Re: GTK+ Mac OS X state of the union

[Michael L Torrie <torriem chem byu edu>]

On Tue, 2006-03-28 at 11:44 -0500, John Ehresman wrote:
> A separate api is probably needed.  OS X applications can and should 
> display menu bars when no top-level windows are open.  Also the 
> preferences, quit, and possibly other items should be on the menu with 
> the applications name on it instead of the file menu.

Since preferences and even quit could be anywhere, the app developer
would have to create a mac-specific GtkMenu object that followed the OS
X guidelines and then throw that up.  I think putting the burden on the
developer in this thing isn't too bad.  The Gtk main routine could even
be patched to display the initial application menu (with its name).  The
developer would then put assemble the rest of the menu and throw it up
with this API.  I haven't done any development work on GTK itself since
the 1.2 says, so I can't really say how the best way to actually
implement any of this is.

What do any GTK developers think of a small API to bridge this gap?

> 
> I'm assuming that the goal is an application that looks & feels as 
> native as possible and not to replicate the X11 / gnome look & feel. 
> Both are reasonable goals, but I suspect that more OS X users want 
> native look & feel.

A good start is a normal OS X menu bar.  Then work on the look and feel
of the actual application windows.

A long time down the road too, modal dialog boxes could be implemented
OS X-style, sliding out the title bar of the parent window.

If somehow GTK became a first-class OS X developer toolkit, I think that
would be wonderful.

I'm not clear if GTK for OS X is using carbon or cocoa for drawing.
Carbon is easiest to use from C, but Cocoa is better in the long run
(handles OS X-isms like Command-clicking unfocused windows and scrolling
better).

> 
> Is it possible to build gtk for native OS X via jhbuild?
> 
> John
>