Re: deprecation patch

[Owen Taylor <otaylor redhat com>]

Havoc Pennington <hp redhat com> writes:

> 	* gtk/gtkinputdialog.h: Mark deprecated
> 
> 	* gtk/gtkvruler.h: Mark deprecated
> 
> 	* gtk/gtkhruler.h: Mark deprecated
> 
> 	* gtk/gtkruler.h: Mark deprecated
> 
> 	* gtk/gtkgamma.h: Mark deprecated
> 
> 	* gtk/gtkcurve.h: Mark deprecated

I think these (and, just maybe, GtkTipsQuery) need to be handled
in a different manner than the rest of the list. 

It isn't useful to be able to turn these off with a -D flag,
because if you actually need a ruler in your app, then GtkHRuler
is a fine widget.

What we are saying for these widgets is that we think they shouldn't
be in GTK+, because they are useful for a very small proportion of
applications. And that we, in the future, plan to find some other
place to put these widgets than in the core of GTK+.

[
 The reasons for moving these widgets out of GTK+, are, to summarize:

 - They confuse readers of the documentation, slow down the build,
   and so forth.

 - Maintainence of these widgets really shouldn't be given as
   high as priority as the more used parts of GTK+.

 - Feature additions for these widgets are almost always rejected
   when they are in GTK+, because any new feature, just as the widgets
   themselves, are only useful for a tiny proportion of apps.

   But if these widgets were elsewhere, then feature additions could
   be considered in terms of the apps using these widgets, not the
   total set of GTK+ apps.

   So, moving the widgets out of GTK+ could produce better maintanence
   for them.
]

So, I think, for these widgets, until we move them out of GTK+,
they simply need a note in the docs and and a comment in the
sources, and shouldn't be covered by -DG_DISABLE_DEPRECATED,
or any such flag.

Regards,
                                        Owen