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Is there any future for the GTK-based Desktop Environments?

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Re: Is there any future for the GTK-based Desktop Environments?

#111

Post by zozbot234 »

syntheweave wrote: post #38

There's something missing from the analysis, which I believe is quite important: There are only a few applications complex enough to push these toolkits to their limits, and that's not a case of "developers craving such a toolkit and not getting it". Most of the things people were going to write native for in the past have been absorbed into the browser; and many new applications are written with a more ground-up con…

> Most of the things people were going to write native for in the past have been absorbed into the browser

The use cases for native applications vs. in-browser frontends are still very different - not everything depends on a network connection. Complex applications that might rely on non-trivial toolkit features are more, not less likely to be native,

Re: Is there any future for the GTK-based Desktop Environments?

#112

Post by qalmakka »

jchw wrote: post #108
qalmakka wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not that enthused about where Qt is heading but it's arguably in better hands than GTK+, that's for sure. First, Qt isn't strictly tied with KDE - it has its own life by itself, without KDE libraries at all, and a vibrant ecosystem that uses it for automotive and cross-platform desktop apps. Second, while the Qt Company has decided to stop releasing LTS releases as open source, KDE has a binding agreement that al…

Yeah, the KDE Free Qt arrangement is pretty unique and makes it significantly less likely that there will be a rapid dropoff in Qt open source. This became important because the modern Qt company is awful. That said, I still think the direction of Qt has kind of sucked. QtWidgets is mostly stagnating, and Qt Quick is not really appealing to me…

On the bright side, PySide has finally been adopted by Qt as its official bindings, and it has made PyQt largely redundant. I find it simplifies a lot Qt app development on desktop, and it has the potential to attract a lot of new developers to the platform.

While QtWidgets are stagnating and Qt Quick is arguably very "HUD"-centric and barebones for desktop development, there are nice portable UI toolkits such as KDE's Kirigami popping out that are very usable even without KDE.

Re: Is there any future for the GTK-based Desktop Environments?

#113

Post by wander_homer »

nix23 wrote: post #97
sph wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because there is a push for software developers to be able to package directly for end users. Without devolving into the usual flame war of whether it's a good idea or not, once you install any piece of software you incur some security risks. It's not like distro maintainers are a 100% guarantee there won't be a backdoor in the binary, and compiling software from source doesn't free you from risks either, unless you…

That's not what i asked, why do you trust a no name dev more then the distro your kernel is coming from? And do you really think flatpack prevents you from running packed malware?

Why do you assume the flatpak comes from a no name dev? My calculator flatpak comes from the same people who wrote it, and I obviously trust them, otherwise I wouldn't be using their application.

So why should I trust them less than my distribution?

Re: Is there any future for the GTK-based Desktop Environments?

#114

Post by zozbot234 »

jart wrote: post #55
syntheweave wrote: post #38

There's something missing from the analysis, which I believe is quite important: There are only a few applications complex enough to push these toolkits to their limits, and that's not a case of "developers craving such a toolkit and not getting it". Most of the things people were going to write native for in the past have been absorbed into the browser; and many new applications are written with a more ground-up con…

Apple doesn't change. Chrome doesn't change. They both look exactly the same as when they were introduced. What makes platforms strong is stability and consistency. Linux desktop projects are more likely to get funded the more disruptive they are and the more likely it is they'll alienate supporters and cause drama. Like gnome's big shift circa 2014 to tablet first interfaces. If we consider that Linux desktop users…

> Like gnome's big shift circa 2014 to tablet first interfaces.

It took a long time to work itself out, but today Linux+GNOME is the only mainstream system that's usable for real productive work on a pure tablet or palmtop device. Far more so in fact than even Apple's iPad. And it got done without having to write and test separate apps, everything has a responsive interface that works throughout the range, from a small handheld to a big desktop screen. That's a remarkable feat.

Re: Is there any future for the GTK-based Desktop Environments?

#115

Post by zozbot234 »

sph wrote: post #73
jcelerier wrote: post #42

> My ultimate prediction is that within about three years after GTK 5 is released, touchscreens will go out of vogue haven't they already ? I remember buying much more easily a computer with a touchscreen in 2011 than today, at some point every other model had it, but now it feels like NVidia's 3D Vision in its end times. Same for tablets, when I check analytics for my website, tablet use is pretty much zero.

Tablets and mobile phones are computers with a touchscreen, and they're more popular than ever. You might not see many in your niche, but the laptop and desktop PC are a smaller and smaller pie of everyday computing.

Many high-end laptops these days have touch screens that can be flipped over to use them as tablets. That's exactly the kind of use GNOME 3 was developed for.

Re: Is there any future for the GTK-based Desktop Environments?

#116

Post by anthk »

sph wrote: post #39
pengaru wrote: post #37

Programming GTK+ programs in C is rather unpleasant in my limited experience. Despite the set of signals supported by widgets being a fixed part of the documented API, there aren't even explicitly typed-checked function signatures for callbacks appropriate for those signals. The docs tell you what the function signature needs to be for a specific signal like "clicked", but since all the callbacks basically get thrown…

Modern versions of GTK+ support Rust, Python and Javascript. I love GNOME, but I think there's a decent group of people that would like a Rust-based GTK+ desktop environment. https://github.com/gtk-rs/gtk3-rs

>Rust-based GTK+ desktop environment.

Cosmic desktop.

https://blog.system76.com/post/655369428109869056/popos-2104...

Re: Is there any future for the GTK-based Desktop Environments?

#117

Post by onphonenow »

AnonymousPlanet wrote: post #34
onphonenow wrote: post #10

Fast windows 95 would have been fine. Instead the devs lost their minds w design craziness. VS Code and chrome pycharm etc means it’s not a huge deal - they are all x platform

Not for people who are not mentally stuck in the 90s. I am very glad things have processed and have left the ugliness and usabilitly problems of Windows 95 in the past.

" left the ugliness and usability problems of Windows 95 in the past."

And I think this is why Linux on the desktop is going no where soon. The Win 95 interface / control panel / taskbar / start menu was very discoverable for many. In corporate environments it was THE go to interface forever. Yes, KDE and its plasmoids, Windows and it's "live tiles" are the new hotness, but for folks just looking to work the "cool" fly in fly out effects, secret touch points (move mouse to side or top of screen etc) etc are just losers.

You could RDP into a Win95 box set to best performance and basically not know you were remote. All the fancy animations are actually a negative in many environments.

Microsoft itself keeps on trying out new things, but user pressure gets them going back to older ideas.

Re: Is there any future for the GTK-based Desktop Environments?

#118

Post by ducktective »

nix23 wrote: post #50
sph wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're using the wrong isolating container ;) There's only one that is quite slow at startup, the other isn't.

Just imagine you need a container for the calculator.....

username checks out ;)

Re: Is there any future for the GTK-based Desktop Environments?

#119

Post by RedShift1 »

anthk wrote: post #94
sprash wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are several "unopinionated" tookits out there already. Nobody uses them because it is all a matter of popularity. The most popular toolkit by far is called HTML+CSS+Javascript. You might hate it but the point of no return has been passed ages ago. So If you want to make a difference implement a browser with a trusted zone for local applications (which are allowed to occasionally call C-routines to get native sp…

Eh, no. QT5 is THE serious cross-platform toolkit. Everything else it's a turd deserved to be shunned. Microsoft Teams it's seen as a disaster even from die-hard MS users.

It doesn't have to be though, it's not because it's HTML+CSS+JS that it's bad, it's bad because it was poorly written. You can write poor code in any language/toolkit. You can make beautiful and fast apps with HTML+CSS+JS.

Re: Is there any future for the GTK-based Desktop Environments?

#120

Post by RedShift1 »

plaguepilled wrote: post #105
lelanthran wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If that bothers you, it is far more productive to actually contribute your time to fixing the issue than simply describing it while waxing lyrical about how all these modern devs have simply 'lost the way'. I agree with that sentiment in principle. In fact, I advocate the same myself. However, playing the devils advocate, all an individual non-core developer can do is try to smooth out the rough edges. If the compl…

Thanks for responding. I can see your angle but I don't think I agree. I'll try to respond in good faith but let me know if I've made a misapprehension. In regards to the topic of user base alienation: I do think it is an important metric to keep track of, but whether it should be prioritised is contextual. In the case of GNOME, they have frequently made a point that accessibility is a large focus for them. Accessibi…

> Or, in a sentence: you can improve these projects in the way you see fit if you take the steps required.

Well yes, but actually, no. If upstream denies or ignores your pull requests, you're dead in the water. Just try and make a pull request to bring back a feature that Gnome or GTK dumped a few years prior.

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