Re: GtkPacker removal

[Owen Taylor <otaylor redhat com>]

Shawn T Amundson <amundson eventloop com> writes:

> On Mon, Apr 02, 2001 at 11:33:07AM +0200, Paolo Molaro wrote:
> > On 04/01/01 Tim Janik wrote:
> > > recently the topic was braught up to get rid of GtkPacker
> > > in Gtk+ proper.
> > > GtkPacker is a container widget reasonably sane implemented,
> > > modeled after a tcl container iirc.
> > > however that widget doesn't seem to gain much use, in fact,
> > > i've not seen a single third-party app that makes actuall
> > > use of it. of course LBs and builders support it, and
> > > gtkpacker.h is included in a bit of third party code, but
> > > that's only because it introduces GtkAnchorType ;)
> > > 
> > > so unless people get back and tell me they use/like/need
> > > GtkPacker, it's scheduled for removal.
> > 
> > I guess the only user is the test code and language bindings;-)
> > I don't think it's used much, but people that used the Tk bindings
> > in perl and python, may feel themselves more comfortable
> > switching to Gtk if there is a widget that works mostly like
> > Tk's packer.
> > 
> > lupus
> > 
> 
> We originally ported Tk's packer because we were used to using Tk
> with TCL and Perl, and in a lot of ways it's a nicer method of 
> placing widgets.  The C interface is a tad overwelming because of
> the number of arguments required for the packing functions, and 
> thus not only redundant but inferior to the other container widgets.
> 
> However, in a GUI builder I would think that this would be really
> nice; not only do you get a widget that is more powerful than the
> average GTK+ container, but also one who's behavior is extremely
> well defined and documented by several Tk books.

The trouble is that the packer really isn't different from GtkHBox and
GtkVBox - the only useful packing layouts are horizontal or vertical
boxes.

And in general, it doens't make sense to have multiple widgets to do
the same thing. People want to be told what to use in a clear
fashion. We need to have consistent recommendations.  Not "we usually
use Gtk[HV]Box, but if you want, you could use GtkPacker instead. It
does about the same thing".

(AFAIK, the only really things that are more powerful about the packer
in practice are the internal and external padding; and external
padding is handled in GTK+ with GtkAlignment.)

Regards,
                                        Owen