GTK4 To Bring Better & Faster macOS Support

[rastersoft]

What about better Windows support? GIMP takes 10 minutes to start on Windows.

GIMP still uses Gtk2, so...

[_r00t-]

It's a mediocre toolkit, with an absolutely terrible approach to backwards compatibility. JWZ's 17 year old rant about the GNOME project is even more true today than it was back then.

If you think GTK is "great" you almost certainly haven't used it seriously for any length of time.

I prefer QT but GTK is fine.

[baryluk]

OpenGL is fine. We can always run zink on top of MoltenVK on top of Metal. sic, but yes.

[You-]

I agree. GTK+ is a great toolkit. I don't think that it will suit great on MacOS for the moment.

I think it will suit it quite well. In the past half decade MacOS has moved to a theme that is similar to Adwaita (but with different shades of grey), headerbars etc. Visually it should be a good mix.

As for GIMP, AFAIK the Windows version was slow to start due to an issue with creating a font cache. I remember reading that this has been changed to ab asynchronous and the slow downs are no longer present.

[eszlari]

Too bad this won't help Inkscape with their macOS performance problems unitl they have moved to GTK4:

https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/-/issues/1614

[GreatLord]

I like gtk but GIMP is slow even on linux and it using gtk2 and python2 last time i checked they have problem port eveything to python3 and alot old plugin from 3d party is writen in python2. And alot is missing in GIMP so i have move to Krita

[polarathene]

Shrug. Everyone complains that the toolkit isn't cross-platform enough so I take some extra time to fix that and I'm welcomed with useless posts like this. Good times.

GTK on Windows and macOS were bad experiences I had many years ago. So seeing improvement for cross-platform support is great, thank you!

Many don't understand the amount of time and effort that can go into making what may seem like minor improvements. Speaking from experience with my own open-source contributions (which are likely far less worthwhile), I'm not presently a GTK user (unless there's no decent Qt equivalent), but I can definitely appreciate this work and look forward to GTK4 in the future

I'm sure many others appreciate your contributions too.

[ehansin]

Yeah, I came to this thread to understand the GTK on Windows situation. I am not an expert, so I may be bit ignorant of things. It seamed like GTK2 on Windows worked, but I have seen multiple references that GTK3 on Windows was maybe more difficult - is that true? And if so, are things looking better for GTK4 on Windows?

I ask, because there are applications out there using GTK that are intended to be cross-platform. If that is the case, it would be nice if the toolkit (i.e. GTK) worked on those various platforms. I have been curious about this for a while (GTK2 vs. GTK3 vs. GTK4 on Windows), so figured might be a good chance to ask. Thanks!

[oleid]

What about better Windows support? GIMP takes 10 minutes to start on Windows.

That has nothing to do with GTK+, but with Gimp's architecture. Plugins are processes. And registering those plugins is slow on windows.

[ElectricPrism]

Apple is no longer a Platform -- they are a Digital Jail that prey on the technologically illiterate and the vein. Seeing how they've treated OpenGL, made it impossible to boot Linux on their new laptops and actively discouraged programmer innovation I couldn't care less if GTK support for macOS was sterilized from the codebase all-together.