The GIMP toolkit (GTK+) matures to include yet another platform. This project aims to bring native GTK+ support to the Apple Mac OS X platform. The basic implementation is sponsored by Imendio AB and the work so far has been done by Anders Carlsson (of Imendio).On other GTK+ news, here is a tutorial for Gtk+ engine programmers to get your engine have animated widgets based on my experiences with Clearlooks-cairo. And video samples are here.
Imendio AB Announces the GTK+ on Mac OS X Port Project
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
How many time have we heard people trying to do this but have not finished the job? What makes these people any different.
Maybe instead of being negative we could actually contribute and offer encouragement.
Is there any way of making a donation to this effort?
Hey, you are right chief (as long as you are paying for it, you should be worried). Troll.
Drools at the thought of it. GTK+ native in OSX
… and I bet yet again, none of the code will make to official GTK release, making it totally irrelevant..
It’s already in gnome cvs.
And it is actually being supported by paid developers rather than some ad-hoc half assed port.
What I would love to see, to follow, would be for the likes of GAIM appear on MacOS in *.app format; along with many other popular GUI based tools from the *NIX world.
Maybe they should first improve the GTK+ version for Win32 as it’s still hardly native on that platform with all its odd behaviors, while Mac has much a smaller audience.
GTK+ on Win32 behaves pretty well. I wouldn’t call it native, because it is not native, but it still behaves quite well.
But Gtk on Win32 is good only to run existing Gtk on Linux applications. As a developer, I would never use Gtk to write a Win32 only application, while I would do it with Qt or WxWidgets.
No matter how they call it a “crossplatform” toolkit. The truth is that Gtk is a (good) Linux-only toolkit which happen to run (bad) on other platforms.
That might be.
However, for Windows applications I prefer to stick to native Win API everywhere (though wxWidgets is quite good too – but it also looks and behaves as native widgets).
GTK+ is cross platform, in the sense it works on several platforms.
The downside is it can feel slightly alien (I think the word is) to the platform it’s running on.
But GTK+ isn’t only good for Linux-applications. I personally prefer to use a native tool kit, no matter the platform.
FLTK or Fox Tool Kit are other good options.
I still think GTK+ is good also on the Windows platform, but it doesn’t feel native as such. But then again.. it isn’t native on the Win32 platform.
> GTK+ is cross platform, in the sense it works on several platforms.
What other definitions of ‘cross platform’ do you have in your lexicon?
It could be cross platform in the sense, it was native on several platforms. One could of course claim GTK+ is native across several platforms (NetBSD, FreeBSD, OpenBSD and Linux :p )
“The truth is that Gtk is a (good) Linux-only toolkit which happen to run (bad) on other platforms.”
I think you would mean Linux and Unix here, forgive me if i’m wrong but last I checked there were first rate platforms like FreeBSD and Solaris which were chugging along quite happily with GTK…
GTK is not written for Linux, it is written for X Windows.
Well, wxWidget is pretty weird, and the api sucks, really. I don’t think you could compare Gtk+ to wxWidget, because on the funcionality side, there is no point for comparation.
“The truth is that Gtk is a (good) Linux-only toolkit which happen to run (bad) on other platforms.”
no, the truth is that Gtk is a cross-platform toolkit primarily aimed at X-windows.
Define “pretty well”. To me, its look and feel is foreign (even with Wimp; you got the inversed button order, the GNOME file dialog… with the latest version I tried (2.6.8), anyway) and it got the sluggish redraw time. Hardly what I would call “pretty well”.
To me, it looks like more a port than a supported platform. I hope the OS X port is going to get a better treatement (which I do not doubt since this platform got more respect and less hatred than Win32).
The order of buttons, dimensions of them, and presence of icons on the buttons are controlled by settings in the gtk engine: if they are wrong, then complain to the packager of the engine and/or application.
Perhaps you’re right. I am not that familiar with the toolkit (I do development development in KDE). Still, I believe this kind of stuff should be done automatically. I have used a few GTK applications (GIMP, Gaim, Inkscape, perhaps one or two I don’t remember) and while their look wasn’t bad, their feeling was alien. They had the quirks I described. It doesn’t make the applications crappy nor useless, but they look more like ports!
Perhaps you’re right. I am not that familiar with the toolkit (I do development development in KDE). Still, I believe this kind of stuff should be done automatically. I have used a few GTK applications (GIMP, Gaim, Inkscape, perhaps one or two I don’t remember) and while their look wasn’t bad, their feeling was alien. They had the quirks I described. It doesn’t make the applications crappy nor useless, but they look more like ports!
>
>
*THEY ARE PORTS,MORON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!*
GOD SAVE US FROM MORONS AND ASSHOLES LIKE YOU.
I don’t think hatred or disrespect has anything to do with it. It’s more a matter of securing same behaviour across platforms than securing a “native” look and feel on each platform.
It does feel slightly foreign, but this is true for many applications incl. several from Microsoft (Media Player and MSN Messenger, Outlook, Office 2003 etc.)
But no doubt wxWidgets, FLTK and Fox Tool Kit have a much more native feel than GTK+, but this has nothing to do with the tool kit working good or not. Stability has something to do with that.
Well, you can’t stop complaining and hope things. Better, work and donate effor, and stop trolling. You pay nothing for it, and it you intend to give your opinion, give a reasanoble one.
My opinion have nothing to do with the amount of time or money invested in the project. If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work, whether I gave 10 grands or I paid nothing. As for my complaints, they are more observations.
By the way, “trolling” and “I don’t agree with you” are two different things.
Probably you could donate your time, instead of complaining about.
Maybe they use OSX and couldnt care less about Win32?
Edited 2005-11-24 07:02
A common mistake in things like “maybe they should first…” suggestions is that the people that (in this particular case) develop the MacOSX port of GTK+ most likely have different skills than the people porting GTK+ to Win32. So by developing the MacOSX port they aren’t “hurting” the Win32 port development and they probably couldn’t help the Gtk+-Win32 team anyway.
What makes these people any different.
“Imendio has invested approximately $25 000 to date and are aiming to continue to support this open project.”
Sounds like they are willing to throw money at it, at least. If it will make any difference this time, remains to be seen. But it makes one think.
Edited 2005-11-23 20:12
One thing that makes this attempt different is that Anders Carlsson who is doing the port, is very, very competent and knows a lot about gtk+.
Sorry, accidently posted anaon above as (IP: 220.237.14.—)
Further to that these are the reasons why I have faith that Imendio will pull it off
1.)They did the beagle integration with Nautilus
2.)Nokia are doing some work with them at the moment on internet tablets
3.)They are on the Gnome advisory board
4.)They are a great bunch of people with a good business model.
Thanks to the Imendians for their work on this.
4.)They are a great bunch of people with a good business model.
Well:
Imendio has invested approximately $25000 to date and are aiming to continue to support this open project.
This has been tried by many companies, including Eazel and Ximian in the past, and they simply haven’t survived. They’ve got bogged down by their attachment to the software and religious arguments than they have by their attachment to staying in business.
Other factors that
have made GTK+ successful include:
* The licensing model (LGPL)
I never fail to be amazed by these companies that will blow money they haven’t got on this stuff in order to allow others to develop everything for free. There must be some extremely well hidden revenue stream I’m not seeing here……. Creating a cross platform technology that works well on even one platform takes a lot of focused time and effort.
Of course sensible businesses out there buy a cross-platform toolkit that actually works today, save themselves up to $20,000+ (and more – that’s an open-ended figure there) and actually write applications that are useful to people that they can sell and will keep them in business. But, you know…..
> This has been tried by many companies, including
> Eazel and Ximian in the past, and they simply haven’t
> survived.
Eazel failed because they had no business plan, pure and simple. They just kept writing software long before they decided what they would do, then tried to fit their services around their invention. That’s a backwards way to go about it and fails no matter what you’re selling.
As for Ximian, they did quite well and got several contracts. They did so well in fact that Novell bought them up.
BTW, you fail to see the connection of
> 4.)They are a great bunch of people with a good business model. Imendio has invested approximately
> $25000 to date and are aiming to continue to support
> this open project.
and
> Other factors that have made GTK+ successful include:
> * The licensing model (LGPL)
These two are hugely related. Hans Reiser contributes to the Linux kernel because he can sell proprietary modules based off of the Reiser file system. Codeweavers has a similar model as does Transgaming. The LGPL gives them the flexibility to create a sustainable business model.
As for Ximian, they did quite well and got several contracts. They did so well in fact that Novell bought them up.
They got sold because their VCs needed to get them sold.
Hans Reiser contributes to the Linux kernel because he can sell proprietary modules based off of the Reiser file system.
What’s that got to do with the LGPL? The LGPL doesn’t make that happen – quite the opposite.
Ah, more non-sense from “segedunum”.
This has been tried by many companies, including Eazel and Ximian in the past, and they simply haven’t survived. They’ve got bogged down by their attachment to the software and religious arguments than they have by their attachment to staying in business.
Ximian did survive just fine until the day it got acquired by Novell. Ximian unlike most other companies during the boom did not spend its money left and right. We had the mentaility of not spending more money than we needed to.
But as usual for segendum, he lives in his own world. His reality is made up of his own stories that he spices up over time. Up to the point where his own arguments start making sense to him.
In reality, we have him commenting on a Gnome story because he feels that anything that helps Gnome (Mono, Gtk being cross platform, Tango) is a threat to his way of life.
It must be difficult living in fear. Thats why am extending a friendly hand to segedunum to bring him to a happy place, a safe place. A place where he can continue to use his tools, and yet, through the miracle of love he might accept that others can be quite excited. A world where ruining someone else’s party is no longer amusing.
That being said (segedunum, please close your eyes now, am talking to the rest, you dont have to read what follows), segedunum reminds me of Dwight from “The Office” in the American edition.
Check out his blog, and tell me if he is not *identical*:
http://blogs.nbc.com/office/
Or the “Comic Book Guy” in the Simpsons.
Ok, back to happy thoughts.
Miguel.
Wow. What a lame post. I hope someone hacked your account. I hope it’s not really you, Miguel.
Ah, more non-sense from “segedunum”.
Thanks for the confirmation ;-).
Ximian did survive just fine until the day it got acquired by Novell. Ximian unlike most other companies during the boom did not spend its money left and right. We had the mentaility of not spending more money than we needed to.
You’re investors didn’t agree – quite obviously ;-). Please don’t try and pull the wool over my eyes, I know it when I see it and I call it like I see it.
The LGPL thing is dead – OK?
But as usual for segendum, he lives in his own world. His reality is made up of his own stories that he spices up over time. Up to the point where his own arguments start making sense to him.
Well it threatens you, hence this ;-). Quite what that means is anyone’s guess – you haven’t answered any of it I notice.
In reality, we have him commenting on a Gnome story because he feels that anything that helps Gnome (Mono, Gtk being cross platform, Tango) is a threat to his way of life.
Well, after five or six years of the same thing it’s hardly a threat to whatever it is you think I claim to cherish ;-).
It must be difficult living in fear. Thats why am extending a friendly hand to segedunum……………………………………………………. ………………………..else’s party is no longer amusing.
That being said (segedunum, please close your eyes now, am talking to the rest, you dont have to read what follows), segedunum reminds me of Dwight from “The Office” in the American edition.
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. It doesn’t alter anything, nor does it answer the comment or any points I’ve made – does it? ;-).
Edited 2005-11-24 23:22
You’re investors didn’t agree – quite obviously ;-). Please don’t try and pull the wool over my eyes, I know it when I see it and I call it like I see it.
The LGPL thing is dead – OK?
Hoping things wont make them so. If you could, you would have produced a quote from them. Shame it does not exist.
I fail to see what the LGPL has to do with this though. Maybe you missed the part where Ximian had free *and* proprietary offerings?
As for your points, those are things that you should discuss with a professional, not with me. If you have specific questions though, I would be glad to answer them. Your assertions are just way out there to bother with them.
Hoping things wont make them so.
You and Eazel are out of business and yesterday’s news – as Novell will be when certain people have extinguished their cash pile. The clue train left on that years ago.
If you could, you would have produced a quote from them. Shame it does not exist.
How do you know there isn’t? There are easy ways and means of finding this stuff out.
I fail to see what the LGPL has to do with this though. Maybe you missed the part where Ximian had free *and* proprietary offerings?
It didn’t work, did it? And it was always about the LGPL – “The LPGPL is the best license for business this, that and the other.” ESR and Bruce Perens, those people that supposedly write on these topics, also need to realise that telling people they can develop everything for nothing has failed. If people truly want to make open source software work, there it is.
Your assertions are just way out there to bother with them.
I’m afraid not.
You and Eazel are out of business and yesterday’s news – as Novell will be when certain people have extinguished their cash pile. The clue train left on that years ago.
Ximian never went out of business, get a clue. It is like saying that “paypal” went out of business when e-bay bought them.
The reason why it seems to bother you is that it ruins your argument. The whole reason why you decided to astroturf on a thread on “Imendio” and “Gtk+ for OSX”
How do you know there isn’t? There are easy ways and means of finding this stuff out.
For someone who has been repeating the same argument for so long (Ximian having flopped) you would think that you would have produced such a quote. Alas you wont be able to.
So what about producing such smoking gun?
Ximian never went out of business, get a clue.
Your investors got you sold – you simply can’t hide that.
The reason why it seems to bother you is that it ruins your argument.
How?
For someone who has been repeating the same argument for so long (Ximian having flopped) you would think that you would have produced such a quote.
There is no smoking gun. The lights are on with someone’s finger on the trigger….. Also your buddy Nat talked about having enough venture capital to keep going. That’s not revenue, is it?
Edited 2005-11-27 15:47
Oh look just come out with it, you’re a troll. Look there are positive ways of criticising, you obviously do not realise this. I disagree with Miguel on some of the issues surrounding Mono, these are personal concerns which obviously aren’t an issue to Miguel. You don’t see me making any personal attacks on this now do you.
Look Imendio are doing a great job insofar as I can tell, what concern is it to you if they wish to crash and burn whilst contributing to the success of GTK, are you an investor?
Obviously you have wet dreams about Trolltech, whatever tickles your carriage I guess, but why come here and post your nonsense?
Oh look just come out with it, you’re a troll. Look there are positive ways of criticising, you obviously do not realise this.
No. I’ve fully explained why I’ve taken the views I have. The fact that some people obviosuly don’t like them does not equal to being a troll I’m afraid.
these are personal concerns which obviously aren’t an issue to Miguel. You don’t see me making any personal attacks on this now do you.
They are certainly not personal attacks. They are issues brought up that are the way that they are, and I’ve explained why a lot of what has gone on simply has not been viable. You’re making emotional comments without replying to my actual points.
Look Imendio are doing a great job insofar as I can tell, what concern is it to you if they wish to crash and burn whilst contributing to the success of GTK, are you an investor?
No, but after several years of the same stuff that hasn’t worked you’ve got to ask at some point what is going to work. What will get open source desktop software through the barrier and get people using on a widespread basis? How do you fund the development you need?
Obviously you have wet dreams about Trolltech, whatever tickles your carriage I guess, but why come here and post your nonsense?
I’ve never mentioned Trolltech – please don’t get emotionally carried away. It’s simply a fact that companies that have got carried away with promoting the LGPL as a fantastic selling point end up spending vast sums of money, generate no income and go out of business. If open source software companies are going to be viable that has to change, plain and simple.
I wish Imendio all the luck in the world with this project, and I hope their project is successful despite all the whiners and naysayers here.
Does anyone have any idea how long it might be before there’s something released that people can play with? Seems like they already have a pretty good start.
It is released in the Gtk+ HEAD branch, how to build it and get started can be read at: http://developer.imendio.com/wiki/Gtk_Mac_OS_X
GTK+ also runs on DirectFB. Now, that is clearly non-X backend.
I for one find the possibility of a GTK+ port excellent news. If they can pull this off, it’ll be easier to port applications to Mac OS X.
I think the whole “native look” meme is over-rated. For example, I’ve been looking at the same old GUI’s in windows for 10 years now, and I personally am relieved when an app has its own unique non-native look.
Hopefully, on whatever OS I find a GTK app, I can choose to use it with a Gnome look and feel.
Adium uses the Gaim Libs and is a native .app
‘Ah, more non-sense from “segedunum”‘.
segedunum has yet to discover about himself what everyone knows only too well.
“Of course sensible businesses out there buy a cross-platform toolkit that actually works today, save themselves up to $20,000+ (and more – that’s an open-ended figure there) and actually write applications that are useful to people that they can sell and will keep them in business. But, you know….”
i wonder what toolkit and desktop segedumum is referring to here. as if we didn’t know. segedunum’s knowledge and judgement of what is best is equivelent to his (poor) knowledge of physics, as he has already demonstrated in another thread. we are expecting him to state that the world is flat at some point.
segedunum has yet to discover about himself what everyone knows only too well.
He, he, he. I know people don’t like it but the fact that ther are no sensible comments or answers to anything I’ve brought have only confirmed what I already know.
i wonder what toolkit and desktop segedumum is referring to here. as if we didn’t know.
The one that actually makes business sense ;-). This isn’t a religious war I’m afraid – it’s there in black and white and it was described why in that little paragraph ;-).
knowledge and judgement of what is best is equivelent to his (poor) knowledge of physics
He, he, he. You think chaos theory is about physics?! Christ. And Newton’s laws talk about complex stimuli do they? Good God. I take it you slept through that class?
Do some reading around on both sides for your little comments before making posting them as anonymous. I notice I didn’t get a reply to that comment apart from a -1 score, presumably because you just didn’t like it. There seems to be a pattern developing…….
we are expecting him to state that the world is flat at some point.
Well some would call spending $25,000+ (note the plus) on something that will never recoup it’s investment a King Canute operation. At least the world being flat seemed plausible ;-).
Edited 2005-11-24 23:39
“I take it you slept through that class?”
i was obviously much more awake than you ever were considering that you claimed that newtons laws disproved chaos theory. perhaps you aren’t aware that newtons laws came centuries before chaos theory.
i was obviously much more awake than you ever were considering that you claimed that newtons laws disproved chaos theory.
The concept of Newton’s Laws disproves Chaos Theory as a concept. I’m sure at some point in time you could come up with something approximate that appeared to fit what was happening, but that’s all it would be – fitting what was happening. It was only when someone gained more knowledge and comprehension of what was going on (Newton) that we understood. Like I said, Chaos Theory is something you use to explain something you don’t understand or comprehend. Einstein was dead right although he didn’t know it, and he and us just don’t have enough knowledge to explain many, many things yet. Coming up with half-cocked theories based on probability is not an explanation.
Since when was chaos theory proved anyway, and really, what’s it got to do with physics? It’s been widely recognised that global chaos theory and other fields of worthy study are complete bollocks. They explain nothing.
However, you’ve succeeded in going completely off-topic and not answering any of the points made. A round of applause.
Edited 2005-11-25 11:12
Segedunum, you’ve spent a lot of time saying what you don’t believe and pronouncing Mark Twain-like obituaries on business models.
Does it bother you that people are working on open source versions of OS/2, VMS, OpenStep (aka GNUstep), Windows (ReactOS), BeOS, ….? Does it bother you that people have a *choice* to work on these projects, use these projects, and form their companies around these products? Aren’t there better things to do in life than trying to tear down people who have beliefs and desires that are different than yours. (Note, this does not mean they disagree with you. Their beliefs and desires came before even meeting you, so disagreement with you isn’t their aim.)
Let’s make this more positive. What do you believe works in the open source world and which business models work? From reading your past posts, you seem to be in favour of Red Hat’s Java initiative (which is based off of GCJ, which is effectively LGPL).
Let’s make this more positive. What do you believe works in the open source world and which business models work?
Thank you very much.
It really depends on the kind of software – and that’s a large part of the problem. Will we always have LGPL software, BSD and GPL? Yes, of course we will and we need them. However, the notion that some people have of a BSD/LGPL/develop-for-nothing panacea is just wrong.
It depends on the complexity and type of the software involved. The desktop, for example, is a very complex area because it depends on the development tools and desktop development infrastructure, which takes a great deal of time and effort to get up to the required quality and for it to continue to be maintained. You’ve then got to develop applications on top of that development infrastructure that are of good enough quality for people to use, which is complex in itself, and then there are other peripheral issues like usability. Open source software by and large has succeeded in quite a few areas, but it’s what will take us over the tipping point in terms of quality and useful software that will replace much of the proprietary stuff we have (but won’t wipe out proprietary software). Remember that the open source desktop is user-facing which server software, the place where open source software whatever the license has always been successful, is not.
However, look at the Linux kernel. It would never have reached the quality it has without people pushing more code into it, which the GPL compels developers to do. If people were allowed to put proprietary extensions on that’s exactly what most companies would do and you would never have the number of open source drivers you do now. Actual kernel development would be an absolute fraction of what it is.
In the case of Red Hat I think they have it right for Java because there is a market and a very large community of existing software and support. You have IBM and a multitude of others putting huge developer resources into stuff like Eclipse and SWT. What they’re doing with gcj and classpath is just about doable because Red Hat have paying customers whatever licenses the software that they use have. However, there’s no getting away from the fact that this is a huge amount of effort and it remains to be seen whether it is doable from a desktop point of view. Java server software is already well established there though, and this is really what Red Hat is aiming at – at least first.
In short, the past few years of the open source desktop’s failure to really go places should have taught us something about the nature of the software required there.
Edited 2005-11-25 14:36
“You think chaos theory is about physics?!”
no i don’t. chaos theory is maths. chaos theory has a great many applications – in physics, finance, design, chemistry, you name it.
“The concept of Newton’s Laws disproves Chaos Theory as a concept. I’m sure at some point in time you could come up with something approximate that appeared to fit what was happening, but that’s all it would be – fitting what was happening. It was only when someone gained more knowledge and comprehension of what was going on (Newton) that we understood. Like I said, Chaos Theory is something you use to explain something you don’t understand or comprehend. Einstein was dead right although he didn’t know it, and he and us just don’t have enough knowledge to explain many, many things yet. Coming up with half-cocked theories based on probability is not an explanation.
”
does anyone know what on earth segedunum is wittering on about here? it sounds like a politician talking bull about things he/she knows nothing about.
does anyone know what on earth segedunum is wittering on about here? it sounds like a politician talking bull about things he/she knows nothing about.
Since you don’t have the intelligence to hit the reply button……..