Re: gtkpacker

[Tim Janik <timj gtk org>]

On Mon, 12 Aug 2002, yawn wrote:

> yo
> after installing gtk+-2 i got really disapointed when i noticed the gtkpacker
> widget has been completely removed.
> it was according to me the best gtk container, simple and powerful.
> i can't think of any reason why it has been removed, and i'd say this removal
> comported a big loss for gtk.
> if you had good reasons to remove it from the library, then i have nothing to
> say. but if the only reason it has been removed is because too few people were
> using it, then i think this is a rather bad point, as the main raison this
> widget wasn't intensively used is because the doc about it was almost
> inexistent.
> i'm sure many users would have loved it (probably as much as i do :) if they
> only knew about it.
> before to write this email, i asked some friends, who used gtk1.2 too, what
> do they think about this cool widget and about its removal, but none of them
> could answer me, as they didn't even know about it.
> i think this would be nice to give it a second chance, adding it back to the
> gtk library, maybe together with some documentation, or a little example, about
> it.
> then you could see if it still gets completely ignored by users or if they start
> using, and loving it :)
> i'm maybe a bit extremist about its use, but i think this is the most efficient
> container for most of the packing situation, and i'd really like to be able to
> use it again on gtk2, and to see other people use it too.
> this is my request, i hope it'll get considered by the gtk team :)
> thanks for your time
> bye
> 

hi yawn,

GtkPacker got removed because there simply wasn't enough lobbying for it
during 2.0 development, when the topic of it's removal came up:

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.

so after 3 years of public distribution with gtk+1.2.x and
no noticable user base, there was no point in keeping it in
for Gtk+ 2.0.
resurrecting it will at least require a significant number of
requests and someone porting it fully over to Gtk+2.0 (afaik,
a few changes towards 2.0 were made to it in CVS before it
got removed).


---
ciaoTJ