Moving GTK::Simple to GTK 4

[finanalyst]

GTK 4 has finally been launched see Blog post Doc on website a link in blog post is wrong.
It seems to me that rather than working to expand the GTK::Simple widgets set to cover GTK 3, it would be best to move to GTK 4

In addition, my intuition is that the people at GTK will be far happier to help with providing Windows dlll for GTK 4 than for GTK 3

But before going down the rabbit of converting GTK::Simple to GTK 4, I'd appreciate feedback.

My thought is that it would be better to create a new module GTK4::Simple whilst leaving GTK::Simple as GTK 3, then renaming GTK::Simple to GTK3::Simple when GTK4::Simple has achieved the same coverage as GTK::Simple, them making GTK::Simple an alias of GTK4:: rather than GTK3::S.

Feedback?

[Xliff]

That sounds like a plan to me.

Of course there is also use GTK::Simple:ver<4>, yes? I do believe that if the tagging is done now, then both sets of modules can live alongside each other.

[finanalyst]

This is a better plan. Something like it occurred to me after I wrote the above.

Also, I have been looking for the gtk4 libs, and I couldn't find any. May be I am looking in the wrong places.

[MARTIMM]

What version do you get if one is forgetting to add :ver<>

[finanalyst]

We are still using GTK3.
At the time, I thought progress towards GTK4 was further along and I could not easily find how to install GTK4 on my Ubuntu box without messing up the GTK3 libraries. Perhaps now, a year later, there is a bit more clarity.
I have done most of the work on GTK-Simple to follow the stop to make the transition to GTK4.

[polyjitter]

On Ubuntu, it is now libgtk-3-* for gtk3 and libgtk-4-* for gtk4!

[finanalyst]

@polyjitter Thank you. But this is a bit far down my TODO chain at present.
Any help would be appreciated.

[Xliff]

@finanalyst - What kind of help are you looking for?

[tbrowder]

Can you give an example of putting a photo image in a frame or other suitable widget? Thanks.

[Xliff]

@tbrowder - For GTK3 or GTK4? (although I can't imagine it would be much different).

GTK has a class called GTK::Image. You would load the image using GTK::Image.new_from_file, which create the object. You can then put that object in any widget you want it displayed. For the main window, you can just use the add method. A more common way is to create a GTK::Box and use pack_start or pack_end to place it inside.

If you would like an overly complex example, please see this sample. My GtkPlus inherited its beginnings from GTK::Simple, so hopefully many of the concepts remain the same.

[tbrowder]

Thanks. For either module, on Linux, is there a way to put $app.run in the background so the widget stays in view while the CLI window is cleared for another entry if desired?

[Xliff]

@tbrowder - Not sure I understand what you mean. Can you show me a screenshot. Feel free to email me if you want detailed help for this.

[tbrowder]

That's okay for now--not too important. Thanks for the help.

[ab5tract]

I'm wondering whether the shift to GTK4 might be an opportunity to use Raku's versioned API functionality.

I also have some ideas on re-organizing the library that could live behind such an API flag.

[Xliff]

@ab5tract - I'm already working on something along those lines. Would love some help. raku-GTK4