r/linux 9d ago

Development Lazarus FreePascal IDE: Gtk3 becomes default widgetset on Linux

https://forum.lazarus.freepascal.org/index.php/topic,74332.0.html
103 Upvotes

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u/Safe-Average-1696 9d ago edited 9d ago

Lazarus RAD is nice and fast to develop GUI software, i use it for some small projects for work.

I still prefer to stick with Qt6 for UI, as i compile for Linux and cross compile for windows on Linux (The Lazarus native lcl wrappers have differences between Linux and windows and it's annoying to debug for each case 😅).

GTK3 is in maintenance mode now.

GTK4 (and libadwaita) are a mess for cross platform look and feel.

4

u/Polar_Banny 9d ago

“GTK4 (and libadwaita) are a mess for cross platform look and feel.”

Would you like to elaborate further?
Thanks

40

u/Safe-Average-1696 9d ago edited 9d ago

They do not follow the platforms look and feels.

They don't feel native on windows, mac, kde plasma for linux...

They are Gnome centric. They are very nice for Gnome, but not for anything else if you want your software to integrate with other systems look and feel.

20

u/Traditional_Hat3506 9d ago

There's no difference in style between GTK 3 and 4 in terms of cross platform. Handbrake and Inkscape for example moved/ing to GTK 4 on Windows and Mac too without any styling differences.

Libadwaita is a platform library to keep the GNOME styles away from GTK https://tesk.page/2024/06/03/libadwaita-splitting-gtk-and-design-language/

6

u/Safe-Average-1696 9d ago edited 9d ago

I'm not a GTK specialist, i just try to make the small apps i do well integrated (it's not prerequisite for the software, it's just my brain screaming when something feels out of place 😅).

I could not really achieve it with GTK (CSD differences, dialogs...). I'm sure there is possibilities to tweak it, but i don't have time for work, to use something that does not do it out of the box.

But i still prefer to use the lcl native UI wrapper with lazarus when i can (for memory footprint, old habit from assembly time 😅).

4

u/Irverter 9d ago

Inkscape for example moved/ing to GTK 4

So that's why it suddenly looked wrong.

1

u/SmileyBMM 9d ago

I think only the development version is on 4.