Glib 1.050 (unstable)

[muppet <scott asofyet org>]

Glib provides Perl access to the GLib and GObject libraries.  GLib is a  
portability and utility library; GObject provides a generic type system  
with inheritance and a powerful signal system.  Together these  
libraries are used as the foundation for many of the libraries that  
make up the Gnome environment, and are used in many unrelated projects.

This is an unstable development release of Glib, containing new  
features and other cool stuff that have been added since the 1.04x  
stable series.  The API is not frozen and things are subject to change  
at any time.  Report any bugs to gtk-perl-list AT gnome DOT org as soon  
as possible.  Please use the stable 1.04x series for important work.

The source code is available from the gtk2-perl project page on  
sourceforge:
https://sourceforge.net/project/ 
showfiles.php?group_id=64773&package_id=91217&release_id=242931

...and via anonymous cvs, tagged "rel-1-05-0" in the directory  
/gtk2-perl-xs/Glib .

This release works with all stable releases of glib-2.x.

In order to build Glib 1.050 from source, you must have glib-2.x and  
its development headers and utilities installed, as well as the  
pkg-config utility.   In addition, the following Perl modules are  
needed at build time (but not at runtime):

  ExtUtils::Depends >= 0.200
  ExtUtils::PkgConfig >= 1.000


Overview of Changes in Glib 1.050
=================================

* New unstable development branch.

* Greatly expanded GParamSpec support. [muppet]
  - Glib::ParamSpec instances are now blessed hash references  
containing a
    few special keys (same as the hashes previously returned from
    Glib::Object::list_properties()) to retain backwards compatibility.
  - There are now accessors for all the member variables of the various
    GParamSpec subclasses (e.g., GParamInt's minimum, maximum, and  
default
    value); this tree is mapped as Glib::Param::<type>.
  - Glib::ParamSpec->param() now works.
  - All of this makes the Glib::Object "notify" signal usable.
* More fundamental types are registered, e.g. Glib::UChar, Glib::Float,  
etc.
  This allows all paramspec types to be specified as package names.
  Glib::UInt was previously misspelled as Glib::Uint; the old name is  
still
  allowed, but the new name will be returned from Glib in all instances.
  This needs testing to see if it breaks anything.  [muppet]
* Added autodetection of flags and enum types to the doc generation  
code, so
  that all enum and flags types used in the methods and functions  
listed on
  a page are documented on that page.  The "=for enum" directives are  
still
  honored, and may be used to add descriptive text to the listings.   
[Ross]
* Added code to allow Glib::Object tracking, which allows the binding to
  maintain proper reference counts on GObjects when the perl interpreter
  clones a new thread.  Needs lots of testing, documentation, and needs  
a way
  to tell if thread support was compiled into perl.  Right now it's  
enabled
  (if compiled in) by calling Glib::Object->set_threadsafe.  [Ross]
* Disable Glib::Object stash caching, which fixes a few bizarre things  
that
  go wrong when using perl threads.  [muppet]
* Add missing Glib::Object::notify() (to emit notify singals).  [muppet]
* As always, incremental documentation improvements.  [Torsten]
* Improved type-checking error messages, using the new helper function
  gperl_format_variable_for_output().  [Torsten]
* Various odds and ends of minor cleanup and commentary.  [Torsten,  
muppet]

--
That's it!  It's one thing for a ghost to scare my children, but it's  
another to play my theremin!
  - Homer Simpson