Re: GTK+2 on Linux and Windows

[Gus Koppel <gtk spamkiller bytechase cx>]

lmarcilly aressi fr wrote:

> i have to develop a portable application with GTK+2 and i just want to
> be sure it will work. So my question is : is there any difference
> between GTK+2 for windows and GTK+2 for Linux?
>
> If i develop my application on a linux box, will it work on a windows
> box? And if i develop it on windows box, will it work on a linux box?
>
> Actually, i use Gtk+-2.6.4 on windows so i just have to install
> Gtk+-2.6.4 on linux??

I also do portable GTK+ application development. Currently I develop on
Linux and compile on Linux and Windows (using the MinGW suite). Except
file format (ELF vs. PE) and some appearance issues on Windows (a few
rather harmless drawing glitches sometimes), there is no essential
difference between GTK+ on Windows and on Linux / Unix. Somehow I even
got i18n support functional on a GTK+ Windows application.

As the applications I write are required to be GTK+ 2.0-compliant but
should run as well with newest GTK+, I have multiple versions installed.
On my Linux development machine I use GTK+ 2.2 and on Windows I have
both GTK+ 2.0 and 2.6 installed. Switching between different installed
GTK+ versions in Windows can be as simple as modifying one registry key
of your application (i.e.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App
Paths\<YourAppName>\Path)

So, what versions of GTK+ you (need to) install on what platform is
dependent on your application only, i.e. what the minimum GTK+ API
version requirement of it is.

Note that due to some undocumented and incompatible internal changes in
GTK+ (regarding signal handling, for instance) there is a chance that a
fully GTK+ 2.0-compliant application doesn't run correctly on GTK+ 2.4
or later. However, with some extra care and effort it's possible to make
one executable functional on all GTK+ 2.x versions again. That's not
possible if you use API facilities new to 2.2, 2.4 or 2.6, of course.