Also, GTK3 is the first one to properly support high DPIs (192, for example).

Rather than gtk1.x,..., what about X/Motif, simple, light, efficient?

today to compile somthing with gtk 1.2 is taking more time.
You cant find 1.2 easily on several distros.

Herewith some possible alt on ubuntu:
libgtk1.2-dev_1.2.10-18_i386.deb
libgtk1.2_1.2.10-18_i386.deb
libgtk1.2-common_1.2.10-18_all.deb
gtkglarea5-dev_1.2.3-2ubuntu4_i386.deb
gtkglarea5_1.2.3-2ubuntu4_i386.deb
libglib1.2_1.2.10-10.1build1_i386.deb
libglib1.2-dev_1.2.10-10.1build1_i386.deb

It appears to me that some applications (Transmission, for example) require GTK3.
This is bunko IMO since it would be fun to be able to make all of one's GUI apps use a single library/theme, across the board.
Or am I missing something?

It sounds like Transmission can be built against gtk2, as long as gtk3 is removed (or edit configure.ac to force gtk2, but I haven't looked into how to do that).

Although, I usually end up using transgui, which is a 3rd-party qt4 front-end. I usually end up preferring qt over gtk.

1 members found this post helpful.

bassmadrigal,
Nice find but alas, it turns out that for transmission 2.92 (the latest for 14.2 at Slackbuilds) GTK3 is actually mandatory. Why do devs do this to themselves?
Anyway, I'm now running 2.60 which builds with GTK2. Works a treat so far. The only difference I can detect is that it loads up 10x faster than the "new and improved"...whatever bugs were squashed between 2.60 and 2.92 probably won't matter to me.

Funny thing about QT vs. GTK I have noticed over time, it seems they have reversed in quality. 10 years ago, QT was the slow and "bloaty" one, while GTK seemed super light in contrast.
Subjective observation to be sure, but I could swear the opposite is true nowadays.

2 members found this post helpful.

That's too bad they removed gtk2 support. Luckily, I always start up transmission-daemon, so I don't run into GUI bloatness unless I need to access an actual GUI. I have apps on my phone and transgui installed on multiple computers (cross platform, so I even have it on my only Windows machine in the house), so I don't have to bog down transmission itself by loading a GUI. Any GUI I use just uses the "web interface" to access transmission itself

I don't doubt this. GTK used to indicate a minimal interface to maximize performance (which I probably why I've never really preferred it over qt... I don't mind sacrificing a bit of performance for some limited screen-candy). Sadly, too many developers don't bother optimizing because computers are so much more powerful nowadays, that they just shrug off optimization figuring the computer can take up the extra slack. I think I even remember Linus saying that the kernel has become bloated, but computers are faster now, so it's not very noticeable (unfortunately, I couldn't find a reference to it online).

That's not true, I just compiled it the other day with qt4 only, don't even have gtk3 or any of the things that come with it.
So no, it isn't mandatory because it it were, then the configure file would not provide an option to build without gtk3.
And another thing you may find if you look hard enough is that in 14.2 it "depends" on libssh2 while in 14.1 it did not.
This is because ssh2 is now in aaa libs and libcurl pulls that dependency unless explicitly built without it, which I already did couple of months ago.
It'll appear mandatory to you, but that's just a matter of perspective.

I think he meant there's no option to build it as gtk2 anymore. Transmission is semi-unique in that it offers several different UI toolkits. You can build none of the GUI frontends and still build transmission successfully (with transmission-daemon).

Well the upstream doesn't use gtk2 anymore, so they dropped it, but in theory one could patch it back in with sufficient knowledge and/or funding.
I just made a point to prevent further misinformation, because he did repeat the same lie 3 times in this thread already.
Also, the daemon is optional, the cli version could work without it.

This whole thread is on gtk usage. I don't think he was trying to imply that it couldn't be built without gtk, just that if you want gtk, you have to use gtk3, and can't use gtk2 like you used to. I certainly didn't take it to mean that. Calling it a lie seems a bit excessive and might only be taken that way if you don't take the whole thread into context (and aren't familiar with transmission).

You're calling the sky blue, you do realize that?

Fact is, you can use whatever you want. As long as there's upstream, you can go there and demand gtk2 back no matter how futile that is, or how expensive it may be.
This isn't some gnome3 we're talking about, if the thing worked before with gtk2 it can work again with gtk2.

There is no grey area man, it's either one or zero.

Allah akbar? Don't taze me bro!
from transmission 2.92 source configure.ac
elcore, you're lucky this is not some low-life forum. I would internet-tough-guy the crap outta you.

1 members found this post helpful.

Somehow I doubt that.
Just get someone on their forum to patch that out for you or use qt client, complaining about it here will achieve nothing.

Well, considering your post, I wasn't sure you realized that this was discussing gtk. You seemed to not understand that part.

I didn't see any demand for gtk2, just a mention that support for it had been removed.

In the context of the thread being about gtk applications, he was obviously talking about the gtk component of transmission. That does require gtk3 (without patching) to build it (no lie). If you are building the qt client or the daemon, obviously gtk wouldn't be required, but seeing as this thread wasn't talking about qt or non-GUI apps, it is logical to think that he wasn't talking about those. Is that starting to make sense why he stated what he did? Calling his statement a lie is extreme and unnecessary. Use some logic and tactfulness in your posts. It comes across much nicer and doesn't put a bad light against members of this forum.