Preparing To Let Go Of GTK+ 2.x For GTK+ 3.0

[Yfrwlf]

I hope they'll improve their theme api - this is really long overdue.

The hacks non-gtk apps (FireFox, OOo, Java) have to do make theirselves gtk lookalikes is horrible and dead-slow. Just a theme api which would allow to draw to cairo-contexts would make it so much easier.

- Clemens

Please please please. An actual real theming system would be wonderful. I hate installing a distro-specific package just to install a friggin' theme, that's so lame, and of course when you don't have that you're left to a manual copy this file here and that file there, or just left to the basic GTK theme which badly needs to be expanded.

What would be the best though is not only having GTK be standardized enough to have theming across all apps and areas (including a theme package/format/system for SOUNDS please!), but to also have good compatibility with things like wxWidgets perhaps or whatever DE-agnostic standards system would be best so that programs could look great while still retaining cross-DE and cross-OS compatibility.

Developers not being forced to write their app for a specific environment while still allowing them to integrate it with the system == awesome.

Standards mean freedom.

[pdusen]

Haha. Ahaha.

Ha.

Get serious.

I assure you, I'm perfectly serious, and I'd love to be shown evidence to the contrary.

[kraftman]

I assure you, I'm perfectly serious, and I'd love to be shown evidence to the contrary.

I doubt you are. I'm not sure if this slowness is related to Gtk or to the graphic drivers, but moving mouse from the File to Help menu is far from being smooth in Firefox, Thunderbird. Scrolling is also not perfect. I was noticing similar sluggishness in Rhythmbox (overall) and Thunar too (File → help or something). An only applications I found to be quite responsive is gtk-gnutella. KMS made scrolling in Firefox little worse, but in Konqueror it's very smooth. However, I was noticing slowdowns in Konqueror on some sites some time ago, but it was with older graphic drivers, Qt and Konqueror, so maybe it's no longer the case.

[KAMiKAZOW]

Slowness is something I associate more with Qt than with GTK. Got any benchmarks I can check out?

So you want benchmarks to prove that GTK is slower than Qt, but you don't think you need any benchmark to back up your claim that Qt is slower than GTK?

Classic example of bigotry.

[V!NCENT]

Stay classy

Intelligence is often linked with insanity.

[pdusen]

I doubt you are.

Uh. Yes. I am.

I'm not sure if this slowness is related to Gtk or to the graphic drivers, but moving mouse from the File to Help menu is far from being smooth in Firefox, Thunderbird.

Firefox and Thunderbird are both XUL applications; they're slow on EVERY platform, GTK or not. You'd notice the same slowness on Windows.

Scrolling is also not perfect. I was noticing similar sluggishness in Rhythmbox (overall) and Thunar too (File → help or something). An only applications I found to be quite responsive is gtk-gnutella.

I don't know why that would be, but I'm not doubting it's true for you.

KMS made scrolling in Firefox little worse, but in Konqueror it's very smooth. However, I was noticing slowdowns in Konqueror on some sites some time ago, but it was with older graphic drivers, Qt and Konqueror, so maybe it's no longer the case.

Again, Firefox isn't a GTK application, it's an XUL application. I've never seen a platform or setting where Firefox wasn't a pig. As for Konqueror, I never use it even when I use KDE, so I have no evidence to the contrary.

As for Qt in general, I base my claims on situations I've experienced on different platforms. Take the Windows versions of Pidgin (GTK) and the Last.FM Player (Qt), both fairly light applications. The startup time of the Last.FM player is significantly worse than that of Pidgin.

I've had similar findings on Linux with other applications; the app with the slowest startup time in my GNOME desktop is typically kCacheGrind. However, it's possible that Qt just doesn't play well with my graphics drivers on Linux; KDE certainly does not.

Of course, on Windows, Qt is superior in a lot of other ways--the GTK port is kind of a joke.

So you want benchmarks to prove that GTK is slower than Qt, but you don't think you need any benchmark to back up your claim that Qt is slower than GTK?

My claims are entirely anecdotal, as are (so far) everyone else's. I just asked for some sort of benchmark to go on, because if I'm wrong I certainly would like to know it empirically.

Classic example of bigotry.

I don't know how you arrived at that conclusion.

[V!NCENT]

Pduson,

Regardles of whether Qt is faster/slower than Gtk, basing your claims on two different apps on two different OS's is absolutely stupid. Just wanted to put that out there.

[pdusen]

Pduson,

Regardles of whether Qt is faster/slower than Gtk, basing your claims on two different apps on two different OS's is absolutely stupid. Just wanted to put that out there.

Are you referring to my Last.FM and Pidgin comparison? They were both on Windows.

[V!NCENT]

Are you referring to my Last.FM and Pidgin comparison? They were both on Windows.

Yeah I was. Windows is abou the only contstant pressent. If you wanna compare then have the only non constant be the widget framework. I hope for you that you realise what you did there...

[val-gaav]

Of course, on Windows, Qt is superior in a lot of other ways--the GTK port is kind of a joke.

It's also a joke on Linux ... if you are using KDE as your DE.