GTK+ user interface libraries, version 2.0

[Owen Taylor <otaylor redhat com>]

The GTK+ team is proud to announce the release of version 2.0 of the
GTK+ widget toolkit and associated libraries (GLib, Pango, and ATK).
The result of 3 years work with contributions from hundreds of
volunteers, GTK+-2.0 represents a major step forward in free software
user interface toolkits.

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 projects to complete application
suites.

GTK+ is based on three libraries developed by the GTK+ team:

 - GLib is the low-level core library that forms the basis of GTK+ and
   GNOME. It provides data structure handling for C, portability
   wrappers, and interfaces for such runtime functionality as an event
   loop, threads, dynamic loading, and an object system.
 
 - Pango is a library for layout and rendering of text, with an 
   emphasis on internationalization. It forms the core of
   text and font handling for GTK+-2.0.

 - The ATK library provides a set of interfaces for accessibility.
   By supporting the ATK interfaces, an application or toolkit can
   be used with such tools as screen readers, magnifiers,
   and alternative input devices.

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.

Earlier versions of GTK+ have been used in a wide range of
applications; perhaps the most well known examples being the GNOME
desktop and the GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP). Version 2.0 of
GTK+ offers the same flexibility that made GTK+-1.0 and GTK+-1.2 so
popular, and adds a much enhanced feature set, increased ease of
programming for application developers, and ease of use for end users.

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+ 2.0 is the foundation of the GNOME 2.0 desktop, to be released
later this year. GTK+ 2.0 will be available in standard installations
of Solaris, Linux, and HP-UX.

What's new in GTK+-2.0
======================

To list just a few of the new features in GTK+-2.0:

 - Enhanced internationalization support via Pango including full
   Unicode support throughout all GTK+ widgets, and support for 
   all the world's major scripts, including along with Roman,
   Cyrillic, and Asian scripts, right-to-left scripts
   such as Arabic and Hebrew, and Indic scripts such as Devanagari.

 - A powerful text widget, supporting multiple views of a single buffer,
   a complete set of options for styled text, and the full range of 
   internationalization capabilities provided by Pango.

 - A flexible widget for tree and list display, with
   features such as a model-view split for abstracting data storage
   from display, the ability to create custom models to accommodate
   large data sets, versatile display/rendering features, and 
   editable data cells.

 - Support for accessibility technology via ATK

 - Integration of the gdk-pixbuf library for loading and manipulating
   images.

 - Hundreds of improvements to the programming interfaces to address
   specific difficulties developers had with earlier versions of GTK+.

 - Usability improvements, including comprehensive support for keyboard
   navigation.

 - A clean and attractive new default appearance.

 - Abstraction of the type and object system so that it can be used
   not just for widgets, but for programmatic objects throughout the
   GTK+ libraries.

 - Previews of ports to Microsoft Windows and direct frame buffer display.
   (A final version of the Windows port is expected within a month
   or two.)

 - Systematically simplified and enhanced API based on thousands
   of user requests and questions fielded by the GTK+ team. This has
   resulted in many hundreds of small API tweaks and additions too 
   detailed to list here.

Where to get more information about GTK+-2.0
============================================

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

More information about Pango can be found at 
http://www.pango.org/

More information about ATK can be found at 
http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gap/

- GLib-2.0.0 release announcement 
     http://www.gtk.org/glib-2.0.0-announce.html
- Pango-1.0.0 release announcement
     http://www.gtk.org/pango-1.0.0-announce.html
- ATK-1.0.0 release announcement 
     http://www.gtk.org/atk-1.0.0-announce.html
- Complete GTK+-2.0.0 release announcement 
     http://www.gtk.org/gtk+-2.0.0-announce.html

An installation guide for GTK+-2.0 is found at:

 http://developer.gnome.org/doc/API/2.0/gtk/gtk-building.html