Hi Richard, I see your point. We had a similar discussion in the list of the gEDA development team (http://geda.seul.org). One of the developers solved this by creating an (iso9660) image of all the tarballs needed for a correct installation (and some more tools). See: http://archives.seul.org/geda/dev/Mar-2005/msg00081.html and links for more information. Just my EUR 0.01 Kind regards, Bert Timmerman -----Original Message----- From: gtk-list-bounces@xxxxxxxxx [mailto:gtk-list-bounces@xxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of riboaz@xxxxxxxxx Sent: maandag 11 juli 2005 16:09 To: gtk-list@xxxxxxxxx Subject: GTK+ and Application Delivery Hello, I have been developing an application of late responsible for the display of seismograms and some analysis thereof. Once released it will be used by seismologists on all linux variants, solaris, and macOS (windows version in the future also possible). First let me say that I have found gtk+ as a development solution nothing less than an absolute pleasure to work with. I find GTK+ to be a library that is complete, well-documented, functions as advertised, works, looks good, is predictable, robust, etc. (The application I'm writing is a re-write of an application I wrote 15 years ago, then based on xview, the difference between then and now in terms of gui development is nothing less than phenomenal.) So a personal thanks to all the people involved with GTK+ and its continued development. That said, I have a question/issue related not to GTK+ as a development tool, but, rather, GTK+ as a set of libraries. The application I will be delivering, as I said, resides in the domain of end-users as seismologists. This group is, it goes without saying, not computer geeks but earthquake geeks. As such, they have no patience for install dependencies around any application (why should they?). Delivery of my application with the dependency that the proper version of gtk+ be installed on each machine (and all dependencies and sub-dependencies) running my app is tantamount to guaranteeing my application will simply not be used; and I can't imagine that this is ultimately the point of providing such a useful library of gui tools as GTK+. With this in mind, I have decided that for delivery, the solution *must* be that the install is easy and foolproof for each platform it's being provided on (a by-hand install of gtk+, configure/compilation/install, is out of the question; if you're not a computer geek, this is simply not possible. While I appreciate that GTK+ is complicated, and for us developers, this pain can be accommodated for (what we're being paid for, no?), I find, for this to be a requirement for an end-user, this makes it very difficult indeed for applications to be distributed easily.) I originally queried as to the possibility of a static link, but was informed that this is very much not recommended. I have since taken the fallback position of providing the necessary GTK+ libraries as part of my application's delivery, and an install script of such (which I have demonstrated does work). But my question is this: why does GTK+ not encourage itself to be more accessible from an application deployment point of view? Why is there, at least, not an explicit document relating to delivery and deployment issues? Why is there not a distinction made between development with tht GTK+ libraries and deployment of applications made thereof? Why are there no binaries of the libraries available that can make this distribution easier? (For example, I need to deliver this on macOS and don't have a mac machine myself, where do I obtain the binaries to make my app distributable?) And don't get me wrong, my intent is not to simply complain, my intent is to encourage the use of GTK+. Making distribution of applications easier than having to install gtk+ from source would, imho, make gtk+ infinitely more interesting as a solution than having to require gtk+ be installed from source on each machine wanting to simply run an application developed with it. Or have I somehow completely gotten the wrong end of the stick? Again, my kudos to the gtk+ team, the product is, as far as i'm concerned, brilliant. with warm regards, richard boaz _______________________________________________ gtk-list@xxxxxxxxx http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gtk-list _______________________________________________ gtk-list@xxxxxxxxx http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gtk-list
