Re: GTK vs GNOME?

[Joe Pfeiffer <pfeiffer cs nmsu edu>]

topper virginia edu writes:

   I'm NOT trying to spark a flame war here.  Rather, I've been happily
   using GTK for a while.  Now it seems I need to extend things a bit with
   GNOMEcanvas.  I know there's also a GTKcanvas, but the consensus seems
   to be "use GNOME."

Gnome has some more powerful (and hence, unfortunately, ``bulkier'')
widgets than GTK.  GnomeCanvas gives you a *lot* of cool stuff, and is
100 times easier to use than a GtkDrawingArea.  I haven't experimented
with the GtkCanvas; my understanding is that it's a backport of the
Gnome canvas to Gtk, which sort of seems like going to a lot of extra
effort to avoid a library.

   So I've been checking out the GNOME pages, but unfortunately haven't
   really figured out how to get started / making the switch.  Anyone have
   some pointers?

IIRC, you can use the GnomeCanvas in an otherwise GTK app, can't you?

As to writing a Gnome app, have you looked at
http://www-4.ibm.com/software/developer/library/gnome-programming/index.html?dwzone=linux?

In general, the tutorials at http://developer.gnome.org/doc/tutorials/
have been helpful to me, and Havoc's ``GTK+/Gnome Application
Development'' (http://developer.gnome.org/doc/GGAD/) is outstanding.

   I'd also like to hear voiced opinion on strengths weaknesses of using
   either platform.

GTK is a widget set, Gnome is a desktop environment.  Making your app
gnome-aware means it can take advantage of things like the
save-yourself signals, at a cost in extra libraries.
-- 
Joseph J. Pfeiffer, Jr., Ph.D.       Phone -- (505) 646-1605
Department of Computer Science       FAX   -- (505) 646-1002
New Mexico State University          http://www.cs.nmsu.edu/~pfeiffer
VL 2000 Homepage:  http://www.cs.orst.edu/~burnett/vl2000/