports_selection_notification() to find out if ownerchip
332 change notification is available.
334 * The icon theme code in GTK+ 2.6 follows the freedesktop.org icon theme
335 specification. Setting the XDG_DATA_DIRS environtment variable may be
336 necessary if your icons aren't installed in the default location
339 * The icon theme code in GTK+ 2.6 can make use of mmap()able cache files
340 to avoid a lot of disk searching overhead. GTK+ includes a utility named
341 gtk-update-icon-cache to generate these cache files. For further details,
342 see the gtk-update-icon-cache man page or the GTK+ documentation.
344 * To reduce code size and improve efficiency, GTK+, when compiled
345 with the GNU toolchain, has separate internal and external entry
346 points for exported functions. The internal names, which begin with
347 IA__, may be seen when debugging a GTK+ program.
349 * The following functions have been deprecated in GTK+ 2.6:
350 gdk_pango_context_set_colormap
351 gtk_cell_renderer_editing_canceled
353 * The new GtkFileChooser widget emphasizes simplicity and thus does
354 not provide a navigation entry by default when opening files.
355 Experienced command line users will likely want to make heavy use of
356 the location dialog brought up by the Control-L key shortcut.
358 * The GTK+ libraries use an '_' prefix to indicate private symbols that
359 must not be used by applications. On some platforms, symbols beginning
360 with prefixes such as _gtk, _gdk, and _pango will be exported
361 from the library, on others not. In no case can applications
362 use these private symbols. In addition to that, GTK+ 2.6 makes several
363 symbols private which were not in any installed header files and
364 were never intended to be exported.
366 * The gdk_pixbuf_xlib library included in the contrib/ directory
367 and the framebuffer GDK backend included in the gdk/linux-fb directory
368 of GTK+ are provided on an as-is basis and have not been tested at all.
369 No guarantees about the degree of workingness or about future
370 compatibility are provided.
372 * On Unix, the assumption of GLib and GTK+ by default is that filenames on
373 the filesystem are encoded in UTF-8 rather than the encoding of the locale;
374 the GTK+ developers consider that having filenames whose interpretation
375 depends on the current locale is fundamentally a bad idea.
377 If you have filenames encoded in the encoding of your locale, then you
378 may want to set the G_FILENAME_ENCODING environment variable:
380 G_FILENAME_ENCODING=@locale
381 export G_FILENAME_ENCODING
383 (Earlier versions of GLib 2.x required a different environment variable
384 setting; G_BROKEN_FILENAMES=1 to achieve the same effect; this
385 is still supported, but G_FILENAME_ENCODING is preferred.)
386 Best integration of GTK+ 2.6 with the environment is achieved by
387 using a UTF-8 locale.
389 On Windows, filenames passed to GTK+ should always be in UTF-8, as
390 in GLib 2.6. This is different than in previous versions of GTK+
391 where the system codepage was used. As in GLib, for DLL ABI
392 stability, applications built against previous versions of GTK+ will
393 use entry points providing the old semantics.
395 When compiling against GTK+ 2.6, applications intended to be
396 portable to Windows must take the UTF-8 file name encoding into
397 consideration, and use the gstdio wrappers to access files whose
398 names have been constructed from strings returned from GTK+ or GLib.
404 Bugs should be reported to the GNOME bug tracking system.
405 (http://bugzilla.gnome.org, product gtk+.) You will need to create an
406 account for yourself.
408 In the bug report please include:
410 * Information about your system. For instance:
412 - What operating system and version
414 - For Linux, what version of the C library
416 And anything else you think is relevant.
418 * How to reproduce the bug.
420 If you can reproduce it with one of the tests or demos built with GTK+,
421 such as demos/gtk-demo/gtk-demo, that would be most convenient. Otherwise,
422 please include a short test program that exhibits the behavior. As a
423 last resort, you can also provide a pointer to a larger piece of software
424 that can be downloaded.
426 * If the bug was a crash, the exact text that was printed out when the
429 * Further information such as stack traces may be useful, but is not
430 necessary. If you do send a stack trace, and the error is an X error,
431 it will be more useful if the stacktrace is produced running the test
432 program with the --sync command line option.
438 Patches should also be submitted to bugzilla.gnome.org. If the patch
439 fixes an existing bug, add the patch as an attachment to that bug
442 Otherwise, enter a new bug report that describes the patch, and attach
443 the patch to that bug report.
445 Patches should be in unified diff form. (The -up option to GNU diff.)