Switch to GTK+3

Switch to GTK+3

[Gary Thomas]

I just tried a build from the latest Poky/Yocto master (2a85038dd)
Overall, I think the switch to GTK+3 is an improvement, but I have
a number of [usability] questions:

* I built firefox from meta-browser and noticed that on my touch only
device, it does not automatically pop-up the keyboard.  However, epiphany
does.  I've only done a little testing but that's what I observed.  Not
having this happen "on demand" (i.e. when a text field has the focus)
will make using a full screen application impossible on this hardware.

* Also on firefox, I can't seem to get the vertical scrollbar to work.
Again, with epiphany it at least works.

* The system also doesn't seem to play very nice with my GPU enhanced
i.MX6 and causes the SoC to overheat (didn't happen with GTK+2).  Makes
it rather unusable as well.

* gtk-play ran my 1GB system out of memory, just starting up :-(  This
caused a complete system lockup & I could not even restart the X server.
This application also seemed to run quite well with GTK+2

* There also seem to be a continuous stream of messages like these on the console:

   GLib-GIO-Message: Using the 'memory' GSettings backend.  Your settings will not be saved or shared with other 
applications.
   Gtk-Message: GtkDialog mapped without a transient parent. This is discouraged.

I know that these firefox vs. epiphany vs. chome vs. ... questions
are not really the responsibility of Yocto or OE-core, but it does
trickle down to those of us trying to use this framework.

Many thanks for any thoughts

n.b. I was torn what mailing list to use for this - it's tightly
tied to OE-core, but isn't really about patches or changes, more
about philosophy.  If the OE-core list is more appropriate, please
move the replies there.

-- 
------------------------------------------------------------
Gary Thomas                 |  Consulting for the
MLB Associates              |    Embedded world
------------------------------------------------------------

Re: Switch to GTK+3

[Jussi Kukkonen]

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On 16 June 2016 at 15:44, Gary Thomas <gary@mlbassoc.com> wrote:
>
> I just tried a build from the latest Poky/Yocto master (2a85038dd)
> Overall, I think the switch to GTK+3 is an improvement, but I have
> a number of [usability] questions:

It's a tricky upgrade, essentially upgrading a major part of an operating
system from a version five years old version to a current one. I am sorry
for the inconvenience.

> * I built firefox from meta-browser and noticed that on my touch only
> device, it does not automatically pop-up the keyboard.  However, epiphany
> does.  I've only done a little testing but that's what I observed.  Not
> having this happen "on demand" (i.e. when a text field has the focus)
> will make using a full screen application impossible on this hardware.

I assume this is still the Gtk2 firefox? There is a Gtk3 version released
recently I believe.

Before the recent changes, Gtk+2 applications were the only thing supported
by the virtual keyboard.

Now, the default configuration is to build only support for Gtk+3 but it is
possible to support also Gtk+2 by adding "gtk2-im" into the
matchbox-keyboard PACKAGECONFIG. This is not done by default to prevent the
keyboard from bringing gtk+ into the image if nothing else requires it.

> * Also on firefox, I can't seem to get the vertical scrollbar to work.
> Again, with epiphany it at least works.

This is slightly surprising if firefox is a gtk+2 application. The only
thing that really changed with the GTK2 stack is the theme... but the
current one (gnome-theme-adwaita from gnome-themes-standard) is the GNOME
default so I'd expect it work. I have no suggestions here, Sorry.

> * The system also doesn't seem to play very nice with my GPU enhanced
> i.MX6 and causes the SoC to overheat (didn't happen with GTK+2).  Makes
> it rather unusable as well.

Eek. That sounds like a driver problem. The new Gtk is more demanding on
graphics drivers but not by a huge difference.

> * gtk-play ran my 1GB system out of memory, just starting up :-(  This
> caused a complete system lockup & I could not even restart the X server.
> This application also seemed to run quite well with GTK+2

gst-player did go through some refactoring (the library parts are now in
gst-plugins-bad) so new bugs are not impossible. It's unlikely that the Gtk
upgrade itself would have this kind of effects, but maybe this is related
to the previous problem -- wherever the root cause is.

> * There also seem to be a continuous stream of messages like these on the
console:
>
>   GLib-GIO-Message: Using the 'memory' GSettings backend.  Your settings
will not be saved or shared with other applications.
>   Gtk-Message: GtkDialog mapped without a transient parent. This is
discouraged.

The messages as such are not problematic, assuming there's no flood of them.

GSettings is still something we might want to bring in (as a replacement
for GConf which is deprecated), but that means a little porting work on
matchbox components. The GtkDialog message is probably from gtk-play and
should not be an issue.

Hope this helps,
  Jussi



> I know that these firefox vs. epiphany vs. chome vs. ... questions
> are not really the responsibility of Yocto or OE-core, but it does
> trickle down to those of us trying to use this framework.
>
> Many thanks for any thoughts
>
> n.b. I was torn what mailing list to use for this - it's tightly
> tied to OE-core, but isn't really about patches or changes, more
> about philosophy.  If the OE-core list is more appropriate, please
> move the replies there.
>
> --
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> Gary Thomas                 |  Consulting for the
> MLB Associates              |    Embedded world
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> --
> _______________________________________________
> yocto mailing list
> yocto@yoctoproject.org
> https://lists.yoctoproject.org/listinfo/yocto

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Re: Switch to GTK+3

[Burton, Ross]

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On 16 June 2016 at 14:53, Jussi Kukkonen <jussi.kukkonen@intel.com> wrote:

> Now, the default configuration is to build only support for Gtk+3 but it
> is possible to support also Gtk+2 by adding "gtk2-im" into the
> matchbox-keyboard PACKAGECONFIG. This is not done by default to prevent the
> keyboard from bringing gtk+ into the image if nothing else requires it.
>

If we split the gtk2 and gtk3 IM modules into separate packages then both
could be enabled with the cost that both gtk2 and gtk3 will be needed at
build time.

As Jussi says, it's all a tradeoff, and the current work is towards
removing gtk+2 from Sato images entirely.

GSettings is still something we might want to bring in (as a replacement
> for GConf which is deprecated), but that means a little porting work on
> matchbox components. The GtkDialog message is probably from gtk-play and
> should not be an issue.
>

In particular the recipe here would be dconf, so that GSettings (part of
GLib) has a persistent data storage.  I believe dconf is in meta-oe already.

Ross

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