Mac Fans Disappointed in GTK+ Port

News Type: Opinion — Seeded on Fri Sep 26, 2008 6:09 AM EDT

technology, apple, linux, os-x, gnome, gtk-applications, gtk-software-development-framework, linux-apps, mac-desktops

"Those wanting to run Linux apps on their Mac desktops now have reason to rejoice — sort of. The GTK+ software development framework has been ported to Mac OS X, so it's now possible to install and run GTK+ applications on your Mac. But there are some hang-ups. Your apps will look out of place, won't use standard OS X tools and play havoc with system-wide tools like Expose or the Dock.

GTK+ is cross-platform toolkit for application development. It's most heavily used in the GNOME environment on LINUX, but it will run elsewhere, including OS X. If there's a GTK+ app (like GIMP, shown above) that you've been missing on OS X, this is probably your best bet. So far though, judging by the over 200 comments on this Reddit thread, the reaction from the Mac community seems to be overwhelmingly negative. Which is too bad since the GTK+ team has put a lot of effort into the port."

Published to:

The Dude Dean's Column, All of Newsvine
Groups: The Infinite Loop
Regions: none

What's this?

Who's leading the conversation?

This visualization below allows you to see the impact that each user has on the current conversation. The top row contains the group of users who have had the most impact, the 2nd row the group of users who have had the 2nd most impact (et cetera). Users with similar impact are grouped together, and the average score of the group is shown to the left of the group. The author of the article is also shown on the left, in their corresponding group. Each user's score is based on the number of comments the user has made plus the number of votes their comments have received. The scores are calculated relative one another, so while their absolute value is not particularly important, their relative difference does indicate a larger difference in impact on the conversation.

1.5

{"commentId":3162456,"authorDomain":"adamkemp"}

Adam Kemp

Big surprise. The same is pretty much true of the Windows port, which is why Gaim (er, Pidgin) is still ridiculously ugly on Windows. You can't just port the drawing code for a UI API and expect it to work well. Platforms like Windows and OS X have UI standards defining things like how a button should look and feel. If you just ignore those then you're not making a good UI API.

Linux is not known for pretty UIs, so why would they port GTK+ in such a way that preserves the look and feel of Linux? That's idiotic.

{"commentId":3162456,"threadId":"370421","contentId":"1915797","authorDomain":"adamkemp"}

1 vote

#1 - Sat Sep 27, 2008 12:31 AM EDT

{"canLink":false,"threadId":"370421","isPrivate":false}

THE DUDE DEAN

Backyard

Mac Fans Disappointed in GTK+ Port

Published to:

FUN STUFF:

COMPANY STUFF:

LEGAL STUFF: