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GTK is a UI toolkit, i.e. a piece of software that draws uniform-looking buttons and scrollbars and the like.
GTK used to stand for “GIMP toolkit” but GTK and GIMP development are now entirely separate, so much so, in fact, that 13 years after the release of GTK 3 and 3 years after the release of GTK 4, GIMP still hasn’t upgraded to either.
The way I see it, GTK is really a framework for building cross-platform GUI apps. Then handling display server compatibility makes perfect sense to me.
If this was meant to be a dig at Wayland, I’m pretty sure GTK also needs explicit and direct support for X11, Windows and MacOS. It just already exists.
It’s not a dig at Wayland. You really don’t want to have to add specific support for the OS directly in your widget library. There should be an abstraction layer in-between that deals with that. If that layer had been there they wouldn’t have to rewrite the whole thing.
GIMP has had a GTK 3 port in development for years. They just lack the developer bandwidth to finish it. And in general, using EOLed libraries for your very popular application is not great, not for security, not for usability, and not for compatibility with modern systems.
I thought they have renamed it one day from GTK+ Gimp Tool Kit to Gnome Tool Kit, but I do not find this anymore.
Imho Gnome Toolkit would be at least much more appropriate…
What even is GTK2 and GTK3?
GTK is a UI toolkit, i.e. a piece of software that draws uniform-looking buttons and scrollbars and the like.
GTK used to stand for “GIMP toolkit” but GTK and GIMP development are now entirely separate, so much so, in fact, that 13 years after the release of GTK 3 and 3 years after the release of GTK 4, GIMP still hasn’t upgraded to either.
13 years, damn…
Because it doesn’t need anything in GTK 3 and 4. They’re either cosmetic changes or UX changes and Gimp has no reason to adopt either.
Not true. There are tons of things like Wayland support that are only good in GTK3, and even then likely not complete
When the widget toolkit needs explicit and direct support for the graphics server you’re doing something very wrong.
The way I see it, GTK is really a framework for building cross-platform GUI apps. Then handling display server compatibility makes perfect sense to me.
If this was meant to be a dig at Wayland, I’m pretty sure GTK also needs explicit and direct support for X11, Windows and MacOS. It just already exists.
It’s not a dig at Wayland. You really don’t want to have to add specific support for the OS directly in your widget library. There should be an abstraction layer in-between that deals with that. If that layer had been there they wouldn’t have to rewrite the whole thing.
GIMP has had a GTK 3 port in development for years. They just lack the developer bandwidth to finish it. And in general, using EOLed libraries for your very popular application is not great, not for security, not for usability, and not for compatibility with modern systems.
Gtk 2 is old, Gtk 3 current and Gtk 4 is new.
Different versions of the Gnome Took Kit: https://www.gtk.org/
Ahem the GIMP Toolkit.
I thought they have renamed it one day from GTK+ Gimp Tool Kit to Gnome Tool Kit, but I do not find this anymore. Imho Gnome Toolkit would be at least much more appropriate…
They renamed it to GTK, dropping the initialism. It was always intended as a generic toolkit. At least until v4.