Porting GNOME Design tools to GTK 4
As described in a previous post, the goal in this GSoC was to port Icon Library and App Icon Preview to the GTK 4 toolkit, with a corresponding port from libhandy to libadwaita.
Work Done
Both applications were successfully ported (icon-library/!16, app-icon-preview/!62). As far as we known, there is only one know regression in App Icon Preview where symbolic icons do not follow the Icon Theme, there is already a MR in place to address this.
Some additional work was done in icon-library/!17, app-icon-preview/!64, and app-icon-preview/!63; the latest MR is in the latest stages of submission and does a small refactor on how icons are loaded and cached, using a proper Icon Theme, this allows to load icons directly from their name rather than passing around images, Pixbufs or textures and enforces the Icon Theme on symbolic icons, fixing the last remaining regression.
Future Work
Now that both apps are ported, and some widgets have been subclassed, it would be easier to implement mockups, and in the case of Icon Library, implement a system to update the icons at runtime. We plan to release new versions of both apps around the release of GNOME 41.
Final Words
Working on GNOME Design tools proved to be a very positive experience which allowed me to work on two very interesting projects that will surely help fellow developers and designers. I want to thank Bilal Elmoussaoui, who has been guiding and helping me since I joined the GNOME community.