Re: GTK + Clutter next step(s)

[Kristian Rietveld <kris loopnest org>]

On Oct 29, 2011, at 12:36 PM, Benjamin Otte wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 12, 2011 at 12:43 PM, Robert Bragg <robert sixbynine org> wrote:
>> 
>> One thing worth noting here is that we don't yet have proper OSX
>> support in Cogl. Currently the OSX winsys support is still in Clutter
>> and we use a dummy/nop winsys in Cogl. The plan is to add proper
>> support to Cogl it just hasn't happened yet.
>> 
> I'm not overly concerned about other backends. As long as we have a
> clear path that enables those backends to work somehow (and broadway
> is as scary as OS X here), I don't mind if nobody has walked that path
> yet. After all, GTK 3 still doesn't work too well on anything but
> Linux.

GTK+ 3 actually does work reasonably well on OS X. 

Whether or not you are concerned about other backends is a discussion that has been had before -- is GTK+ a cross-platform toolkit or should other backends not hold the X11 part from progressing? Perhaps it is time that a real decision is made here or that we set up an explicit matrix with features that are supported or not supported on the different platforms.

> Yes, I definitely think that nobody should use OpenGL in the GTK world
> unless he specifically tries to marry OpenGL based things with GTK
> widgetry. I would be very scared of anybody having a glBegin() in
> their widget's draw handler.
> But I'm running into projects on a weekly basis that have GL
> requirements and have no clue how they can achieve what they want with
> GTK 3. And I certainly want to make that possible. I definitely don't
> want to make it easy.

I find this a rather weird statement.  To me, GL support is an important requirement for a windowing toolkit.  There are very valid reasons to use GL in GTK+ applications, such as CAD and scientific visualization, as Peter Clifton has also pointed out in this thread.

Even though Cairo is clearly preferred for 2D drawing, I don't see a reason to "force" people who already have portable 2D drawing code (for e.g. visualization) to Cairo or to make it harder to use such existing code.  For 3D, Cairo is not an option at all.

I don't believe that people would use OpenGL instead of Cairo without sufficient reason for newly written code or for writing widgets, so I don't agree with your reasoning attached to the quote of Larry Wall.


regards,

-kris.