Re: Replacing Gtk::Action and Gtk::UIManager with Gio::Action and Gtk::Builder

[Murray Cumming <murrayc murrayc com>]

On Thu, 2013-08-08 at 10:26 +0200, Murray Cumming wrote:
> Over the last few days I've spent a long time wrestling with gio's new
> GAction API, trying to port some gtkmm code that used GtkAction and
> GtkUIManager, both of which GTK+ has now deprecated. This email is to
> get some feedback in case I've lost perspective.
>
> Note that several GTK+ developers feel that this API has been deprecated
> too soon, but I am not confident that it will be reversed. We might want
> to avoid the deprecation in gtkmm even if they do it in GTK+.
>
> Here is some code that I've ported in gtkmm-documentation, in the gmenu
> branch (whose commits must be squashed before putting this in master):
> http://tinyurl.com/lbgv3uo
>
> And here is what the old code looks like in master, using GtkUIManager:
> http://tinyurl.com/ktmllcb
>
> I've tried to make the C++ API as nice as possible, avoiding the need
> for magic incantations, or the need to understand the overly-conceptual
> documentation, and avoiding the need to deal with GVariant
> (Glib::VariantBase and Glib::Variant<>) too much. For instance, using
> templated get_*() and set_*() methods as we do with Glib::Value<>
> elsewhere. However, we are limited because we have already declared some
> of the API stable:
> http://tinyurl.com/kmbyt8d
> Therefore, our application code still sometimes has to create and cast
> Variants that it gets from, or needs to give to, some methods. Which is
> annoying.
>
> The convenience API, for toggle items and radio items, that I've created
> is not pretty. I guess that derived classes would be nicer. I've
> suggested that the C API should have these:
> https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=705655
>
> There are other problems that prevent a simple deprecation of GtkAction:
> * There is no replacement yet for GtkRadioActionItem:
>   https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=705656

I meant GtkRecentAction:
https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=707422

This is still the major obstacle to us really deprecating GtkAction and
GtkUIManager. I don't see much chance that it will be fixed in the GTK+
API soon enough.

> * GtkBuilder's <menu> syntax does not let us define toolbars, like
> GtkUIManager's syntax did. But apparently I'll be able to get this
> working with GtkBuilder's old syntax and the items' action-name
> properties.


-- 
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