SGM: The STLWRT-ian GTK Modules

GTK Modules of all kinds, for a classic GTK+ 2-esque user interface

SGM is a collection of useful modules for GTK, mostly to restore a more classic user interface and experience to GTK+ 3 and above. Currently, this repository only contains the code for the "sgm-flexible-mnemonics" module, but more are planned to follow. Similarly, this module is known not to work with GTK 4 yet, but support for GTK 4 should come eventually too, as long as the community doesn't drag their feet in adopting GTK 4 but that's a different story).

sgm-flexible-mnemonics

Mnemonics are the underlined portions of text which indicate which key to press to activate a particular widget, be it a menu item or a button. Prior to GTK+ 3.9.8, a setting called gtk-auto-mnemonics could be modified to either always display these underlines, or display these underlines only when the "modifier key" (typically Alt on many keyboards) was pressed. In GTK+ 3.9.8, the latter mode is always used no matter the setting of gtk-auto-mnemonics. This module restores the classic mnemonic behavior to GTK+ 3.9.8 and later versions of GTK.

sgm-overlay-scrolling (COMING SOON)

Traditionally, scrollbars have appeared to the side of scrolled content. In GTK+ 3.15.0, a new means of displaying scrollbars was introduced: overlay scrolling. When overlay scrolling is enabled, scrollbars do not initially appear; instead they wait for mouse movement before appearing, and even then appear on top of scrolled content instead of to the side of said content. This is good for users with little screen space, and it would be tolerable to other users if there were an easy way to disable it; however, until GTK+ 3.24.9 there was only an environment variable to disable overlay scrolling globally. An environment variable is tolerable, but it needs to be set every time a GTK application is run, or else overlay scrolling will be enabled again. In GTK+ 3.24.9, a new setting was introduced to disable overlay scrolling globally, gtk-overlay-scrolling. But this setting left users of older versions of GTK in the lurch; even today, some users continue to use GTK versions as old as 3.18 because that is the latest version shipped by their distributor for an old Long Term Support release of their distribution. This module adds the gtk-overlay-scrolling setting to GTK versions prior to 3.24.9, so that conservative themes can universally set the gtk-overlay-scrolling property to false to disable overlay scrolling -- even on GTK versions prior to 3.24.9.

I created this module not so much because doing so is a necessity; it is mostly because I admittedly have a big, fat mouth and told a friend of mine that I could write a module for this. But it's also good to have a module that brings the GTK+ 3.24.9-and-later behavior to older versions of GTK, I suppose. Either way, my fat mouth has cost me and you're seeing the fruits of my embarassing talkativeness. But that's enough on the topic of my fat mouth.

Planned modules for the future

• A "GTK Inspector"-like tool for GTK+ 2 would be quite cool and useful. Better yet, it doesn't need to be loaded all the time -- just when you think you'll need to debug a GTK program!

• A module to add scrollbar stepper buttons to the ends of scrollbars on GTK 4 is in the works. I actually have it working, I just need to commit it to this repository and clean it up a little.

If you have any further ideas on what you want in GTK, please file an issue on this repository! Pull requests are also welcome. If you find an issue in one of these modules, please start an issue for that, too.

---

Thanks for checking out (pun intended) this repository!