GTK+OSX for Mac OS X Aqua

Scott Sheppard writes "GTK+OSX has released a native Mac OS X Aqua port of the Linux-based GTK+ open source graphical user interface library. GTK+ (GIMP Toolkit) is a popular widget library supporting graphical applications for Linux. GTK+OSX version 0.1 is an alpha release intended for developers." This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads without installing XDarwin and OroborOSX. Looking good!

Comments

Re:First impertinent post

[kyrre]

Its easier to compile The Gimp for OS X/GTK than to create a separate tree for an Aqua version of The Gimp. This goes for a horde of other gtk applications as well. Now if only they would make a Gnome library for Aqua I could use Gnome applets in my dock. This is good stuff. Im looking forward to throwing out Photoshop in favour of The Gimp.

Re:First impertinent post

[popeyethesailor]

GTK is a widget toolkit, it can be targeted to any rendering engine, X-windows, GDI etc.
BTW, this article is about GTK running natively on OS-X, which means it utilises the Aqua rendering engine. So there.

This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads??

[mustangdavis]

This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads

I don't think so!

Although it is pricey, all the "MacHeads" still are trained on (and prefer) Adobe Photoshop. Unfortunately, that is still a superior product when it comes to image manipulation. Yes, GIMP has come quite a ways (and I use it for personal stuff since Adobe P.S. is so pricey), but it is hard to compete with a product that does such a great job and that has become an industry standard.

Nice thought, but it ain't gonna happen! Too many graphi designers have spent too many years of their lives learning how to use all of the features of Photoshop .... they're not goning to convert just because GIMP is suddenl available for OSX. If they wanted GIMP, they would have installed Linux on their Mac years ago and used it then.

Although I think it is great that GTK is now on Mac, I don't think it will change "things" that much ...

Just my $0.02 cents

Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads??

[BMonger]

I'm not a graphic design type but I do need a program to use when I am creating web sites... there's not a chance I'm gonna spend $600 or so on PhotoShop when all I have to do is resize and image and maybe a crop or two...

Right now I use Graphic Convertor because it's cheap ($20) and it's easy to use... but I'd be inclined to install GIMP and use it too if it stopped by OS X...

A lot of power users probably use Final Cut Pro/DVD Studio Pro too but I bet there is a much much larger market that uses iMovie and iDVD because it's easy and it does what "the common man" needs done... this is the same place where GIMP will prevail.

Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads??

[baryon351]

All the current macheads (if most of my experience with fellow graphic artists is anything to go by) will look at the gimp and go "wtf?". Some will head towards it because it's free, but the biggest benefit will be to future macheads, switchers, and people who haven't yet thrown themselves into graphics. While I prefer photoshop (alright, it's the main reason I use a computer at all), it's all about choice.

One more tool, with its place.

Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads??

[BMonger]

Exactly. It runs under X11. I'm way too lazy to attempt to get X11 to run over/under/next to/whatever or however it runs with/without OS X. Graphic Convertor runs just fine under OS X. But... if GIMP ran directly under OS X (download/run and nothing else) I'd be inclined to give it a shot. I'm not that hardcore into the "I gotta use open source" or whatever makes GIMP so cool that I'm gonna mess around with installing 8 other doo dads to get it working.

Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads??

[babbage]

On one level you're right -- Photoshop is in most ways & by most opinions a superior tool compared to the Gimp, and most oldschool Mac users will not be impressed by the Gimp. On the other hand, a lot of newschool Mac users are oldschool Unix users, and a lot of those folks are only passingly interested in creative graphics software. For that segment, noodling around in the Gimp is just fine, and makes far more sense than shelling out a few hundred bucks for the professional grade graphic designers' software. In short, the Mac ecosystem is diverse enough to support both applications just fine.

More importantly, the real gain here is the GTK+ toolkit, not just the most prominent application written with that toolkit. Being one of those unix/mac users, I'm not particularly interested in the Gimp -- but I'd love to be able to use an Aqua-native version of Gvim every day, and with a native GTK+ port there are now a huge number of other GTK+ apps that can be brought over to OSX without forcing users to set up X11 as well. As another commenter noted, no, these will not really have the right look & feel for OSX -- menus attached to windows instead of the screen border is a mistake here -- but as a bridge framework for bringing graphical Unix software to the Mac, this is far better than having to run X11 alongside Aqua.

Won't make for nice "Mac apps"

[lpontiac]

I've been looking into cross platform toolkits myself recently. A major issue where the Mac is concerned is that it's not just the look, it's the feel; there are lots of nuances that will annoy Mac users if you don't get them right.

The screenshot shows a menu bar at the top of the Othello window, which breaks the most obvious rule of all - Mac app windows don't have a menu bar on them, instead there's a single menu bar up the top which changes depending upon the focus.

There's some specific gotchas in the wxWindows wiki, here.

Don't get me wrong, the GTK port is an achievement and I'm sure it will be very useful to a lot of people. But we'll never get to the point where someone can produce a decent Mac app by taking their Unix sources and recompiling.

Re:Won't make for nice "Mac apps"

[fidget42]

Please remember that this is an alpha release. I would expect a production release to properly manage (most of) then Aqua UI guidelines.

Think TOTAL Cost of Ownership

[alchemist68]

Macs are less expensive to own over the long term than PC's. The main factor that affects this is the power usage/requirements of the computer.

Check out ArsTechnica.com here to see a comparison of PowerPC and Intel pwer requirements:

http://arstechnica.com/cpu/02q2/ppc970/ppc970-1.ht ml
http://arstechnica.com/wankerdesk/3q02/powerpc.htm l

Guy, I'm tellin' ya, you get what you pay for. Mercedes Benz isn't the fast car in the automarket, but they are one of the nicest; same analogy goes for Apple; not the fastest, but one of the nicest. Your Mac OS X box (not iMac) will grow with you for several years. My Blue and White 500MHz G3 is plenty fast enough for playing Quake and cruising the internet.

Don't think Gimp.

[IGnatius T Foobar]

Don't think Gimp. Think OpenOffice. Think Mozilla. Think apps that people actually want on the Mac. I've believed for a long time that Apple should be pushing really hard to make these two applications not only available, but downright pervasive on the Mac. This will eliminate Apple's indentured servitude to Microsoft and allow them to push forward in any direction they like without Microsoft threatening to pull the plug on Office (and to a lesser extent, IE) every time Apple tiptoes in a direction that offends Bill's delicate sensibilities.

Native GTK for Mac OS is a good way to kickstart apps like Moz and OO on the platform without requiring XFree86 to be installed first (which works wonderfully, but is a bit too hackish for nontechnical Mac users). Then Apple and others can begin working on making the integration more and more native-looking.