After six months of development published the release of GTK 4.22, a multi-platform toolkit for creating a graphical user interface. GTK 4 is aimed at providing application developers with a stable and supported API for several years, eliminating the need to constantly update applications due to API changes in future GTK branches.
Among the key improvements in GTK 4.22 are:
An integrated system for drawing and parsing images in SVG format has been added. This system supports animation, enabling the creation of animated icons, interactive interface elements, and progress indicators. GtkSvg, which integrates with the GSK library for graphical scene rendering through OpenGL and Vulkan, replaces the librsvg library previously used for rendering SVG icons. The new Gtk.Svg class allows rendering vector icons and resources without external dependencies, passing 1250 compatibility tests out of 1616 from the resvg set.
The addition of the widget GtkPopoverBin simplifies the integration of context menus and drop-down dialogs into other widgets. GtkPopoverBin serves as a container to add popover functionality to widgets that do not natively support it.
A new type of expressions, GtkTryExpression, has been introduced to define fallback operations. GtkTryExpression attempts to execute each expression in a list until one succeeds.
Support for a new character icon format that includes animation and state changes, such as indicating activity, has been enabled. The CSS property “-gtk-icon-weight” controls the width of icons. Additionally, a demo application org.gtk.Shaper with an editor for the new character icon format has