Sep 2023

G-Golf version 0.8.0-alpha-6 is released.

This is the sixth release of the upcoming 0.8.0 release, now available for testing.

Here is a summary of the noteworthy changes in this release. For a complete list and description of all changes, see the G-Golf git summary and git log.

Dependencies

• Core dependencies

  The guile-lib dependency has been removed from the core dependencies, as it effectively is only required to run the test-suite.

• Test Suite

  The test-suite requires guile-lib >= 0.2.5
  The test-suite no longer requires clutter.

• Adwaita examples
  
  Adw-1 >= 1.4.0
  

  The adw1-demo - which currently implements the main window, primary menu and first two pages (wip) - has been updated to correspond to the latest upstream version, which no longer uses the deprecated AdwLeaflet* classes. Instead, it uses the AdwNavigationSplitView, AdwNavigationView and AdwNavigationPage classes, available since 1.4.0.

New features

• Derived class
  GObject properties

  Derived classes slot exposed as a gobject property now also support the object type - Wip (supported type are now int, enum and object).

• disconnect

  New method, which calls the newly added g-signal-handler-disconnect binding.

Examples

• Adwaita Demo

  The adw1-demo - which currently implements the main window, primary menu and first two pages (wip) - has been updated to correspond to the latest upstream version, which no longer uses the deprecated AdwLeaflet* classes. Instead, it uses the AdwNavigationSplitView, AdwNavigationView and AdwNavigationPage classes, available since 1.4.0.

Bug fixing

• g-value-set-boxed

  Was silently setting the g-value to #f for opaque boxed type, fixed.

• connect
  signal-connect

  Now return the handler-id, needed to call disconnect.

Aug 2023

G-Golf version 0.8.0-a.5 is released.

This is the fifth release of the upcoming 0.8.0 release, now available for testing.

Here is a summary of the noteworthy changes since version 0.8.0-a.4. For a complete list and description of all changes, see the G-Golf git summary and git log.

Dependencies

• Glib >= 2.73.0
  GObject >= 2.73.0

  G-Golf requires GObject-Introspection >= 1.72.0. This actually imposes Glib-2.0 >= 2.73.0, which itself imposes Gobject-2.0 >= 2.73.0.

New features

• Derived class
  GObject properties and signals

  Derived classes now support a mechanism that allow users to expose slots as gobject properties and define new signals.

• Templates

  This release adds support for templates, a mechanism and facilities exposed by GtkWidget to automate the procedure of creating composite widgets with GtkBuilder XML.

• Template and GtkBuilder ui files
  SXML support

  [ Currently in the examples/adw-1/adw1-demo/ui directory ]

  sxml-ui.el

  Emacs users should import this file in their .emacs file.

  This is an attempt to provide both indentation and font-lock support, so ui files editing becomes a more pleasant exprerience. It is a first draft and definitely an experimental attempt. Better then nothing (much better imo), but suggestions to improve this first and quite 'naive' draft would be welcome.

  Makefile

  Offered as an example of the simplest possible way to convert all *.scm files of a directory to their corresponding *.ui files.

Examples

• Adwaita Demo

  A G-Golf port of the Adwaita 1 demo. This is a work in progress, currently implementing the Adwaita 1 demo window, header bar, primary-menu (and the inspector, preferences and about actions and windows) as well as the Welcome and Leaflet pages:

  Note: Adwaita 1.4 (unavailable in distros at the time of this release) deprecates the AdwLeaflet* classes, in favor of the AdwNavigationView and AdwNavigationPage classes. We'll move the demo to use those when Adwaita 1.4 becomes available in dostros.

Bug fixing

• G-Golf core bugs

  A few G-Golf core bugs have been fixed, but none that we could expose here as 'user visible'. If you're nonetheless interested to find out what progress we made on that front, search the git logs for 'Fixing' or 'Bug fixing'.

• The peg-solitaire example

  An ABI change was made, by the Gtk team, in Gtk 4.10.0, to the gtk-css-provider-load-from-data function second argument, wHich is no longer defined as an array, but a utf8, and hence g-golf would fail, when using Gtk 4.10.0, to detect, compute and supply the third argument, which is the css string length - fixed.

Apr 2023

G-Golf version 0.8.0-a.4 is released.

This is the fourth release of the upcoming 0.8.0 release, now available for testing.

Here is a summary of the noteworthy changes since version 0.8.0-a.3. For a complete list and description of all changes, see the G-Golf git summary and git log.

New features

• Next-vfunc

  This release adds full support for a next-vfunc mechanism - which is to the GObject virtual method system what the next-method concept and mechanism is to the GOOPS (compute applicable) method system.

Examples

• Simple Paintable
  Animated Paintable

  New examples. Please note that these examples requires Guile-Cairo. They actually requires a patched version of guile-cairo that contains the following new interface (which is not in guile-cairo 1.11.2): cairo-pointer->context.

Bug fixing

• Missing <gobject> g-struct-fields

  At (load eval) time, the (g-golf defined) <gobject> class must be completed: retreive the class-struct and fill the <gobject> g-struct-fields slot - used by the vfunc mechanism.

Fev 2023

G-Golf version 0.8.0-a.3 is released.

This is the third release of the upcoming 0.8.0 release, now available for testing.

Here is a summary of the noteworthy changes since version 0.8.0-a.2. For a complete list and description of all changes, see the G-Golf git summary and git log.

Enhancement

• Skip Array Length Argument(s)

  This release implements skip array-length argument mechanism. This affects all functions and methods of any upstream (type)lib that accept one or more array argument(s), for which the function or method also expect an array length argument.

  Starting with this release, users don't have to pass those array length arg(s) (more accurately, users may not pass those arg(s) anymore), as G-Golf will supply those automatically. Note that this is also valid for arrays of uint8 - those arg(s) are 'array of chars', that users must provide as a string (as opposed to a list) - for example, see the peg-solitaire example, updated accordingly, so that the gtk-css-provider-load-from-data call does no longer provide the 'data' array length argument.

Examples

• All

  Updated, wrt the above enhancement, to call the g-application-run method 'without' the args length argument.

• Peg Solitaire

  In addition, updating the call to gtk-css-provider-load-from-data, removing the 'data' array length argument.

Bug fixing

• Callback and VFunc

  In G-Golf, both Callback and VFunc use one (identical) marshal procedure, g-golf-callback-closure-marshal, entirely written in scheme, which implements, in short, the foreign function interface (ffi) arg retrieval and transfornmation into their scheme representation, then call the callback of vfunc (user provided) scheme code, then sets the GI argument to the return value (if any).

  To obtain the ffi arg scheme representation values, G-Golf was calling gi-type-info-extract-ffi-return-value (a GI function, in the girffi module, not a G-Golf procedure) - but that function has some bug.

  G-Golf has now been updated so g-golf-callback-closure-marshal calls a 'self made' ffi-args->scm (see commit 6a30a12dd) for further details on this).

• Peg Solitaire

  The peg-solitaire example has been updated, as the Callback and VFunc bug fixed its snapshot-vfunc method. More specifically its width and height argument values are now correct, we no longer need to explicitly call get-intrinsic-width and get-intrinsic-height.

Jan 2023

G-Golf version 0.8.0-a.2 is released.

This is the second release of the upcoming 0.8.0 release, now available for testing.

Here is a summary of the noteworthy changes since version 0.8.0-a.1. For a complete list and description of all changes, see the G-Golf git summary and git log.

Dependencies

• GObject-Introspection-1.0 >= 1.72.0

  G-Golf uses GI girffi innterfaces, some only available since 1.72.0.

New interfaces

• allocate-c-struct

Examples

• Peg Solitaire

  The peg snapshots (which are what users drag while playing the game) now also have rounded corners. Before this improvment, they were being clipped by their <gtk-image> instance hosts, which use both a css border-radius style option and the overflow property, but users were dragging a squared rectangle snapshot.

• Drawing Widget

  New example, which demonstrates how implement a widget that does some custom drawing.

Performance

• ~15% improvment

  Note: by performance, until otherwise specified, we only refer to and measure how fast G-Golf imports the entire Gtk 4.0 typelib.

  After some changes made to the G-Golf main GI cache, importing Gtk-4.0 shows a ~15% improvement.

Bug fixing

• VFunc

  A VFunc specializer may also be a g-object class, as the newly added example demonstrates. Prior to this fix, a VFunc specializer was assumed to (always) be a g-interface class (as in the peg-solitaire example).

• GObject.TypeInstance

  GObject.TypeInstance fundamental class support fix. They must inherit <gtype-instance> and specify <gtype-class> as their metaclass.

Dec 2022

G-Golf version 0.8.0-a.1 is released.

This is the first release of the upcoming 0.8.0 release, now available for testing.