Inkscape Development Version Switches To Using GTK4

[asriel]

Why though?
GTK4 seems to work just fine for me.

Port firefox to gtk3. Or gimp. Or libvreoffice. Then post claims. There is no serious productive software on gtk4. Just gnome toys. Which is developed ugly way - I want something differewnt in y stupid button - ok, I will change gtk4 api.

[Artim]

Considering how quickly new toolkits are released,

9-10 years is too quickly for you? Well you must have lost all touch to reality. Also, technology evolves way too quickly to allow such things. GTK+ 3 and Qt 5 show that the best. When they where started, there was only the X Windowing System. Wayland only existed on paper. Only years later Wayland was first implemented. Neither actually needed a new major version to support it, but both only supported it really well with their next major version that included large overhauls. You simply can't go any slower if you won't kill any progress alltogether.

I just wish that the code for apps could be sufficiently segregated from the base logic.

Nobody stops you from trying. But fact is, since there is no feature parity and not enough similarity in expected behavior only between these two toolkits - not to mention the many other toolkits out there - that's just impossible to achieve. You'd pretty much need to invent an intermediary format that only supports the lowest common denominator of every toolkit out there if you want true separation. And then a compiler that can translate to every existing toolkit and their programming language. If you are capable of understanding why that's insane, you'll understand why this hasn't been done yet and why it might never be done.

it would be really cool if there could be a Qt version of GIMP, and Inkscape, or a GTK version of Krita for example.

Nobody stops you or anybody else from forking them and building UIs in the opposite toolkit system. That nobody has done that should make it clear enough that there simply isn't enough interest.

Sometimes you are on a exclusively Qt or GTK Shell and the program that does the best job is opposite to the default toolkit.

That's your own fault then. Nobody forces you to use such rubbish. If a shell laggs behind that many decades, maybe just don't consider using it.

It feels like in 20 years we are pretty much in the same situation with no mitigation, and for those of you annoyed at the suggestion -- I'll throw in Electron as a "hate" diversion lol.

That's not as smart of an answer as you think. Any Electron app will use the same toolkit Chromium uses in the end. With the sole difference that Electron apps define their UI with HTML, CSS etc. So instead of unifying anything, you only recommend to create yet another toolkit that needs to be supported by everything, not solving a single issue. And in the case of Electron only adding more issues. The only thing they solve is the overhead of developing for multiple OS'. But UI-wise, they achieve the opposite of what a toolkit is designed for. If you are using the exact same look and feel on every OS, you will never achieve a polished UX, you only end up with a dumpster fire of apps where every app looks and behaves differently. If you don't want people to use your software, go ahead.

[tildearrow]

Yes, compatibility is not a human right. If someone sees the necessity to break it, it will be broken. Live with

In business world, breakage is a big deal.

[Artim]

Port firefox to gtk3.

...you know that Firefox never was based on any toolkit but their own?

Or gimp

Has already been done.

Or libvreoffice

LibreOffice has been on GTK+ 3 for many years. Of course I know that you are blinded by your riddiculous hatred that you didn't notice that you meant GTK 4, but it makes your riddiculous rants just all the funnier. And for your information: the GTK 4 port of LibreOffice is being worked on since shortly after GTK 4 has been released. You could even already use it, but it's only just working, it's not pretty. And the reason for that is not GTK 4, as you so desperately want everyone to think, but much bigger changes the GUI designers of TDF are planning. They don't want to only port LO to GTK 4, they want to overhaul the complete UX. You can see the first idea of what one dev suggested here: https://twitter.com/ChristianOhrfan/...15987314761734. You can bet that it took quite a while before any decision about the future UX of LibreOffice was made. Also, this is simply not a priority. And given that GTK is only one of the toolkits that can be used, of course this will take its time since somebody needs to have the time to implement it alongside ports to GTK 4 and Qt 6 at the same time.

In fact, at least on Debian, it's fairly easy to use the GTK 4 version or the Qt 6 version of LibreOffice. For all I know, neither is the default yet and that will be for a good reason. And yes, at a first glance the GTK 4 version had a small bug the Qt 6 version didn't have, as the theming of the tool bars was a bit off. But that hardly qualifies as a reason for or against GTK 4. Other than that, the progress since the last time I tested this, roughly a year ago, is quite large. Of course back then there wasn't a Qt 6 version available yet, so I can only compare the GTK version. But there's just nothing supporting your rants.

Then post claims. There is no serious productive software on gtk4. Just gnome toys. Which is developed ugly way - I want something differewnt in y stupid button - ok, I will change gtk4 api.

I wouldn't call bottles and many flatpak first applications "gnome toys". And as already elaborated, besides a small bug, the GTK 4 port of LibreOffice is - from a user perspective, not knowing what the devs still have on their to-do list - pretty much done. If you compare that to Qt, there is OBS and Wireshark that are not "plasma toys" and already on Qt 6 - and that's about it. Doesn't really support your rant either.

[oleid]

Bye-bye Inkscape. I never liked that editor anyway.

GTK4 is garbage.

Thanks for you elaborated critique. I think I now understand better why you don't like gtk4.

[Artim]

In business world, breakage is a big deal.

Not really. Breakage needs to be done right, but that's it. Otherwise the business world wouldn't be so busy using software that has broken compatibility countless times in the past. Just look at Microsoft Office. On paper they still support all old formats, in reality this is only true under ideal circumstances. And nothing is more widely used. Same with Windows, that keeps on breaking compatibility with the underlying systems left and right.

[Monsterovich]

Not really. Breakage needs to be done right, but that's it.

There is such a thing called backward compatibility, but GTK developers are not competent enough and don't know about it.

"GTK4 is for GNOME Toys" 👍 (C) asriel

[hf_139]

Why though?
GTK4 seems to work just fine for me.

The CSD is inconsistent. i.e. Who wants to have a dialog confirmation button in the same position where otherwise the button for close is?

If you have a popup window or dialog with a form, you can roll a dice whether the confirmation / cancel buttons are at the top or the bottom and in which order. Inkscape acknowledges that 99.999% of people fill forms from top to bottom and places those buttons at the bottom. Meanwhile GIMP (3 beta) decided for the maniac way of GNOME. Compare the "New Document" dialogs of them. It is very obvious there.

And the file picker is a pure humiliation ritual. I can write an essay about the filepicker alone, if you want to read that.

[oleid]

Port firefox to gtk3. Or gimp. Or libvreoffice.

They are all at gtk3 for some time now.
You can even build libreoffice with gtk4 UI.

There is no serious productive software on gtk4. Just gnome toys.

Inkscape is now on gtk4.
So is WebKit (used by epiphany among others). And even gnome-builder, an IDE, got ported.

[Monsterovich]

The CSD is inconsistent. i.e. Who wants to have a dialog confirmation button in the same position where otherwise the button for close is?

The main complaint about CSD is that it is not switchable in the framework. You have to patch libgtk3 to disable it, and sometimes even that is not enough. See:

https://github.com/lah7/gtk3-classic/issues/32#issuecomment-1649301015

I won't repeat my arguments about CSD being generally anti-pattern, which breaks the behavior of window managers and their visual appearance.