GTK or The GIMP Toolkit is a cross-platform graphical component library for developing graphical user interfaces.
After several months of development the release of the new version of GTK 4.12 was announced, which continues the development of the GTK 4.x branch which is under a new process that tries to provide application developers with a stable and compatible API for several years, that can be used without fear that applications will have to re- be worked every six months due to API changes.
For those who don't know about GTK, you should know that this is one of the most popular linux widget toolkit, although it is also used in other systems, since it is a cross-platform library for creating graphical user interfaces.
Main new features of GTK 4.12
In this new version of GTK 4.12, one of its main novelties are the improvements made for Wayland, since the ability to suspend the window state is implemented, as well as the addition support for fractional scaling protocol, it is also mentioned that viewporter is enabled, which allows the client to perform scaling and cropping actions on the server-side surface, in addition to fixed issues using stylus buttons and fixed issues with drag and drop.
Another novelty that stands out from this launch is the improved support for the Vulkan graphics API, since added support for using Vulkan to smooth gradients, support for different image formats, added the ability to repeat (redo) load images and also added the cache for pipeline operations and redesigned glyph caching.
In addition to this, it is also highlighted that added "GtkSectionModel" interface to group list items into sections, along with support for sections to most list widgets, including a dropdown, item list, and multi-column list.
We can also find that the GDK library, which provides a layer between GTK and the graphics subsystem, now supports loading and saving textures with transparency and a grayscale palette, In addition to that it also has support implemented for non-integer scale values.
A new “Accessibility” section has been added to the GTK inspector and an interface has been implemented to identify problems that people with disabilities may have and the information displayed in the a11y tab has been expanded.
On the other hand, it is highlighted thate an automatic configuration of the parameters was provided from source (gtk-hint-font-metrics) depending on the scale factor set. The change improved the rendering of fonts in apps shipped in flatpak format.
the interface GtkFileChooser defaults to sort mode, showing directories first and files second. Columns with location, date and time are provided. Added WebDav link processing on the line with file paths.
Of the other changes that stand out:
- property was added can-shrink has been added to GtkButton and GtkMenuButton to allow buttons to shrink to a size smaller than the original size of the button content.
- The always prompt property has been added to the Gtk.FileLauncher class to display a dialog for selecting an application to open a file.
- The OpenGL rendering engine implements the GdkGLTextureBuilde API to create textures.
- Added the ability to customize texture update areas.
- Added a new utility gtk4-rendernode-tool to render scene nodes using GskRenderer.
- Funds for people with disabilities have been significantly expanded.
- Support for guides in portrait orientation has been added to the GtkBox widget.
Separate style classes have been added to the theme engine for some widgets. - Style Compatibility «.boxed-listhas been moved from the Adwaita Library.
- Added the ability to display secondary images in grayscale.
- Added scroll_to API to widgets for working with lists, to scroll to a specific position.
- In utility gtk4-node-editor, scaling has been improved, aspect ratio for textures has been preserved, and node editing has been simplified.
Finally it is mentioned that at the end of the year it is planned to form an experimental branch 4.90, who will develop the functionality for a future version of GTK5. The GTK5 branch will include changes that break compatibility at the API level, for example related to the deprecation of some widgets, such as the old file selection dialog.
If you are interested in be able to know more about it, you can check the details In the following link.