Re: [HIG] Parity between Gtk+ and the GNOME HIG

[Dave Bordoley <bordoley msu edu>]

On Sun, 2002-11-17 at 17:43, Gregory Merchan wrote:
> As has been mentioned on lists and in bug reports, there are dissimilarities
> between Gtk+ and the GNOME HIG.  These can be eliminated by changing either
> or both Gtk+ and the HIG.
> 
> I'm going to ignore the outright errors in the HIG, like making alerts
> override redirect. Those must be corrected in the HIG.
> 
> HIG changes are the easiest. I see only two problems with that:
>  1) some changes to match Gtk+ will require other changes to the HIG for
>     its own consistency.
>  2) sometimes the HIG is right.
> 
> Some Gtk+ changes only require changing a default value.
> Some require widget changes, such as adding typeed-themeable labels.
> 
> Making alerts work correctly requires corrections to the HIG, new API
> in Gtk+ (GtkAlert), deprecation of Gtk+ API (GtkMessageDialog), and 
> an additional _NET_WM_WINDOW_TYPE so that alerts have accessible titles,
> but not displayed titles.
> 

Bother Havoc I guess... :)

> 
> What is to be done about this?  Looking at the changelog, Gtk+ developers
> seem to be busy with back-end or functional fixes and multi-head changes.
> I see little or no activity on the HIG. I've tried the route of filing
> or changing bug reports for Gtk+/HIG parity, but I'm getting nowhere with
> that; maybe I just suck at it.
> 

Best we can do is file bugs. However it would be nice if those on the
hig team with coding knowledge could supply patches as well.

> I pity the application developers.
> 
> 
Yeah i do too and just recently noticed that pretty much all gnome apps
are not setting correct window hints for preference dialogs. (ie you
can't minimize them like you are supposed to be able to do).

dave