[sldev] Re: What does GTK do in the Linux viewer

[Glen]

I prefer QT to GTK because I'm none too fond of obj-C. That's a 
religious thing, tho.

Why not improve the input handling in SDL?

And ahhh, I didn't know LL were taking the code elsewhere. No, I am not 
planning to nor do I have any wish to use anything other than the 
standard LL-coded viewer. Maintaining version compatibility with a 
moving target is a nightmare and I won't attempt it. I've done it 
before, and I have to say that I absolutely refuse to ever fork another 
large OSS project ever again ;P Patches against LL code yes, separate 
and soon to be incompatible code branch that is likely to undo bug fixes 
I code, no. Oh my, no.

--GC

Alissa Sabre wrote:
> Glen:
>> what is gtk actually used for in the Linux version
>> of the viewer?
> 
> Tofu:
>> Right now, file dialogs, color-picker, warning dialogs,
>> mozilla+gstreamer event queues, and copy-and-paste.
> 
> Three things on the point.
> 
> (1) Yes, there is a GTK-based color picker, but is is not usually
> used.  The default behaviour in today's viewer is to use LLUI-based
> SL's own color picker.  "Edit > Preferences > General > Use default
> system color picker" controls it.  I guess you can simply disable the
> GTK-based color picker.
> 
> (2) I believe clipbard operations are currently handled through Xlib
> and GTK is not used for the purpose.  See VWR-7036.  Note that the
> code that Tofu referred to as "The rewritten clipboard code by Alissa
> Sabre" in his comment on VWR-7036 *is* based on GTK...
> 
> (3) The warning dialog (OSMessageBox) is currently based on GTK, and
> it is not straightforward to replace with LLUI, because OSMessageBox()
> may be called before OpenGL initialization (to notify some unexpected
> events, e.g., lack of some critical feature in the underlying OpenGL
> implementation...)
> 
>> But gtk is GPLd like the viewer is - so it would be OK to port those 
>> widgets into SL's codebase and use SL's UI engine to draw them.
> 
> If you are planning to create your own viewer distribution, that's
> fine.  However, I believe LL would never receive your patch if you put
> copies of GTK codes into the patch, because LL is selling the viewer
> source to third parties under no GPL terms, and _importing_ external
> GPL/LGPL codes into the viewer source will prevent LL from doing so.
> 
>> Though, if it were to be done, would it be a welcome thing?
> 
> Some people welcomes it, and some other doesn't.  You are free to do
> so if you believe it is good.  Nobody can stop you.  That's the great
> feature of free software.  Programming freedom.  (Is RMS reading this? :-)
> 
> My own opinion is just opposite.  I've been trying to remove SDL
> dependency from the viewer code, replacing it with a GTK-based
> alternative.  In other words, I'm _increasing_ GTK dependency.  The
> original reason I started it is to improve the input method handling.
> Clipboard improvement is just a (good) side effect.  See VWR-2261 for
> details on this issue.
> 
>     Alissa Sabre
> 
> P.S., I recently restarted working on VWR-2261 (after 1/2 year blank),
> and I'm uploading a revised patch soon, hopefully within this weekend.
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