GTK+OSX for Mac OS X Aqua

Article text (AC not whore) by Anonymous Coward · 2002-12-31 02:40 · Score: 4, Informative

GTK+OSX has released a native Macintosh 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 is great news for the Mac OS X developer community," says Macworld UK contributing editor Scott Sheppard. "It means that many popular Linux programs can be ported to run natively with Mac OS X's Aqua user interface, avoiding the hassle of users having to run an X server."

GTK+OSX is a spin-off from the Film Gimp project (www.FilmGimp.org). GTK+ is utilized by Film Gimp and many other Linux programs including those of GNU and GNOME. Mac OS X users greeted Mac Film Gimp with enthusiasm at its release earlier in December. But, that X-based compatibility version was merely the first step. GTK+OSX is being developed as the underpinnings for a native Aqua-based Mac OS X port of Film Gimp, scheduled for Q2 2003.

GTK+OSX project manager Robin Rowe is also the release manager for Film Gimp. "As soon as we released the Fink-based version of Film Gimp we began looking for ways to port natively to Mac OS X", says Rowe. "Andy and I began researching different ways of doing that, either switching to another toolkit or making GTK+ run directly on Aqua."

GTK+OSX lead developer Andy Prock is also the Mac port lead for Film Gimp. "My curiosity got the better of me", says Prock. "I discovered an abandoned GTK+ for OS 9 Sourceforge project called gtk-mac, and that became the basis for GTK+OSX". GTK+ co-maintainer Owen Taylor says, "The GTK+ team is happy to see the GTK+OSX project working on bringing the power and flexibility of GTK+ to OS X."

GTK+ has not been available running natively on Macintosh, although there is a native port of GTK+ for Windows. Mac Film Gimp and other GTK+ applications currently use Fink and the XDarwin X server, a technology that enables X Windows programs to run on the Mac almost seamlessly. The relationship between Darwin/Aqua is roughly the same as Linux/X. Both Linux and Darwin are open source, but the Macintosh Aqua interface is not. A fully open source alternative is Darwin/XDarwin. XDarwin enables X to run on Darwin, and it can run "rootless" on the Aqua desktop if a user wishes to run both. However, there's overhead and complexity to running two graphics interfaces simultaneously. That's why it is desirable to have GTK+ run natively on Mac Aqua without X.

Apple offers four GUI toolkits: Cocoa, Java2, Carbon, and Classic. Carbon and Cocoa are both native Aqua interfaces. Aqua renders utilizing Quartz, a technology Apple based upon NeXT Display Postscript. For GTK+OSX a Carbon-based design was chosen over Cocoa because Rowe was influenced by Patrick Beard's description of the challenges Mozilla Chimera experienced working with Cocoa and Objective C (see http://www.opensourceprogrammers.org/meeting/2002/ Jun19.html). "We wanted an easy-to-maintain design, that would play nice with the Linux and Windows versions of GTK+", says Rowe. "That meant choosing Carbon and C, rather than Cocoa and Objective C."

A three-step process was mapped for developing the GTK+OSX library. First, do the trivial GTK+ program Hello World, then a mid-sized Linux application, then major applications such as Film Gimp. Rowe had written an article about porting the Linux-based Gothello GTK+ program to Windows (see http://linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=5574), making it an obvious choice as a test program for a Mac port. Mac Gothello is the first real program to utilize GTK+OSX. Both are available for download at the GTK+OSX site at SourceForge.

* Pricing and Availability

Free at http://gtk-osx.sourceforge.net. GTK+OSX is available as source tarball (gz). Download version 0.1 or higher, about 8mb. Optional Mac Gothello download is about 1mb. GTK+OSX has an active mailing list.

* Further Information

http://gtk-osx.sourceforge.net

Robin Rowe, GTK+OSX project manager, 510-235-2397, Robin.Rowe@MovieEditor.com

Full rez screenshots: http://gtk-osx.sourceforge.net/docs/applications.h tml

First impertinent post by Frothy+Walrus · 2002-12-31 02:40 · Score: 2, Interesting

But, why would anyone use GTK when OS X provides the vastly better Aqua?

Re:First impertinent post by kyrre · 2002-12-31 02:46 · Score: 3, Insightful

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 by popeyethesailor · 2002-12-31 02:47 · Score: 4, Insightful

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.
Re:First impertinent post by Anonymous Coward · 2002-12-31 02:58 · Score: 4, Informative

Aqua is just a look. Quartz is the rendering engine.
Re:First impertinent post by llamalicious · 2002-12-31 03:15 · Score: 5, Funny

Im looking forward to throwing out Photoshop in favour of The Gimp.
That's enough outta you, mister. Your black turtleneck and beret are being confiscated!
Pffft.
Re:First impertinent post by IamTheRealMike · 2002-12-31 03:26 · Score: 3, Interesting

But, why would anyone use GTK when OS X provides the vastly better Aqua?
Because GTK lets you write apps for Linux, Windows and now MacOS X, whereas Aqua is OS X only?
Also, how are you comparing GTK to Aqua? Looks? Have you got extensive programming experience of both? Or are you just assuming it's worse?
I think you could make a good case that GTK is superior to Aqua (as a widget toolkit).
GTK2 is much better than GTK1 bear in mind (I think they ported gtk1). I personally think the most common theme engines look much better than Aqua, because the flat, clean look appeals to me. Seeing screenshots of Aqua apps makes me glad I'm not using it, I mean every effing widget is full of stripey lines: I find it incredibly visually distracting. Of course GTK is natively themable (Aqua is not without some horrid hacks) and has been for some time, so if you must have an Aqua style GUI you can have one, but I much prefer for instance Mist which is stylish without getting in your way.
Programming wise, although I don't know much about MacOS coding, I do know that GTK2 has more bindings than Aqua (it's based on object oriented C meaning it's incredibly easy to bind to other languages), can have multiple backends (which is where it gets its display portability from), with the X backend can be network transparent, uses FreeType for superior text antialiasing (OS X has heavier, fuzzier AA at small sizes), has full accessibility support (aqua may have this too, i dunno) and of course is open source (which is why this is possible in the first place).
So - if you have credible arguments for why Aqua is better as a toolkit than GTK, let's hear them. And no, "I like animated buttons" is not a credible argument, you can have them with GTK too if you write a theme that uses them.
Re:First impertinent post by Twirlip+of+the+Mists · 2002-12-31 04:18 · Score: 3, Informative

Compare helloworld.c from HelloGTK (with the comments stripped out for brevity's sake and massaged to appease the stupid lameness filter [which should ignore stuff inside ecode tags, dammit]) to the equivalent Controller.m from Hello.app, which I wrote in Objective C using the Cocoa API with Project Builder and Interface Builder in about two minutes.

helloworld.c
#include "HelloGTK_Prefix.h" #include <gtk/gtk.h> void hello( GtkWidget *widget, gpointer data ) { g_print ("Hello World\n"); } gint delete_event( GtkWidget *widget, GdkEvent *event, gpointer data ) { g_print ("delete event occurred\n"); return(TRUE); } void destroy( GtkWidget *widget, gpointer data ) { gtk_main_quit(); } int main( int argc, char *argv[] ) { GtkWidget *window; GtkWidget *button; gtk_init(&argc, &argv); window = gtk_window_new (GTK_WINDOW_TOPLEVEL); gtk_signal_connect (GTK_OBJECT (window), "delete_event", GTK_SIGNAL_FUNC (delete_event), NULL); gtk_signal_connect (GTK_OBJECT (window), "destroy", GTK_SIGNAL_FUNC (destroy), NULL); gtk_container_set_border_width (GTK_CONTAINER (window), 10); button = gtk_button_new_with_label ("Hello World"); gtk_signal_connect (GTK_OBJECT (button), "clicked", GTK_SIGNAL_FUNC (hello), NULL); gtk_signal_connect_object (GTK_OBJECT (button), "clicked", GTK_SIGNAL_FUNC (gtk_widget_destroy), GTK_OBJECT (window)); gtk_container_add (GTK_CONTAINER (window), button); gtk_widget_show (button); gtk_widget_show (window); gtk_main (); return(0); }
Controller.m
#import "Controller.h" @implementation Controller - (IBAction)doHelloButtonAction:(id)sender { [NSApp terminate:HelloButton]; } @end
Which API would you rather use?

--

I write in my journal
Re:First impertinent post by greygent · 2002-12-31 04:24 · Score: 2

In the future, I'll have to remember to reiterate the Slashdot story in a couple sentences, so I can get modded +5.
Re:First impertinent post by IamTheRealMike · 2002-12-31 04:32 · Score: 3, Interesting

Ahhh, well that's sort of cheating. A better example would be using a high level language. That doesn't use Glade (UIs loaded externally). I've written a hello world GTK app in Python that is only 4 lines of code using glade, one of which is loading the file.
If you're going to compare APIs you should at least make use of the features of each, and use languages of similar levels. No, ObjC is not a low level language either.
GTK UI construction in C is verbose yeah, but so is anything in C. You can make GTK apps very simply if you use the right bindings and use Glade (equivalent to .nib files), ditto for any part of the GNOME apis. Oh and I'd much rather not use Objective-C for anything, I find it incredibly hard to read, and I know many languages. I'm sure I could learn it if I wanted to, but I don't, language neutral APIs are generally much nicer imho.
Re:First impertinent post by Twirlip+of+the+Mists · 2002-12-31 04:46 · Score: 3, Funny

Oh and I'd much rather not use Objective-C for anything, I find it incredibly hard to read...

Like Python is easy on the eyes? My kingdom for a damn semicolon! ;-)

--

I write in my journal
Re:First impertinent post by IamTheRealMike · 2002-12-31 04:50 · Score: 2

*chuckle* :) Well, I don't tend to use Python much, Ruby is starting to look good though. A cross between Python, Perl and Smalltalk with gnome2 bindings? Mmm, I think so. But I'll wait until it's more mature (and I actually need it) before playing with it. And with semicolons!
Re:First impertinent post by Twirlip+of+the+Mists · 2002-12-31 05:02 · Score: 2

Thanks, but no thanks. I'll stick with Objective C. It compiles, so it requires no special run-time environment. It's trivial; there are about five extensions to standard C to learn. Because it's just C with some extras, I can use any C-language code or library with no extra effort. And it's just as easy (easier, even!) to write first-class Aqua UI applications as it would be with Python or Ruby or whatever else.

--

I write in my journal
Re:First impertinent post by bnenning · 2002-12-31 05:41 · Score: 2

Oh and I'd much rather not use Objective-C for anything, I find it incredibly hard to read, and I know many languages.

That's exactly what I thought, until I started using it. The method syntax actually makes it more readable than most other languages. (Ugh, tried to paste examples but the lameness filter doesn't like it).

language neutral APIs are generally much nicer imho

You can write Cocoa apps in many languages, including Java, Perl, Python, Ruby, Smalltalk, and Lisp.

--
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
Re:First impertinent post by Mr.+Frilly · 2002-12-31 07:58 · Score: 2, Informative

uh, no. The equivalent to your objective C hello world app would be:
#include <gtk/gtk.h> int main( int argc, char *argv[] ){ GtkWidget *window, *button; gtk_init(&argc, &argv); window = gtk_window_new(GTK_WINDOW_TOPLEVEL); button = gtk_button_new_with_label ("Hello World"); gtk_container_add (GTK_CONTAINER (window), button); gtk_widget_show_all (window); gtk_main (); return(0); }
Re:First impertinent post by Twirlip+of+the+Mists · 2002-12-31 08:41 · Score: 2

I'm no GTK expert, but to me it looks like you left out the part where clicking the button causes the program to exit. If I'm reading your program right, all you did was draw a window with a button in it; the button itself doesn't seem to do anything.

Right?

--

I write in my journal
Re:First impertinent post by mcrbids · 2002-12-31 17:32 · Score: 2

GTK for OSX allows you to write CROSS PLATFORM software - write once in GTK, run on Windows, Numerous 'nixes, including Linux, and now, OSX.

That is, unless Apple has released Aqua for Windows/Linux/Unix?

I look forward to this, since I'm now committed to using PHP-GTK for a number of smallish applications, and loving it, but the missing piece right now is Mac...

-Ben

--
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Re:First impertinent post by bnenning · 2002-12-31 17:48 · Score: 2

That is, unless Apple has released Aqua for Windows/Linux/Unix?

Not by Apple, but GNUstep is coming along nicely.

--
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
Re:First impertinent post by Elladan · 2002-12-31 23:08 · Score: 2

You can compile Java directly to machine code which runs without an interpreter too. Compiled vs. Interpreted is not the same as how high level the language is.

And actually, it doesn't compile "directly" to machine code. It's compiled into some sort of compiler-specific intermediate form where it gets optimized, and then output as machine-specific assembly. The assembler is the tool which creates machine code.

It's quite possible to compile almost any interpreted language to a machine executable, if you really want to. Some may be quite inefficient, of course. It's also possible to run any language in an interpreter.

The distinction between a high level and a low level language is very fuzzy, and roughly refers to the level of abstraction it provides for abstract data types, objects, memory management, etc.

C is a "mid-level" language, because it doesn't provide native support for objects, lists, trees, garbage collection, etc. However, it can certainly support all of these with the proper libraries (except garbage collection, which is more difficult - you need some compiler support too generally, but it's possible).

Java, on the other hand, is considered somewhat higher-level, because it provides native object and garbage collection support, and standard library support for many data types. It also attempts to place stronger guarantees on the consistency of the runtime state.

Other languages, such as python or perl, might be considered higher level still, with intrinsic list and associative array support, etc. So could lisp.

But then, the whole high/low level thing is extremely fuzzy. For instance, lisp supports garbage collection, arrays, etc., as well as closures, lambda functions, runtime code generation, etc., all very high level. But it doesn't natively support objects. So, an OOP person might laugh at it with disdain, especially since it's basically the oldest language still in use.

C++ also supports a medly of "high level" features (some relatively unique), but lacks garbage collection and the sort of strong internal consistency guarantees interpreted languages provide, so some people scoff at its high-level-ness as well. And of course, you can fiddle with memory locations directly if you want and play with inline assembly as well.

In terms of this sort of discussion, the relevant comparison was about the wordiness of the respective languages. But of course, this is also a completely deceptive comparison, since you have to ensure they're doing precisely the same thing. If you select a task where one of them comes with a library that does exactly that, and the other one doesn't, you can easily make any language look far more concise than any other.

For instance, say I make a language, asm-foo, which is assembly except, I include the function, foo, which takes no arguments. foo will automatically run a GUI based office suite on the current display which allows the user to perform a number of tasks. :-)

Here is my office suite software, in hand-optimized intel x86 asm-foo assembly code:
.text .globl main main: call foo ret .end main
Please show me another language besides asm-foo where I can write an office suite more easily. :-)

Oops, bourne shell script?
#!/bin/sh exec openoffice
Doh!
Re:First impertinent post by nutznboltz · 2003-01-02 11:28 · Score: 2

Unlike the GTK-Quartz attempt, GTK+OSX is Carbon-based and does not use Objective C.

source:

http://gtk-osx.sourceforge.net/index.html

Re:Cool - finally XChat! by HLR · 2002-12-31 02:48 · Score: 2, Informative

FYI... There is an aqua port:
http://xchataqua.sourceforge.net/

Re:Looking good? by mschoolbus · 2002-12-31 02:49 · Score: 2, Funny

Well maybe some of us would like to see Janet Reno in Playboy... Just like some of us would like to run GTK apps on Aqua...

Its all about choices isn't it? But I do believe the Janet Reno choice is morally wrong.

This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads?? by mustangdavis · 2002-12-31 02:50 · Score: 5, Insightful

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

--
HallmarkOrnaments.Com

Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads?? by pyite · 2002-12-31 02:59 · Score: 2

The funny thing is that everything I ever try to do in Photoshop feels counter-intuitive. Why? Because I learned on the GIMP. It takes me forever to figure out things in Photoshop, whereas in the GIMP, I can get by pretty quickly.

--
"Nature doesn't care how smart you are. You can still be wrong." - Richard Feynman
Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads?? by BMonger · 2002-12-31 03:07 · Score: 4, Insightful

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?? by veddermatic · 2002-12-31 03:07 · Score: 5, Funny

I learned to get across the room by breaking glass on the floor then stripping naked and wrigginlg across it while squeezing lemon juice on my body.

Every time I try to use my "legs" it seems akward.

If you like the GIMP, neat, it's dirt cheap, and it does some stuff that PS does.. but boy howdy, comparing GIP to Photoshop is, well, re-read that first part of my post. I'm a professional designer... I looked into the GIMP when I was going ot leave WInderz for Linux.... I gave it plenty of time and effort, but sorry, the GIMP UI was designed by an evil robot who's only job it was to make a horrible UI. =)

I left Windows tho... Mmm, photoshop on OS X.

--
Department of Homeland Security: Removing the rights real patriots fought and died for since 2001
Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads?? by Anonymous Coward · 2002-12-31 03:14 · Score: 4, Informative

For what it's worth, I started on the gimp, and enjoyed it immensely - it was my introduction to graphics in a purely manual sense (as opposed to rendered 3D imagery and the like). I'm glad I came across it when I did. I never saw much reason to bash photoshop at the time, but other linux graphics users seem to have an obsession with bringing down all things PS.

I used photoshop after nearly 2 years with the gimp, and while it was initially freaky without my familiar tools I was stunned at the power in PS. It feels simpler, looks simpler, hell I feel like I'm doing less 'work' but there's more of me going into an image, than into using the UI. You can count me among the pro-photoshop people, but on the other hand I'll never bash The Gimp for what it is. It does well for when you don't need all of PS, and I can't see everyone needing to do everything PS does. It's one of the few pieces of software worth the price, IMHO
Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads?? by baryon351 · 2002-12-31 03:25 · Score: 3, Insightful

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?? by veddermatic · 2002-12-31 03:29 · Score: 2

heh, point take, but a GOOD UI only needs one mouse button (no, I'm not sucking Jobs' wee-wee, honest!!)

One hand hovering over the keyboard to hit one-key sortcuts for 99% of tool selection / macros, etc, and the mouse ONLY to draw / select / paint.

I mostly run PS with ALL toolbars except the color swatches and mixer windows not there... the mouse is very secondary to a trained / practiced user... right-clicking and having to move away fomr what I was jsut drawing / selecting / etc to click (and if I remember my GIMP, then clicking again, and moving further away to select another menu option) is wasteful!

Context menus are good, if done well.... I again stand by the fact that the evil UI robot was heavily involved... =)

Photoshop == UI designed by artists / UI designers for artists / UI desigers using an app who's goal is to create Art / UI elements

GIMP == UI designed by a (very good) programmer who's main goal was offering feature comperability to PS... "they got layers, WE got layers.. oh, I guess I better make a way to access them.. uh, well, I wrote right-click menu code, I'll jsut throw it on there." While "it works", it's (IMNSHO) a far cry from usable

But again, if you like the GIMP, and it does what you want, hells yeah... it's nice to have a choice!!

Besides, after M$ buys Macromedia and takes Flash away from me, I'm sue they will buy Adobe and take Photoshop away... and I'll be begging you for GIMP tips =)

--
Department of Homeland Security: Removing the rights real patriots fought and died for since 2001
Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads?? by diamondc · 2002-12-31 03:35 · Score: 2

It's not.. that's why you go out and buy a three button mouse.

Or you can use one of the function keys on an iBook for your 2nd and 3rd mouse button.

--
"I keep looking in the want-ads under 'revolutionary' but there don't seem to be any listings.. "
Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads?? by josephgrossberg · 2002-12-31 03:37 · Score: 2

How many Mac users bother to purchase the 3-button?

That's not sarcasm; I'm curious.

--

Joe
http://www.joegrossberg.com
Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads?? by BMonger · 2002-12-31 03:47 · Score: 3, Insightful

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?? by xanadu-xtroot.com · 2002-12-31 03:54 · Score: 2

I gave it plenty of time and effort, but sorry, the GIMP UI was designed by an evil robot who's only job it was to make a horrible UI. =)

Unfortunatly, I have to second this. I'm no artist (and being color-blind doesn't help... that's what the picker is for...), but I know how to use the app (Photoshop) quite well. I've tried to do the same thing in Gimp that I can do in Photoshop in seconds, but alas; the Gimp needs a LOT of work in the UI department.

Sure, yes, The Gimp is just as powerful as Photoshop, there's no arguement there, but the UI is nasty. Just nasty.

Part of it may be that I'm not the biggest fan of GTK (I'm a KDE user), but just in general I mean this. I like the Gimp and I am really trying to learn it (since I don't have a Win* box worth more than a few bucks around anymore). But damn. I just find it really hard to work with.

Sure, that could be because I've been using Photoshop since like the 3 versions, but I'm used to learning curves. This one, I'm finding, to be quite steep.

Maybe it's just me.

--
I'm not a prophet or a stone-age man,
I'm just a mortal with potential of a super man.
Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads?? by babbage · 2002-12-31 04:06 · Score: 5, Insightful

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.

--
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads?? by reallocate · 2002-12-31 04:07 · Score: 2

Well, me for one. Because I'd been using a 3-button mouse for years before moving to OS X. By the same token, if I'd moved to traditional Unix and X after years on a Mac, I would have bemoaned the need to use a 3-button mouse.

Using a 1-button mouse in an app designed for it, i.e., per Apple standards, presents no problem. I found that no functionality -- none, zip, nada -- was lost, though, with a 1-button mouse on non-Apple apps.

--
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads?? by Twirlip+of+the+Mists · 2002-12-31 04:38 · Score: 2

How many Mac users bother to purchase the 3-button?

As many as want to. I use a three-button mouse sometimes (Maya), and a one-button mouse the rest of the time. My friend uses a one-button mouse all the time. My girlfriend uses a three-button mouse, but only because she likes the way it feels better than the Apple mouse; she doesn't actually use the third button.

It's all about choices, man. I love not having to use the right mouse button for anything.

--

I write in my journal
Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads?? by IamTheRealMike · 2002-12-31 04:47 · Score: 2

The funny thing is that your kind is outnumbered 100 to 1. 99% of the graphics population find would find GIMP counter-intuitive.
Yes, but the GIMP isn't just used by the Photoshop using graphics population.
The vast majority of computer users will, at some point, probably need to do something with images. Whether it's just convert between different formats, resize them, retouch a photo, eliminate the background of an image, whatever, the GIMP can do all those things. I find the GIMP easier to work with than Photoshop, it's just familiarity. I certainly am not spending all that money on PS, I'm not a graphics pro, I don't need to work in exotic colourspaces, I, like 99% of the world, just need something that'll work well for me.
So, that's who can benefit from the gimp. Beating Photoshop seems to be an implied goal of the GIMP, but it isn't really. We all use it at work for instance, because our graphics work is limited to web design and stuff for presentations, we're not professional artists. The Gimp is great for that stuff.
Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads?? by jandrese · 2002-12-31 04:50 · Score: 2

Hold on a second. My parents recently got a new Mac and I had the chance to try out iPhoto. While it is a nice application (somewhat limited in what it can do) the Redeye was a HUGE disappointment for me. Basically, it just completely remove the red in whatever area you have selected. All previously "red" eyes turn black. There's no slider to adjust how much red you want removed, it just removes all of it. The effect was rather disconcerting when I changed red eyes into big black craters. As it is, I left the redeye in because it just looked less freaky than what iPhoto did.

--

I read the internet for the articles.
Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads?? by Twirlip+of+the+Mists · 2002-12-31 04:59 · Score: 2

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.

Don't get me wrong, I dislike running X11 on my Mac as much as the next guy. But... too lazy? Too lazy to download and double-click one installer? (Warning: direct link to the XDarwin installer StuffIt archive!)

You can even run a more user-friendly window manager for the price of one additional download. I know that we're getting into multiple steps here, so the "lazy" think kicks in again, but if you ever absolutely have to run X11, this is about the easiest way to do it.

--

I write in my journal
Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads?? by g4dget · 2002-12-31 05:33 · Score: 2

I agree that many MacHeads prefer Photoshop because they know it. I also agree that it has many more features. In fact, Photoshop has really become a mix of graphic design, web design, and image manipulation tools.
But that merely makes it different from the Gimp, not necessarily superior to it. For the specific purpose of digital photography and image manipulation, the Gimp is excellent, and its user interface works very well.
In any case, I do agree that there isn't much point in porting the Gimp to OSX. People buy Macs because they want to run commercial software and because they want a certain "look". Anybody who wants to run the Gimp would get a much faster machine and a much more consistent GUI for less money by running it on a PC running Linux.
Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads?? by babbage · 2002-12-31 05:36 · Score: 2

...and to be honest, I should have mentioned that there is already an Aqua port of Vim (currently version 6.1.184, runs on all versions of OSX). So just to head off the person that will inevitably point that out that Vim has been ported to a more or less Aqua-native form (menus on the screen border, not on the windows, etc), I realize that wasn't such a great example -- I just couldn't think of a better one at the time :-)

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DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads?? by CoolVibe · 2002-12-31 05:38 · Score: 2

One hand hovering over the keyboard to hit one-key sortcuts for 99% of tool selection / macros, etc, and the mouse ONLY to draw / select / paint.
You use a MOUSE to draw? Gack... All graphicians I know use those snazzy wacom tablets. The pens have multiple buttons. Your point is moot.
Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads?? by UberLame · 2002-12-31 05:41 · Score: 2

However, new people might learn the gimp that would have otherwise just pirated Photoshop.

Also, FilmGimp does things well that photoshop does badly, like handling video and 16bit images. Sure, photoshop does 16bit, except that, to my understanding, a lot of features disappear, and not just from among the third party plugins.

Most dedicated Photoshop users probably won't switch soon, but maybe they find reasons to use Gimp anyway (the gimp seems like it is well on its way to being better for scripting, but I could be wrong), and there are many people who find photoshop to be the wrong tool.

--
I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me.
Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads?? by UberLame · 2002-12-31 05:46 · Score: 2

> 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.

I don't think that many people are going to find the GIMP much easier to learn than Photoshop. Nor should that be the GIMP team's goal. Their goal so far has been to make the best, most powerfull, image editor possible, not the easiest to use. And that is the only way I'd have it. Though, there are still areas I wish they would work of ease of use.

Adobe PhotoDelux would be a better equivelent of iMovie and iDVD, but I don't know of any free equivelent.

--
I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me.
Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads?? by alfredo · 2002-12-31 06:13 · Score: 2

I find that the filters in GIMP are a little different than the Photoshop versions, and can be used to give a different feel to a project. To me GIMP is a utility. Still PS is the way to go.

A native port of GIMP will push development, as more Mac users try it.

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photosMy Photostream
Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads?? by jonadab · 2002-12-31 06:57 · Score: 2

> All graphicians I know use those snazzy wacom tablets.

I know one who swears by trackballs, but yeah, the one-button mice
that Apple ships are not so much for the graphics professionals as
for the other people who buy Macs. Apple knows it's pointless to
ship a better mouse with the Macs because the people who would know
how to use them are going to replace the mouse with something else
anyway.

--
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads?? by jonadab · 2002-12-31 07:05 · Score: 2

> As it is, I left the redeye in because it just looked less freaky
> than what iPhoto did.

Working with Gimp, the best thing I've found for redeye so far (note
that I'm neither a graphics professional nor a Gimp expert; I just
started using Gimp for stuff like converting between .bmp and .png
a few months ago, and learned more from there) is to use a selection
tool to grab just the irises, copy them to a new layer, then go
Filters->Colors->Map->Color Range Mapping

I'd be interested in hearing if other people have better techniques
for doing this. Also, if both eyes are completely red, what's the
best way to determine what target color range to use?

--
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
Re:This could make The Gimp cozy for MacHeads?? by aardvarkjoe · 2002-12-31 12:52 · Score: 2

Short, fat, only has one ball?

--

How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?

So when do we get GTKRadiant then?? by veddermatic · 2002-12-31 02:51 · Score: 2

SOMEONE PORT THE DAMN THING!!!

I'd do it myself, but I'm a loser arty-farty type =)

--
Department of Homeland Security: Removing the rights real patriots fought and died for since 2001

Re:So when do we get GTKRadiant then?? by TTimo · 2002-12-31 03:12 · Score: 2, Interesting

We made some effort to get GtkRadiant ported to OSX using Gtk+/XDarwin. It has not been released yet, because hardware GL acceleration with Gtk+/XDarwin/GLX is still causing trouble.

The introduction of a native Gtk+ port is probably going to make us reconsider some options.

If you are interested, please see
http://zerowing.idsoftware.com/mailman/listin fo/gt krad-macos
Re:So when do we get GTKRadiant then?? by veddermatic · 2002-12-31 03:17 · Score: 2

/me wipes spooge off monitor

Thanks!

--
Department of Homeland Security: Removing the rights real patriots fought and died for since 2001

Probably a stupid question by sheriff_p · 2002-12-31 02:54 · Score: 4, Interesting

This is probably a stupid question, but:

There are programs like FreeCIV that use GTK. How long until I can natively compile FreeCIV, or some other arbitary *nix program on OS X, without needing an X server?

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Score:-1, Funny

Re:Probably a stupid question by robinsrowe · 2002-12-31 06:39 · Score: 2, Informative

GTK+OSX isn't completely finished yet (this is the first release), but we hope everyone will start building native Mac GTK+ apps with it today. Happy New Year, Robin

What about existing Fink Installations? by ewwhite · 2002-12-31 03:00 · Score: 3, Interesting

How will this affect those of us with existing XFree86 and Fink applications? I currently use Gnome and Gtk for my X applications... is this an entirely-standalone product, or could it possibly integrate well with an existing Gtk install?

--
Edmund White
http://flickr.com/ewwhite

Re:What about existing Fink Installations? by CoolVibe · 2002-12-31 05:51 · Score: 2

As long as you use the gtk-config type scripts (and maybe GNU autoconf) you should have nothing to worry about. Also, make sure you do it in pure GTK and no other Xlib dependant parts

Re:Good news... by KAMiKAZOW · 2002-12-31 03:01 · Score: 2, Informative

IMHO wxWindows is a better solution for cross-platform GUI apps. wxWindows supports MacOS (9 and X), Windows and various Unices. The nice thing is, that wxWindows uses the native widgets (GTK in Unix/Linux) for the rendering.

Mod up parent by popeyethesailor · 2002-12-31 03:05 · Score: 2

You're ofcourse correct Sir.

Re:Excellent! by Ravagin · 2002-12-31 03:10 · Score: 2

That may just be you... are you running the latest GTK? I'm pretty sure I am, on Win2k, and aside from some minor behavioral quirks (hesitancy on mouseovers), I have no problems.

But yeah, I somehow think Windows GTK doesn't get quite as much priority as Linux. ;)

--

Karma: T-rexcellent.

Won't make for nice "Mac apps" by lpontiac · 2002-12-31 03:12 · Score: 5, Insightful

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" by fidget42 · 2002-12-31 03:34 · Score: 4, Insightful

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

--
The dogcow says "Moof!"
Re:Won't make for nice "Mac apps" by MeNeXT · 2002-12-31 03:34 · Score: 2

Agreed and it's the part of the Mac that bothers me the most. That menu bar is something I can never get used to.

--
DRM? No thanks, I'll just get it somewhere else...

Re:rant by Quazion · 2002-12-31 03:12 · Score: 2, Interesting

I welcome this news, since maybe now i can create an easy port of freeciv for mac os x. Thanks Slashdot.

PyTK? by supabeast! · 2002-12-31 03:15 · Score: 2

First, I want to give a big thanks to the developers who made this happen. Very cool stuff, and very useful.

Second, does anyone know if PyTK (The Python TK stuff.) is going to be ported? Imagine being able to toss together a Python/TK app together that could run on OS X without X! Very cool stuff!

Re:PyTK? by Phroggy · 2002-12-31 04:22 · Score: 2

Apple already ported Tk, although I haven't been able to get it to work. And the OS ships with python. So, if you have better luck than I've had with Tk, you should have no problem.

--
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Re:PyTK? by Junta · 2002-12-31 08:13 · Score: 2

What about this?.

I know, not cross-platform, but the goodness of python in Cocoa...

As to the original story, I see the value as a porting mechanism of 'legacy' applications, but I fear that it will become a crutch for those who would otherwise provide a native Cocoa port. XDarwin already makes a lot of projects view a native Cocoa port as not absolutely necessary and not worth the effort. I would agree.... IF XDarwin was hardware accelerated, and worked perfectly consistantly in rootless mode, but neither is the case, even with OrborosX..

--
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.

sorry folks, GTK+-1.2 only :-( by BigSven · 2002-12-31 03:21 · Score: 4, Informative

The article doesn't mention much about the technical details and does not even tell us which version of GTK+ this port is based on. Unfortunately it seems to be a port of the older GTK+ version 1.2. This is a surprising at first glance since the 2.0 version of GTK+ is much better prepared for different rendering backends (and comes with GDK versions for Win32, linux-fb and DirectFB). Since this port is closely related to FilmGimp, which is unfortunately still dealing with the outdated 1.2 version, this choice becomes clear. Hopefully this project will soon lead to a GTK+-2.x port or Mac users will have to deal with outdated and mostly unmaintained GTK+ applications.

Re:sorry folks, GTK+-1.2 only :-( by taviso · 2002-12-31 03:39 · Score: 2

s/old/stable/g
s/outdated/tried and tested/g
s/unmaintained/actively maintained and supported/g

--
ex$$
Re:sorry folks, GTK+-1.2 only :-( by X-ViRGE · 2002-12-31 07:53 · Score: 2

No, GTK+ 1.2 is no longer maintained and supported, the GTK team is only doing bugfixes on the 2.x versions.

Re:Excellent! by IamTheRealMike · 2002-12-31 03:30 · Score: 2

The latest release notes for the upcoming GTK2.2 release said a lot of work has been put into the Windows port, which is now apparently excellent. I haven't tried it though.

Re:What about a GTK version that uses native widge by IamTheRealMike · 2002-12-31 03:33 · Score: 3, Informative

I think that it is great that they have ported GTK to so many places, but there is one major problem in my opinion. GTK reimplements all of the native OS widgets

I think you missed something pretty important. GTK is the native OS widgets for Linux (well, originally written for, you can use Qt as well). What they have actually ported is GDK, which is a display system abstraction library. A GTK program will never use Windows/MacOS widgets natively because that is not its purpose, if you want that you should be using a widget toolkit abstraction lib like SWT or wxWindows. Or you could of course write a theme engine for GTK that simulates other platforms.

what about adobe by digitalsushi · 2002-12-31 03:38 · Score: 3, Interesting

I wonder what Adobe's take on this is, with the GIMP on the horizon? I wonder what percentage of Photoshop installations are legal viewed from both PC and Mac perspectives. Anyone know that stat, roughly? Course it's a hard number to calculate.

--
slashdot: where everyone yells sarcastic metaphors to themselves to understand the issue

Re:My only wish... by sporty · 2002-12-31 03:54 · Score: 3, Funny

Gentoo is the fastest Linux on PPC and it beats all others (on PPC) including Mac OS X;

And Mac OS X gets Gentoo in a sleeper hold! But Gentoo breaks it. Oh, kick to the midsection.

C'mmon.. can we please stop making absolute statements? Especially with no foundation?

--

-
ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only

Think TOTAL Cost of Ownership by alchemist68 · 2002-12-31 04:08 · Score: 3, Insightful

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.

Re:Think TOTAL Cost of Ownership by Ponty · 2002-12-31 16:48 · Score: 2

Hehe. Yep, I'm a known troll. And you're an AC. (I think the appropriate term is "nanny nanny boo boo.")

Okay. To your (his?) points: "OS X machines need upgrades and patches all the time, and even worse, they are user-specific." Upgrades and patches all the time? A glance at debian.org reports ten security vulnerabilities in deb packages that need to be addressed. I'm not saying that those are weaknesses in the system (I see them as strengths, in fact) but to say that Mac OS X's regular software updates are a weakness is to be grasping for a point where one really doesn't exist. I installed 10.2 on my PowerBook. I downloaded the 10.2.3 joint updater, the IE security update (a non-Apple product), the Stuffit security update (a non-Apple product), and the AirPort software update because I wanted to update my base station. Ta daa!

Oh, and they aren't user-specific by default. Are you (is he?) suggesting that when I update IE, I have to update my local IE? Nope. The admin installs updates and the system-wide software is updated. You're (he's) just wrong on that one.

The Mac is fairly friendly. But it's still a complicated modern operating system and can be confusing. No biggie there. I'd still (and did) give my grandmother that instead of Windows.

10.2 is a whole 'nother operating system! It's like going from Win95 to Win98. I agree that there should have been upgrade pricing, but it's not that big a deal, really. It's a new OS. Not a patch, not a maintenance release, a whole new OS!

Power consumption? What the hell? I don't really care. I've never seen anyone to whom I care to pay attention to trying to argue that Macs consume less power than PCs (though they may, I really don't know.) For all I know, you (he) may be right, though I suspect that you'll (he'll) be hard-pressed to find many tasks that take 1 hour on a PC and 5-6 on a Mac.

What kind of crap-ass LCDs are you (is he) using that die in 3 years? I have hardware with LCDs that's a heck of a lot older than that. And eMacs use CRTs.

Quality? How do Mac(')s suck in terms of quality? I haven't gotten that picture from any of your (his) to-date arguments, but I have a couple of burned out midrange PC motherboards and notebook computers sitting in my closet to dump into your (his) Honda if you (he) want(s) to haul them away for me.

P.S., I wasn't suggesting that your (his?) grammatical errors prove that a Mac is better than a PC. I was simply suggesting that you (he?) might think about addressing your (his) use of apostrophes in the future. It takes a mind itchin' for a fight to jump from my comment to "Where the fuck have you learnt such a moronic logic?" But I like to feed trolls.

Re:that's one nice port out of the way... by IamTheRealMike · 2002-12-31 04:38 · Score: 2

Can't you skin GTK or something on Linux to make it not look quite as much like ass? Is there any way of making the Windows port do this, at all?

Yes, the GTK default skin is awful. Everybody uses a a more modern theme such as Mist, ThinICE, BlueCurve et al. You can choose the theme on Windows, but I dunno how. Go find some GNOME2 screenshots at gnome.org to see that GTK can actually look very nice and professional.

The windows situation should improve soon, GTK2.2 has much better windows support and the next stable version of the gimp uses it (along with much nicer artwork and looks all round).

Re:Happy gnu year/millennium by Twirlip+of+the+Mists · 2002-12-31 04:42 · Score: 2

Gee. All this time I thought James Joyce died in 1941. Who knew he was posting as an AC on Slashdot?

overwrung. A charmful waterloose post, dacently gaylaboring the auld meanderthalltale from jayjay's mything Byoublong of farago. D'ya dismember what a mnice old mness it all mnakes? But Hark! Hark! Tray chairs fur Muster Anonymous Coward in a roustering rendition of "Miss Hooligan's Christmas Cake," the topsiest mnoment of a quarky under-parformance. Stillandall, the posts a way a long a last a long a little.

--

I write in my journal

Don't think Gimp. by IGnatius+T+Foobar · 2002-12-31 04:47 · Score: 4, Insightful

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.

--
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!

Re:Don't think Gimp. by tomdarch · 2002-12-31 06:55 · Score: 2

Apple won't publicly, directly support these moves because it still has to talk and negotiate with M$. At the same time, they must be happy that these apps are moving forward, but without needing their direct support. These open apps are a percieved threat to M$ across several platforms, so Apple gets a little leverage with M$ (because cutting Office for Mac is less of a doomsday scenario), without being 'one of the bad guys.' Also, don't forget that Apple has it's own competing product to OpenOffice - AppleWorks.
Regarding Apple's homegrown browser, I would guess that it will just drive M$ to make IE for Windows even less stnadards compliant, forcing web developers to follow, and making IE on Windows the only way to reliably interact with lots more web sites.
Re:Don't think Gimp. by marmoset · 2002-12-31 07:16 · Score: 2, Interesting

I'm not trying to be a smartass here, but there's already a very advanced Mac build of Mozilla (utilizing a Carbon front end), not to mention a pretty darned great Gecko-based browser, Chimera, using a Cocoa front-end. What could a GTK-based Mozilla offer Apple or Mac users that those two aren't already doing?

Why bother? Apple doesn't want this. by g4dget · 2002-12-31 05:27 · Score: 2

If Apple wanted support for regular UNIX GUIs, they would integrate XDarwin into OSX--it could be done more easily and more transparently than Carbon or Java are integrated right now.

Apple wants people to port their applications to Cocoa. That's the only kind of GUI they want on OSX. They have said so. I think it's stupid. I think it makes OSX pretty unattractive for UNIX workstation users. But it's Apple's wish, and it's Apple strategy. I don't see any point in fighting it, and I don't see any point for open source efforts to waste any time on doing something Apple doesn't want in the first place.

For me, it means that I'm going to continue to use my Mac mostly as a decorative jukebox, and my Linux machine to replace my UNIX workstation.

Re:Why GTK? by Oculus+Habent · 2002-12-31 05:33 · Score: 2

In fairness, Linux allows you to do something that fwe other current operating systems do: install the newest OS on FRIGGIN OLD hardware.

That's a plus in many people's books.

--
That what was all this school was for... to teach us how to solve our own problems. -- janeowit

Re:My only wish... by sporty · 2002-12-31 05:39 · Score: 2

You don't know Gentoo, do you?

Yup, I have. But I think you may have missed the jest in my post. Nothing (most of the time) is completely better than something else. It's better at certain things, that have certain values.

Now for the irrelevant part of my reply to your post. My point is that Gentoo and Mac OSX are better than each other at different things.

All other OSes keep one universal binary distribution compiled for the most conservative CPU/chipset. As a result the performance on the fastest compter is not that fast.

Not bad for mac's, since the ppc hasn't been changed since the older non-ppc chilsets. So binaries aren't the end of the world for the Mac.. since we know the hardware it'll be run on. :)

Otherwise, there is a risk of application crashing (another common problem on Mac OS X).

Uh, that's a result not of OS X. It can be the OS, the compiler or a bug in the app. I can easily write apps that'll crash on linux but be fine on OSX. It's just buggy code that I've written. If the OS is sturdy, the compiler is sturdy and the app is sturdy, the app won't necessarily crash. I haven't had an OS crash more than once.

The bad news about proprietary Mac OS X - nothing you can do with it. You cannot recompile your kernel, you drivers, you GUI.

Darwin, the underlying OS, you can recompile. Quartz, Cocoa and the other libs are gifts, in binary form, from Apple. So I can use X11 on top of it. I rather not.

There is a foundation of performance comparison of Gentoo and Mac OS X. Read Gentoo forums. Or, even better, try yourself to see the real difference.

It may run hello world faster, but it doesn't have iTunes, iMovie, iDvd, Aqua, Office (MS's MacOffice, not Windows one). But if I wanted a server, or a unix workstation, I may consider linux. I've tried Mandrake, Slackware, Gentoo, RedHat and Debian. They were nice for various things. I liked FreeBSD for some things, OBsed for others.

I just rather Mac OS X. I like the gui, the feel... before it, I was a windowmaker user for 3 years. I tried kde a few times. I never liked gnome much.

So in other words, lemme use what I like. I've tried the rest, and I'm stuck with what's best for me.

--

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ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only

For a more marginal $99 by 2nd+Post! · 2002-12-31 05:56 · Score: 2

You could get Photoshop Elements. Yeah, it's more expensive than graphic converter, but you get 90% of Photoshop for 15% of the price, and it still beats the pants of GIMP for most stuff :)

--

GPL Deconstructed

Re:Hrm. by Stu+Charlton · 2002-12-31 06:02 · Score: 2

Pyslsk runs fine for me on OS X, but I complied it against XDarwin/GTK... which was a pain, but worked.

--
-Stu

Re:Why bother? Apple doesn't want this. by analog_line · 2002-12-31 06:02 · Score: 2

Excuse me, but I don't give a shit what Apple wants or doesn't want me to be able to run on their hardware. I'd like to run some GTK-based applications natively under Aqua without having to run a second window manager that happens to be resource intensive and buggy-as-hell along side it. Apparently a lot of other people want to as well.

This has nothing at all to do with "support for regular UNIX GUIs", it's about expanding support for the Aqua GUI. It's about making X11 less necessary, not making it more necessary.

I don't care what you do with your Mac, or your Linux machine. Neither does anyone else in here. If you want to waste the electricity and processor on a jukebox, well, you go for it.

Re:Why bother? Apple doesn't want this. by g4dget · 2002-12-31 06:30 · Score: 2

Excuse me, but I don't give a shit what Apple wants or doesn't want me to be able to run on their hardware.

Well, you should, because ultimately, Apple does control what does and doesn't run there.

it's about expanding support for the Aqua GUI.

The Gtk+ port does not use the Aqua GUI, it uses the regular Gtk+ rendering and primitives. It's not much different from running Gtk+ under XDarwin.

I don't care what you do with your Mac, or your Linux machine.

Well, perhaps you should. The fewer people buy and use Macs, the more trouble Apple is in. And if the open source community doesn't bother with supporting ports of open source software to the Mac anymore, you won't be getting much open source software anymore either.

Re:Why bother? Apple doesn't want this. by CoolVibe · 2002-12-31 06:34 · Score: 2

But Apple doesn't fight this. You think they don't want this? What color is the sky on your planet? This means more apps on Quartz for OSX. Yeah right, they don't want it...

Re:Looking good? by IndoorCat · 2002-12-31 06:56 · Score: 2, Funny

I do believe the Janet Reno choice is morally wrong.

I agree. Give me Madeline Albright any day.

Re:Why bother? Apple doesn't want this. by g4dget · 2002-12-31 06:58 · Score: 2

This means more apps on Quartz for OSX. Yeah right, they don't want it...

Yes, they don't want this. Gtk+OSX applications are not Macintosh native, and they are not consistent.

Of course, since Apple can't easily stop this, they'll still be happy to count the application when making claims about how much software OSX supports.

Re:Why bother? Apple doesn't want this. by Ilan+Volow · 2002-12-31 07:05 · Score: 2

Not only Apple doesn't want a non-consistant user experience, but most mac users don't want a non-consistant user experience, either.

In fact, most sane people on any platform want a consistant user experience.

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Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!

Re:Why bother? Apple doesn't want this. by Ilan+Volow · 2002-12-31 07:08 · Score: 2

But if open source software people hurt apple by not supporting ports to the mac, and apple goes out of business, where are open source people going to steal all their ideas for themes from?

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Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!

Congratulations by theolein · 2002-12-31 07:14 · Score: 2

This has been wanted for a long time. It is a true sign that OSX is becoming a mainstream Unix and, despite all the complaining about GTK, it says a lot about the flexibility of the design. The obvious problems such as menu bars will eventually be overcome and I'm sure that the GIMP will get ported to GTK+2 some time.

Good on the people that did all the hard work and thanks.

Blech by Dr.+Sp0ng · 2002-12-31 07:24 · Score: 2, Interesting

If you'll excuse me, I have some things to get off my chest.

Christ, I just don't understand you people sometimes. You pay good money for a Mac and a copy of OS X, and then you cheer for a half-assed port of GTK+, the most horrible toolkit ever conceived? I mean, come on, at least put the fucking menubar on top of the screen where it belongs!

I'm not a Mac zealot. I love my Mac, but I'm also a fan of Windows XP (from a useability, if not technological, standpoint), and have been using Linux since before the kernel hit the big 1.0 (although, since the train wreck that has been kernel 2.4 hit the world, I've moved everything important over to FreeBSD). I spent years championing free software, but one can only take so much of "that'll be fixed soon, we promise," before the idea of a free desktop stops being attractive.

I cannot stand to use a GTK+-based application without cringing - applying a skin-deep theme doesn't fix the useability and design problems, which go straight to the core (granted, a lot of this stems from the "evil robot" UI designer another posted in this thread pointed out, and there's not much a toolkit can do about that, but the problem seems worse for most GTK+ apps than, say, Qt). GTK+ apps, without a SINGLE EXCEPTION that I have seen, just scream "AMATEUR!" The GIMP is the only GTK+ application I have seen which comes even close to feeling professional, and it's still got a long way to go. Qt apps are much better in the respect, and that probably stems from the fact that programmers who use Qt (at least in the context of KDE applications) tend to pay more attention to KDE's UI guidelines than GTK+ programmers do to Gnome's guidelines. But they both have the same problem in the end - without somebody to have the final say in the user interface area, a coherent desktop is impossible, because anybody who has other ideas is free to implement them. That may work fine in other areas of software development (and indeed, has, as free software spanks the competition in most other areas), but on the desktop, it just can't fly.

I, for one, will stay the hell away from this port, even if they fix the menubar issues and make a convincing Aqua theme (which, to this point, has not been done by anybody, so I'm not counting on colorblind, aesthetically-challenged free software types to pull it off). Even if the widgets manage to blend in with the native ones, GTK+ applications will always stick out like a sore thumb. The Mac interface is about much more than blue, pulsating buttons - interfaces are DESIGNED, not HACKED TOGETHER.

The only thing this port will be good for is a temporary stepping stone from X11 to Aqua - and not a very good one, at that. I wish free software people would drop GTK+ for a more reasonable toolkit, like Qt, which doesn't actively try to drive the programmer to drink. The best case would be if the GNUStep people would 1) finish up their god damned project, and 2) make it less ugly. That way native OS X applications could be written the way God intended (in Cocoa), and easily ported to other operating systems. As the author of several programs using GTK+, Qt, and Cocoa, I can honestly say that I would sooner work for minimum wage flipping burgers at McDonalds than ever write another line of code using GTK+. Qt is decent, and Cocoa is by far the best. But GTK+... ugh, there is just not a single redeeming feature to this entire toolkit.

Then again, I'm even picky when it comes to Carbon vs. Cocoa - even Carbon applications don't feel right on OS X (especially the Carbon port of Vim, which makes me cry). Give me native Cocoa apps, or give me death.

Re:Blech by Junta · 2002-12-31 08:22 · Score: 2

GTK+ is not the worst. In fact, with gtkmm or PyGtk, it is quite palleteable. I would say gtkmm and qt are on equal footing.

As far as UI design is concerned, it really reflects the different design goals of GTK+ versus Apple APIs. GTK+ strives to provide maximal flexibility. Let the developer chose however he wants to design the app and provide some way to implement it. Flys in the face of consistancy, but there is a reason. Apple kills flexibility to enforce consistancy. Though I respect both goals, and think GTK+OSX is a REALLY good step for providing ports of complex apps quickly versus XDarwin, I agree that developers should consider how badly GTK+ apps will stick out like a sore thumb in OSX. They can work to make some widgets more seamless (i.e. menubar, button appearance, etc.), but others will always stand out (detachable handleboxes, for example. They can be quite useful (on multi-head configurations), but I don't think they are anywhere to be found in OSX).

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XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.

Re:My only wish... by axxackall · 2002-12-31 07:40 · Score: 2

and try getting 5 hour battery life on an x86 lappy with only one battery

What does bring x86 here? We are talking about Gentoo Linux on Mac PPC. Is it your automatical reaction to think "x86" when you hear "linux"? If so - then fix it: Linux works on a number platforms, besides x86. PPC, Alpha and Sparc are examples.

By the way, Gentoo with PPC extensions (pmud etc) is not really different from Mac OS in terms of battery consumtion.

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Less is more !

Re:My only wish... by axxackall · 2002-12-31 07:52 · Score: 2

It may run hello world faster, but it doesn't have iTunes, iMovie, iDvd, Aqua, Office (MS's MacOffice, not Windows one).

Just few corrections:

Linux PPC runs OpenOffice. But if you insist on MS Mac Office - it runs it fine in MOL with same speed and quaity. Personally I prefer OpenOffice.

Instead of Aqua it has X86 with Gnome, which I like better than Aqua/Quartz.

I play DVD, movies and music on Linux. I've tried iThings on Mac OS X and found them cheesy - they are not THAT special as they pretend to be.

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Less is more !

Re:Why bother? Apple doesn't want this. by bnenning · 2002-12-31 08:12 · Score: 3, Interesting

Apple wants people to port their applications to Cocoa. That's the only kind of GUI they want on OSX.

True, and false. Apple emphasizes Cocoa and doesn't provide a built-in X server, but that doesn't mean they're hostile to the concept of running X apps. They even link to the XFree86 Darwin port.

I don't see any point in fighting it, and I don't see any point for open source efforts to waste any time on doing something Apple doesn't want in the first place.

There's nothing to fight, and even if there were, Apple doesn't control what software you run. By that reasoning developing Mozilla for Windows is pointless since Microsoft doesn't like it.

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How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.

Re:What about a GTK version that uses native widge by Guy+Harris · 2002-12-31 09:26 · Score: 2

GTK is the native OS widgets for Linux

Actually, GTK is a native widget set for OSes using X11 as the native window system, including but not limited to Linux. It is no more "the" native widget set for those systems than are Qt, FLTK, Motif, the Athena Widgets, etc., and it's not at all Linux-specific.

But your underlying point, namely that there is no "native" widget set for UNIX+X11 systems that GTK+ "should" be using, is correct.

I think Qt also replaces the native widgets on non-X11 platforms on which it runs and that have native widgets, such as Windows and MacOS X.

pshop advantage is cymk by mr_burns · 2002-12-31 09:50 · Score: 2

the reason people will stick to photoshop is color. Gimp is good for rgb and greyscale, but is useless for print, which needs cmyk color. Not all jobs use cmyk, but why use 2 environments? Photoshop does all color as LAB then converts to the selected color mode. Gimp just doesn't compare to photoshop in the use of color.

Film Gimp, however, could give photoshop a kick in the nards. Recently used in Scooby Doo, it's 16 bit per channel in RGB designed specifically for motion picture retouching and rotoscoping. Photoshop just doesn't have the capabilities film gimp has when it comes to these. The RGB only flaw is not as big a problem in film and video.

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"Let him go, Ralph. He knows what he's doing." --Otto Mann (simpsons)

Re:Why bother? Apple doesn't want this. by analog_line · 2002-12-31 09:50 · Score: 2

Well, you should, because ultimately, Apple does control what does and doesn't run there.

Actually, no. They control what does or does not run under their operating system. I run Linux on an older iMac. People (for some reason I can't fathom) run Linux on newer machines that run OS X fine. Hell, Apple even helped support one of the older linux-for-macs distributions. In the end, what you use it for doesn't matter a whole lot to them, they just make the hardware. Yeah, they'll happily sell you other stuff if you want it, but they're not (yet) about stopping you from doing anything with it. (No, the iDVD thing isn't about hardware, the person in question was altering iDVD, an Apple piece of software)

It's not much different from running Gtk+ under XDarwin.

Actually, it's very different. I don't need to hog system resources running two window managers. I don't care if the applications don't follow the Apple spec for GUI design on a Mac. If that's what I wanted, what makes you think I'd even be bothering with GTK+ at all?

Well, perhaps you should.

Perhaps I shouldn't.

The fewer people buy and use Macs, the more trouble Apple is in.

I could get into the idiotic rumors of Apple's demise, but they've been gone over and over. The computer manufacturing industry is faltering all over. Apple isn't alone, no matter how you might wish it to be.

And if the open source community doesn't bother with supporting ports of open source software to the Mac anymore, you won't be getting much open source software anymore either.

This is the same "open source community" that ports things to the Amiga, BeOS, Irix, praises someone like Stallman for a "revolutionary operating system" that's more vaporware than half of the dead dotcoms? And there's supposed to be some way for you to stop people from porting things to a PPC architecture and Darwin when someone gets a bug up their ass about it later?

I would consider myself unconcerned... =)

Okay so how do I use this (n00b question) ?? by 47Ronin · 2002-12-31 09:57 · Score: 2

I've opened the pbproj files and clicked the Build button, which seemingly compiled and built stuff into the Frameworks folder. Not knowing what was supposed to happen, I copied the resultant gdk.framework and gtk.framework folders to /Library/Frameworks ...glib-1.2.10 installed like any other UNIX library.

Okay so now how do I compile typical UNIX gtk+ apps against this new "aqua-compatible" GTK? I tried compiling the nessus-core --enable-gtk but it's looking for the binaries gtk-config, etc! Project Builder didn't install such binaries into /usr/local/bin ... wtf?

I guess what I'm asking is how do I take a generic gtk app from source (like nessus) and build it using the gtk-osx libraries/frameworks instead of regular gtk (which I would normally do via Fink)?

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Those who laugh at you for you having a Mac.. are the people who constantly call you to fix their PC.

lol! by Ender+Ryan · 2002-12-31 10:16 · Score: 2

Damn, I know what you mean, I can't stand reading Python!

I haven't done much Python, but the little I have done sure did drive me nuts. I'd rather write 5x more C code to do the same thing than code in Python.

Then again, I do more coding in Perl than anything else, so what do I know? ;-)

BTW, IamTheRealMike is correct, the example you used is absolutely horrible, as you can do GTK with much less code than that. OTOH, the Cocoa API is much, much nicer, even without taking the amount of code into consideration.

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Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden

Re:that's one nice port out of the way... by WasterDave · 2002-12-31 11:47 · Score: 2

What you want is wxWindows.

Dave

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I write a blog now, you should be afraid.

Re:My only wish... by sporty · 2002-12-31 14:38 · Score: 2

Linux PPC runs OpenOffice. But if you insist on MS Mac Office - it runs it fine in MOL with same speed and quaity. Personally I prefer OpenOffice.

So? Point is, you prefer it. I don't. End of story. Mac OS and Linux are good since they fufill our needs respectively. You know why I like Mac OSX, I know why you like Linux. One isn't better than the other except in our own preferences.

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ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only

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