GTK+, the development toolkit for the GNOME desktop and the GIMP
image editor, is the choice of thousands of developers
worldwide. Developers choose GTK+ for a variety of reasons,
from the community that surrounds it to the free-of-charge LGPL
licensing it offers. For many, the internationalization support
seals the deal; for others, performance is the most important
factor. Some prefer it because they program in C, and others
because they program in C++, or Python, or C#. Regardless of the
reasons, GTK+ is the finest Unix/Linux development toolkit
worldwide. This page presents some of the developers who use
GTK+ and the reasons they like it.
TouchTunes Digital Jukebox
TouchTunes Music Corporation
sells over a thousand digital jukeboxes a year, each with a GTK+
interface and glib-driven internals. Developer Tristan Van
Berkom writes that he prefers GTK+ because "I consider myself a
perfectionist" and that, examining the source, he often says "I
couldn't have done it better myself."
Andrew Makeev, from Solvo, Ltd. of St. Petersburg, Russia,
develops warehouse management systems using C++ and gtkmm. He
cites several factors in his company's choice of GTK+ as a
development toolkit, especially performance and
internationalization. He appreciates the extensive documentation,
direct access to the development community, and the
straightforward object model.
RVP Server
Richard Warren, a senior software engineer for Primagraphics, says
GTK+ has let him ship products "on the customer's choice of
platform, be it Linux, Solaris or even Windows, with a virtually
identical application in each case and very little additional
engineering effort on our part."
He also has kind words for the Gtk+ community: "The quality of
the libraries and the advice, responsiveness and direct access
to the developers available through the mailing lists meant that
we have never once regretted" choosing Gtk+ as a development
platform.
Miguel Pignatelli, a senior scientist at the Bilbao, Spain
bioinformatics company NorayBio,
uses GTK+ in the development of software that predicts protein
folding patterns. Although they initially selected GTK+ because
they were writing in C, the NorayBio developers have grown to
appreciate the way that provides access to both high and low
levels of graphical programming and inter-process communications.
Vasari Image Processing System
The National
Gallery uses GTK+ for its image-processing system,
VIPS. VIPS is in
use on Windows and Linux systems as part of the Vasari image
archiving project, cataloging and storing extremely
high resolution digital images of artwork for museums
worldwide. Developer John Cupitt says that the Gallery's reasons
for choosing GTK+ were portability, support, and appearance.
Developers at SendOutCards.com use GTK+ and
gtkmm to develop internal applications that allow end users to
perform specialized technical tasks easily. Developer Adam Olsen
says he selected GTK+ for its licensing and its cross-platform
portability.
Additional features he appreciates are the ease of development:
with libglade, he says, "I really like that I can tweak the
interface without having to recompile."
Linux Audio Systems,
a small music and pro-audio software company, uses GTK+ for all
of its GUI-based software. Linux Audio Systems programs in C++,
and was attracted by the way that the gtkmm wrappers use
standard C++ and the Standard Template Library. They also
appreciate the availability of a model/view/controller structure in GTK+.
The canvas, in particular, has been
crucial in their work, and has been extended for the main GUI
object in the Ardour digital audio workstation. Developer Paul
Davis says "the ease of new widget creation with gtkmm and the
simplicity of creating new Canvas items have been highlights for
us." In addition, "the presence of a very helpful and knowledgeable user
community on the GTK+ mailing lists has been another very useful
'feature' of the toolkit for us."
Finally, GTK+ offered a better cost structure: the choice of
the LGPL means that Linux Audio Systems has no licensing fees to
pay for the toolkit.
Roger Leigh, a developer at the UK company EPIC Technology, uses
GTK+ and gtkmm to develop point of sale systems. He says "I had
no problem persuading my boss to use it, since so many high
quality applications have been written with it." Leigh
particularly appreciates the GObject object system, the
separation of functionality into distinct libraries, the
emphasis on standards, and the integration with the C++ Standard
Library.
GUI design in GTK+ is excellent, he says: "I tried out
Java/Swing a while back, and it didn't even come close to GTK+
in terms of ease of interface design using Glade."
Andrej Prsa, research scientist in the Physics department at the
University of Ljubljana, is using GTK+ in his work on eclipse
patterns in binary star systems. He chose GTK+ for its
licensing and because of the ubiquity of Linux software in
astrophysics.
Kim Adil, at BMA Coal in Australia, used Gtk+ to build a
cross-platform mining process visualization tool for the mine
control room. Developed on Linux and deployed on Windows 2000,
the application displays near-real-time equipment location and
status for the mine's heavy equipment. It has been so successful
that it runs not only in the control room, but on a plasma
display at the entrance to the BMA office.
BMA Coal selected Gtk+ for its licensing, cross-platform
ability, and range of features. Adil, a mechanical engineer by
with little previous software development experience, says
"cross platform stability has been quite astounding," and that
the Gtk+ community and mailing lists were significant factors in
the project's success.
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