Re: GTK 1.x or 2.x?

[Lars Clausen <lrclause cs uiuc edu>]

On Tuesday, 15 October '02, Ciprian Popovici wrote:
> What should I choose between GTK+ 1.x and 2.x for a future
> application? Is it possible to make an application compile with both?
> If not, should I go with 1.x which is widely deployed, or with 2.x
> which is new and shiny but could make some people fail to use my
> application? Please bear in mind that (a) I don't need any special
> features that 2.x may provide and (b) I'm more or less a newbie, so
> the learning curve is an important factor.

Here are some considerations:

GTK 2.0 is already in the major distributions.  Since you're talking about
a 'future' application, it would be reasonable to use GTK2.0 by the time
your application comes out.

GTK 2.0 does do a number of good things for you, like supplying stock icons
for dialogs and such.

You should consider which widgets you need in your application.  Some
widgets, like TreeView, are more complex but also more versatile.  Since
you are a newbie, you may want to stick with simpler things.  On the other
hand, some things have been made simpler.  On the gripping hand, the docs
for GTK 2.0 may not be as complete as for 1.2.

If you plan to use any GUI development tools, you should check that they
support 2.0.  Glade does.

-Lars

-- 
Lars Clausen (http://shasta.cs.uiuc.edu/~lrclause)| Hårdgrim of Numenor
"I do not agree with a word that you say, but I   |----------------------------
will defend to the death your right to say it."   | Where are we going, and
    --Evelyn Beatrice Hall paraphrasing Voltaire  | what's with the handbasket?