After six months of development, GTK 4.16.0 has been released to create a multifaceted graphic user interface. GTK 4 is part of a development process aimed at providing application developers with a stable and supported API for several years, reducing the need for frequent application updates due to changes in the API.
Some of the most notable improvements in GTK 4.16 include:
- Added the gtk-font-rendering setting, offering flexible high-level options for font rendering. To use low-level font settings, developers can set the GTK-Font-Rendering parameter to ‘Manual’.
- In the GSK library (GTK Scene Kit) for drawing graphic scenes, Wayland protocol drawing via the Vulkan engine is now the default, while the NGL drawing engine continues to offer OpenGL implementation on top of Vulkan. Developers can switch between engines using the “GSK_renderer” environment. Mesa 24.2 is recommended for optimal interaction with graphic drivers.
- Other changes in the GSK library include the implementation of occlusion culling optimization to exclude drawing of hidden objects, provision of color space information during compositing, improved glyph and texture caching, support for tiling of large textures, enhanced shadow drawing, and the option to offload transformed textures processing for screen output.
- Enhancements for hardware acceleration mechanisms on systems with Kwin composite manager, addition of the “Gdk_debug = Linear” option for linear composite mode, and improved Log maintenance when using options “GDK_DEBUG = Offload” and “GSK_DEBUG = RENDERER”.
- Support for color management using a protocol extension (color-management) in environments based on the Wayland Protocol and Kwin composite manager. The Wayland explosion was utilized for fixed dialogs.
/Reports, release notes, official announcements.