[cross-project-issues-dev] SWT will drop support for GTK 2.x in Eclipse 4.10 / SimRel 2018-12 release

[Aleksandar Kurtakov]

It was announced many times via different media GTK 2.x was no longer in
development for quite a lot of time including issues in SWT.
In order to fix a major issue with SWT GTK 3.x port which was that the port
was started too late, this time we plan to start early and provide early
feedback to GTK developers so our needs are taken in account instead of
things workarounded late in the game. GTK 2.x support is a real obstacle
for this to happen as keeping so many different code paths (with entirely
different design even in places) makes it not feasible to start adding GTK
4.x support.
Today, Eclipse PMC agreed that the 4.10/2018-12 release will drop support
for GTK 2.x, set the minimum supported GTK version to 3.0 and the process
to rewrite some parts in pure GTK 3.x way will be initiated.
If you have any real show-stopper bugs bring them now. The team fixed most
of the important bugs and is now fixing some lower priority bugs. Do not
wait till it's dropped to report!
And pure individual visual preferences are not important bugs as it's a
design choice of SWT to adhere to system defaults so consider this
statement too.

Onwards, to even better SWT!

[Ed Merks]

Alexander,

I can imagine that it's a huge hurdle to try to maintain compatibility
with two major version.  To me it seems like a good plan to focus on
excellent support for the current version with an eye to the next version.

I'll have to do some more testing with the installer to see if there
remain GTK 3 problem.  We have been shipping it with the Oxygen version
of the platform, but at some point we'd of course like to move forward
too...

Cheers,
Ed

Post by Aleksandar Kurtakov
It was announced many times via different media GTK 2.x was no longer
in development for quite a lot of time including issues in SWT.
In order to fix a major issue with SWT GTK 3.x port which was that the
port was started too late, this time we plan to start early and
provide early feedback to GTK developers so our needs are taken in
account instead of things workarounded late in the game. GTK 2.x
support is a real obstacle for this to happen as keeping so many
different code paths (with entirely different design even in places)
makes it not feasible to start adding GTK 4.x support.
Today, Eclipse PMC agreed that the 4.10/2018-12 release will drop
support for GTK 2.x, set the minimum supported GTK version to 3.0 and
the process to rewrite some parts in pure GTK 3.x way will be initiated.
If you have any real show-stopper bugs bring them now. The team fixed
most of the important bugs and is now fixing some lower priority bugs.
Do not wait till it's dropped to report!
And pure individual visual preferences are not important bugs as it's
a design choice of SWT to adhere to system defaults so consider this
statement too.
Onwards, to even better SWT!
--
Alexander Kurtakov
Red Hat Eclipse Team
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