Status and plans for GTK 4 support?

[Matthias Brennwald]

Hello wx users

I am a newbie to this email group, came here because I am wondering what the status and plans for GTK 4 support is. As GTK 4 is the future for the Linux/GNOME desktop, it would be great to see wxWidgets support for GTK 4, or at least some sort of a commitment to implement GTK 4 in the future.

- What is the current status of support for GTK 4 in wxWidgets?

- What are the plans for GTK 4 in wxWidgets?

- What can I do to help getting GTK 4 into wxWidgets? (I am not fluent in C/C++, so I can't help writing code.)

Thanks!

[Vadim Zeitlin]

On Mon, 07 Nov 2022 20:59:35 +0100 Matthias Brennwald wrote:

MB> I am a newbie to this email group,

Hi Matthias and welcome!

MB> I am wondering what the status and plans for GTK 4 support is.

We definitely hope to support GTK 4 one day, but we don't have any
concrete plan/schedule for doing it yet.

MB> As GTK 4 is the future for the Linux/GNOME desktop, it would be great
MB> to see wxWidgets support for GTK 4, or at least some sort of a
MB> commitment to implement GTK 4 in the future.

I can only agree with this.

MB> - What is the current status of support for GTK 4 in wxWidgets?

Some experimental code which is far from being complete.

MB> - What are the plans for GTK 4 in wxWidgets?

The problem with GTK 4 is that it's impossible, by design (of GTK), to
implement some parts of wx API using it. At the very least, using
wx{Client,Screen,Window}DC is out of the question, as all drawing must be
done only from wxEVT_PAINT handler with GTK 4. And there is also no support
for local modal loops, so wxDialog::ShowModal() can't be implemented.

As any non-trivial wx application uses ShowModal(), we need to provide
some migration path for the existing code, but I don't know how to do it
yet.

MB> - What can I do to help getting GTK 4 into wxWidgets? (I am not fluent
MB> in C/C++, so I can't help writing code.)

Coming up with API that

1. Is as simple as possible to migrate the existing code to.
2. Can actually be implemented with GTK 4.

would be a great first step. Unfortunately I won't have time to do it in
the near future (certainly not before the end of this year).

Regards,
VZ

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