GTK+-2.4.0 released

[Owen Taylor <otaylor redhat com>]

GTK+-2.4.0 is now available for download at:

 ftp://ftp.gtk.org/pub/gtk/v2.4/

gtk+-2.4.0.tar.bz2   md5sum: fd16157de447c7f0a86495ad0dc67a1b
gtk+-2.4.0.tar.gz    md5sum: 404d3496eb8ba6c38eb6f2392244a35a

along with new versions of the 3 base libraries, GLib, Pango and ATK.

Release notes are available at:

 http://www.gtk.org/gtk-2.4.0-notes.html

What is GTK+
============

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 tools to complete application
suites.

GTK+ has been designed from the ground up to support a range of
languages, not only C/C++. Using GTK+ from languages such as Perl and
Python (especially in combination with the Glade GUI builder) provides
an effective method of rapid application development.

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. GTK+ is the only 100% free-of-cost open
source industrial-strength GUI toolkit available today.

Since its origins as the toolkit for the GNU Image Manipulation
Program (GIMP), GTK+ has been used in a wide range of software.
Notably, GTK+ is the foundation of the GNOME desktop; GTK+-2.4
will be incorporated into the soon-to-be-released version 2.6
of the GNOME desktop.

What's new in GTK+-2.4
======================

GTK+-2.4 adds significant new functionality while maintaining
source and binary compatibility with GTK+-2.2. Highlights
of new features and improvements in GTK+-2.4 are:

New file selector widget
 
 The new GtkFileChooser widgets provide a radically simplified
 and improved way for users to select files. Capabilities such as
 customizable filters and previews are now available for
 application writers. The filesystem access is encapsulated as a
 dynamically loaded module; as an example of what this allows,
 libgnomeui now provides a gnome-vfs backend for GtkFileChooser
 so that it has the same view of remote filesystems as
 applications such Nautilus.

New drop-down selection widget

 The GtkComboBox widget replaces the old GtkOptionMenu and 
 GtkCombo widgets with a single unified appearance 
 and programming interface for both editable and non-editable
 dropdowns. Other enhancements provided include customizability
 of the main display widget and grid layouts for the drop-down 
 menu.

Action-based toolbar and menu API

 GtkUIManager allows the application to specify a set of
 "actions", then create menus and toolbars using those actions
 from an XML-like interface description. This separation makes it
 easier to coordinate having the same item both in a menu and in
 a toolbar and simplifies the implementation of toolbar editing.

Bidirectional editing and interface flipping improvements

 GTK+ now automatically determines the base direction for
 label and text-entry widgets based on their contents, rather
 than requiring it to be specified by the application; this
 gives a much better user experience when editing mixed
 right-to-left and left-to-right text. Support for user-interface 
 mirroring in right-to-left locales has now been extended to 
 cover virtually all widgets.

Other enhancements:

 - The GtkTreeModelFilter tree model allows displaying a 
   filtered view of another tree model

 - GtkTreeView now supports a fixed-height-mode for faster
   display.

 - GtkToolbar has been reworked to provide a more consistent
   and extensible programming interface along with new features 
   such as an overflow menu and animated editing feedback.

 - GtkEntry now supports completion dropdowns.

 - Named icons via the freedesktop.org icon theme specification
   are now supported.

 - gdk-pixbuf improvements include a PCX loader and saving
   support for the ICO and CUR formats.
 
 - Round trips to the X server at application startup and
   during operations such as drag-and-drop have been
   greatly reduced.

Where to get more information about GTK+-2.4
============================================

Information about GTK+ including links to documentation can be
found at:
 
 http://www.gtk.org/

An installation guide for GTK+-2.4 is found at:

 http://developer.gnome.org/doc/API/2.4/gtk/gtk-building.html

Common questions:
 
 http://developer.gnome.org/doc/API/2.4/gtk/gtk-question-index.html
   (the above URL contains links to 1.2->2.x porting information)
 http://www.gtk.org/faq/


The GTK+-2.4 Team:

 Jonathan Blandford, Hans Breuer, Matthias Clasen, Tim Janik, Tor Lillqvist,
 Federico Mena Quintero, Kristian Rietveld, Søren Sandmann, Manish Singh, 
 and Owen Taylor

Special thanks to:
 
 Anders Carlsson [GtkToolbar and action-based menus]
 Semion Chichelnitsky [RTL flipping support for widgets]
 Dov Grobgeld [Bidirectional editing improvements]
 Marco Pesenti Gritti [Testing and suggestions for new widgets]
 J. Ali Harlow [Win32 backend]
 James Henstridge [Action-based menus, Automake-1.7 conversion]
 Alex Larsson [Original GtkIconTheme code]
 Mark Mcloughlin [GtkExpander]
 Seth Nickell [GtkFileChooser user interface design]
 Morten Welinder [GtkFileChooser testing and bug fixing]

Thanks to all the contributors to GTK+-2.4 including:

 Egon Andersen, Olivier Andrieu, Krasimir Angelov, Jan Arne,
 Olexiy Avramchenko, Jorn Baayen, Sebastien Bacher, Archit Baweja, Josh Beam,
 Christian Biere, Christopher Blizzard, Herman Bloggs, David Bordoley,
 Paolo Borelli, Abigail Brady, David Brigada, George Bronnikov, Simon Budig,
 Brian Cameron, Damien Carbery, Jean-Philippe Chancelier, Damon Chaplin,
 Steve Chaplin, Mitsuru Chinen, Manuel Clos, David L. Cooper II,
 Piers Cornwell, Dennis Cranston, Frederic Crozat, Murray Cumming, Dan Damian,
 John Darrington, Rodney Dawes, John Ehresman, John Ellis, Daniel Elstner,
 Tim Evans, Crispin Flowerday, Jeff Franks, Tony Gale, Grant Gayed,
 Jody Goldberg, Diego Gonzalez, Erik Grinaker, Steffen Gutmann,
 Pascal Haakmat, David Hampton, Bill Haneman, David Hawthorne,
 Felipe Heidrich, Jon-Kare Hellan, Bruce Hochstetler, Iain Holmes,
 Adam Hooper, Jan Huelsbergen, Richard Hult, Hans-Petter Jansson,
 Jonas Jonsson, Theppitak Karoonboonyanan, Richard Kinder, Niklas Knuttson,
 Egmont Koblinger, Tommi Komulainen, Tuomas Kuosmanen, Dom Lachowicz,
 Philip Langdale, Roger Leigh, Thomas Leonard, Frederic Lespez, Noah Levitt,
 Tomasz Lloczko, Henning Nielsen Lund, Paolo Maggi, Dave Malcom,
 Kjartan Maraas, Evan Martin, Ross McFarland, Michael Meeks,
 Julio M. Merino Vidal, Gregory Merchan, Tim-Philipp Müller, Michael Natterer,
 Dave Neary, Christian Neumair, Vincent Noel, Padraig O'Briain,
 Gonzalo Odiard, Tomas Ögren, Kazuho Okui, Benjamin Otte, Narayana Pattipati,
 Havoc Pennington, Christian Persch, Martin Pool, Roozbeh Pournader,
 Joshua N. Pritikin, Geoff Reedy, Christian Reis, Olivier Ripoll,
 Sebastian Rittau, Daniel Rogers, Christian Rose, Changwoo Ryu,
 Torsten Schoenfeld, Danilo Segan, Nils O. Selåsdal, Nicolas Setton, Yu Shao,
 Joe Shaw, Jakub Steiner, Mariano Suárez-Alvarez, Hidetoshi Tajima,
 Taavi Talvik, Vitaly Tishkov, Vasilis Vasaitis, Eric Warmenhoven,
 Philip K. Warren, Johannes Weißl, Marc Welz, Dan Winship, Alexander Winston,
 Adam Wright, Uwe Zeisberger, Peter Zelezny, Yao Zhang, Michael Zucchi,
 Jeroen Zwartepoorte

16 March 2004