c63087a563
To build a better world sometimes means having to tear the old one down.
-- Alexander Pierce, "Captain America: The Winter Soldier"
ATK served us well for nearly 20 years, but the world has changed, and
GTK has changed with it. Now ATK is mostly a hindrance towards improving
the accessibility stack:
- it maps to a very specific implementation, AT-SPI, which is Linux and
Unix specific
- it requires implementing the same functionality in three different
layers of the stack: AT-SPI, ATK, and GTK
- only GTK uses it; every other Linux and Unix toolkit and application
talks to AT-SPI directly, including assistive technologies
Sadly, we cannot incrementally port GTK to a new accessibility stack;
since ATK insulates us entirely from the underlying implementation, we
cannot replace it piecemeal. Instead, we're going to remove everything
and then incrementally build on a clean slate:
- add an "accessible" interface, implemented by GTK objects directly,
which describe the accessible role and state changes for every UI
element
- add an "assistive technology context" to proxy a native accessibility
API, and assign it to every widget
- implement the AT context depending on the platform
For more information, see: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/-/issues/2833
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GTK — The GTK toolkit
General information
GTK is a multi-platform toolkit for creating graphical user interfaces. Offering a complete set of widgets, GTK is suitable for projects ranging from small one-off projects to complete application suites.
GTK is free software and part of the GNU Project. However, the licensing terms for GTK, the GNU LGPL, allow it to be used by all developers, including those developing proprietary software, without any license fees or royalties.
The official download location
The official web site
The official developers blog
Discussion forum
Nightly documentation can be found at
- Gtk: https://gnome.pages.gitlab.gnome.org/gtk/gtk/
- Gdk: https://gnome.pages.gitlab.gnome.org/gtk/gdk/
- Gsk: https://gnome.pages.gitlab.gnome.org/gtk/gsk/
Building and installing
In order to build GTK you will need:
You will also need various dependencies, based on the platform you are building for:
If you are building the X11 backend, you will also need:
- Xlib, and the following X extensions:
- xrandr
- xrender
- xi
- xext
- xfixes
- xcursor
- xdamage
- xcomposite
If you are building the Wayland backend, you will also need:
- Wayland-client
- Wayland-protocols
- Wayland-cursor
- Wayland-EGL
Once you have all the necessary dependencies, you can build GTK by using Meson:
$ meson _build .
$ cd _build
$ ninja
You can run the test suite using:
$ meson test
And, finally, you can install GTK using:
$ sudo ninja install
Complete information about installing GTK+ and related libraries can be found in the file:
docs/reference/gtk/html/gtk-building.html
Or online
How to report bugs
Bugs should be reported on the issues page.
In the bug report please include:
-
Information about your system. For instance:
- which version of GTK you are using
- what operating system and version
- for Linux, which distribution
- if you built GTK, the list of options used to configure the build
And anything else you think is relevant.
-
How to reproduce the bug.
If you can reproduce it with one of the demo applications that are built in the demos/ subdirectory, on one of the test programs that are built in the tests/ subdirectory, that will be most convenient. Otherwise, please include a short test program that exhibits the behavior. As a last resort, you can also provide a pointer to a larger piece of software that can be downloaded.
-
If the bug was a crash, the exact text that was printed out when the crash occurred.
-
Further information such as stack traces may be useful, but is not necessary.
Contributing to GTK
Please, follow the contribution guide to know how to start contributing to GTK.
Release notes
The release notes for GTK are part of the migration guide in the API reference. See:
Licensing terms
GTK is released under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License, version 2.1 or, at your option, any later version, as published by the Free Software Foundation.
Please, see the COPYING file for further information.