Re: Building multiple backends on on same system

[John Ralls <jralls ceridwen us>]

On Dec 10, 2010, at 9:37 AM, Benjamin Otte wrote:

> While we're talking about getting rid of stuff, I'd like to get rid of
>> gdk_utf8_to_string_target
>> gdk_string_to_compound_text_for_display
>> gdk_utf8_to_compound_text_for_display
>> gdk_free_text_list
>> gdk_free_compound_text
> 
> But I lack enough clue about selections to do that. Is there anyone
> with enough clue that could find an API that can do this?
> The biggest problem I have with these APIs is that either they should
> be used (in which case we need to make sure people actually use them
> when they have to by introducing GdkCompoundText etc types) or they
> should not be used and the gdk selection code should take care of
> them. But the current situation is that even people who worked on the
> DND code have no idea what it's for. (I asked in #gtk+ and nobody had
> any clue.)
> 

GdkSelection is a wrapper around the X11 selection functions. It's not used by Gtk, which has its own higher-level selection object which ties into GtkClipboard and GtkDnd... which is why almost nobody knows about GdkSelection any more. I only know about it only because I implemented GtkSelection for quartz last summer.

It probably should  be dropped completely, but if that's too radical, by all means banish it to the X11 backend.

Regards,
John Ralls