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But Gtk on Win32 is good only to run existing Gtk on Linux applications. As a developer, I would never use Gtk to write a Win32 only application, while I would do it with Qt or WxWidgets.
No matter how they call it a "crossplatform" toolkit. The truth is that Gtk is a (good) Linux-only toolkit which happen to run (bad) on other platforms.
That might be.
However, for Windows applications I prefer to stick to native Win API everywhere (though wxWidgets is quite good too - but it also looks and behaves as native widgets).
GTK+ is cross platform, in the sense it works on several platforms.
The downside is it can feel slightly alien (I think the word is) to the platform it's running on.
But GTK+ isn't only good for Linux-applications. I personally prefer to use a native tool kit, no matter the platform.
FLTK or Fox Tool Kit are other good options.
I still think GTK+ is good also on the Windows platform, but it doesn't feel native as such. But then again.. it isn't native on the Win32 platform.
"The truth is that Gtk is a (good) Linux-only toolkit which happen to run (bad) on other platforms."
I think you would mean Linux and Unix here, forgive me if i'm wrong but last I checked there were first rate platforms like FreeBSD and Solaris which were chugging along quite happily with GTK...
GTK is not written for Linux, it is written for X Windows.
Define "pretty well". To me, its look and feel is foreign (even with Wimp; you got the inversed button order, the GNOME file dialog... with the latest version I tried (2.6.8), anyway) and it got the sluggish redraw time. Hardly what I would call "pretty well".
To me, it looks like more a port than a supported platform. I hope the OS X port is going to get a better treatement (which I do not doubt since this platform got more respect and less hatred than Win32).
I don't think hatred or disrespect has anything to do with it. It's more a matter of securing same behaviour across platforms than securing a "native" look and feel on each platform.
It does feel slightly foreign, but this is true for many applications incl. several from Microsoft (Media Player and MSN Messenger, Outlook, Office 2003 etc.)
But no doubt wxWidgets, FLTK and Fox Tool Kit have a much more native feel than GTK+, but this has nothing to do with the tool kit working good or not. Stability has something to do with that.
Member since:
2005-10-02
GTK+ on Win32 behaves pretty well. I wouldn't call it native, because it is not native, but it still behaves quite well.