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
26 See the file 'INSTALL'
28 Release notes for 2.10
29 ======================
31 * The hexadecimal Unicode input feature has been reworked. It no longer
32 blocks the use of the sixteen Ctrl-Shift-<hex digit> key sequences. Now
33 it only uses Ctrl-Shift-u.
35 * A memory leak in GtkStyle handling has been fixed. This may expose bugs
36 in third-party widgets which forget to call gtk_style_attach() in their
39 * Range widgets like GtkScrollbar now render their arrows insensitive
40 when the slider is at the end. Applications which react to arrow
41 clicks even if the slider is at the end may want to use the new
42 gtk_range_set_[upper/lower]_stepper_sensitivity() functions to
43 prevent the arrows from being rendered insensitive.
45 * GtkObject now uses the "floating reference" support in GObject.
46 GTK_OBJECT_IS_FLOATING() will still work, but direct checking
47 of the GTK_FLOATING flag will no longer detect the floating
48 reference. Details about floating references can be found in the docs:
49 http://developer.gnome.org/doc/API/2.0/gobject/gobject-The-Base-Object-Type.html#floating-ref
51 * Suffixes like (_F) are now stripped from labels when they are displayed
52 in toolbars. If this is not wanted, the feature can be suppressed by
53 inserting a Unicode control character, e.g ZWNJ.
55 * The pixbuf theme engine can now customize expanders (in GtkTreeView
56 and GtkExpander) and resize grips, using the new EXPANDER and
57 RESIZE_GRIP function values.
62 * GTK+ 2.6 supports clipboard persistency. To make use of this feature,
63 a clipboard manager following the specification at
64 http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Standards/clipboard-manager-spec
65 must be running. A sample implementation of such a clipboard manager
67 http://people.imendio.com/andersca/archives/clipboard-manager-0.3.tar.gz
68 Applications can use the function gdk_display_supports_clipboard_persistence()
69 to find out if clipboard persistence is available.
71 * Notification on clipboard ownership changes via GdkOwnerChange events
72 requires the XFIXES X extension. Applications can use the function
73 gdk_display_supports_selection_notification() to find out if ownerchip
74 change notification is available.
76 * The icon theme code in GTK+ 2.6 follows the freedesktop.org icon theme
77 specification. Setting the XDG_DATA_DIRS environtment variable may be
78 necessary if your icons aren't installed in the default location
81 * The icon theme code in GTK+ 2.6 can make use of mmap()able cache files
82 to avoid a lot of disk searching overhead. GTK+ includes a utility named
83 gtk-update-icon-cache to generate these cache files. For further details,
84 see the gtk-update-icon-cache man page or the GTK+ documentation.
86 * To reduce code size and improve efficiency, GTK+, when compiled
87 with the GNU toolchain, has separate internal and external entry
88 points for exported functions. The internal names, which begin with
89 IA__, may be seen when debugging a GTK+ program.
91 * The following functions have been deprecated in GTK+ 2.6:
92 gdk_pango_context_set_colormap
93 gtk_cell_renderer_editing_canceled
95 * The new GtkFileChooser widget emphasizes simplicity and thus does
96 not provide a navigation entry by default when opening files.
97 Experienced command line users will likely want to make heavy use of
98 the location dialog brought up by the Control-L key shortcut.
100 * The GTK+ libraries use an '_' prefix to indicate private symbols that
101 must not be used by applications. On some platforms, symbols beginning
102 with prefixes such as _gtk, _gdk, and _pango will be exported
103 from the library, on others not. In no case can applications
104 use these private symbols. In addition to that, GTK+ 2.6 makes several
105 symbols private which were not in any installed header files and
106 were never intended to be exported.
108 * The gdk_pixbuf_xlib library included in the contrib/ directory
109 and the framebuffer GDK backend included in the gdk/linux-fb directory
110 of GTK+ are provided on an as-is basis and have not been tested at all.
111 No guarantees about the degree of workingness or about future
112 compatibility are provided.
114 * On Unix, the assumption of GLib and GTK+ by default is that filenames on
115 the filesystem are encoded in UTF-8 rather than the encoding of the locale;
116 the GTK+ developers consider that having filenames whose interpretation
117 depends on the current locale is fundamentally a bad idea.
119 If you have filenames encoded in the encoding of your locale, then you
120 may want to set the G_FILENAME_ENCODING environment variable:
122 G_FILENAME_ENCODING=@locale
123 export G_FILENAME_ENCODING
125 (Earlier versions of GLib 2.x required a different environment variable
126 setting; G_BROKEN_FILENAMES=1 to achieve the same effect; this
127 is still supported, but G_FILENAME_ENCODING is preferred.)
128 Best integration of GTK+ 2.6 with the environment is achieved by
129 using a UTF-8 locale.
131 On Windows, filenames passed to GTK+ should always be in UTF-8, as
132 in GLib 2.6. This is different than in previous versions of GTK+
133 where the system codepage was used. As in GLib, for DLL ABI
134 stability, applications built against previous versions of GTK+ will
135 use entry points providing the old semantics.
137 When compiling against GTK+ 2.6, applications intended to be
138 portable to Windows must take the UTF-8 file name encoding into
139 consideration, and use the gstdio wrappers to access files whose
140 names have been constructed from strings returned from GTK+ or GLib.
145 Bugs should be reported to the GNOME bug tracking system.
146 (http://bugzilla.gnome.org, product gtk+.) You will need to create an
147 account for yourself.
149 In the bug report please include:
151 * Information about your system. For instance:
153 - What operating system and version
155 - For Linux, what version of the C library
157 And anything else you think is relevant.
159 * How to reproduce the bug.
161 If you can reproduce it with one of the tests or demos built with GTK+,
162 such as demos/gtk-demo/gtk-demo, that would be most convenient. Otherwise,
163 please include a short test program that exhibits the behavior. As a
164 last resort, you can also provide a pointer to a larger piece of software
165 that can be downloaded.
167 * If the bug was a crash, the exact text that was printed out when the
170 * Further information such as stack traces may be useful, but is not
171 necessary. If you do send a stack trace, and the error is an X error,
172 it will be more useful if the stacktrace is produced running the test
173 program with the --sync command line option.
178 Patches should also be submitted to bugzilla.gnome.org. If the patch
179 fixes an existing bug, add the patch as an attachment to that bug
182 Otherwise, enter a new bug report that describes the patch, and attach
183 the patch to that bug report.
185 Bug reports containing patches should include the PATCH keyword in their
186 keyword fields. If the patch adds to or changes the GTK+ programming
187 interface, the API keyword should also be included.
189 Patches should be in unified diff form. (The -u option to GNU diff.)