OpenGL Support Is Looking Good For GTK+ 3.16, But Help Is Needed

OpenGL support under GTK is getting into good shape for providing a nice, out-of-the-box experience by default on key platforms for the GTK+ 3.16 / GNOME 3.16 release in March.

For a few weeks now within mainline GTK+ has been native OpenGL support and as part of that a new GtkGLArea widget for allowing OpenGL drawing within GTK applications. Since that initial work landed, there's been more GTK+ OpenGL code progressing that right now primarily benefits Linux X11 and Wayland users.

While good progress is being made and improvements still ongoing to the GNOME toolkit, GNOME developers are requesting help in ensuring other GTK+ back-ends can benefit from this OpenGL support. Emmanuele Bassi of GNOME has issued a call for help from developers experienced with OpenGL on other platforms like Windows and OS X. GNOME developers are looking for experienced Windows / OS X developers that are familiar with using OpenGL contexts on those platforms to consider implementing the GdkGLContext API using WGL and AppleGL.

Aside from ensuring GTK+ OpenGL support for other platforms, the GNOME developers are always looking for more testing and feedback on their latest improvements.