source: trunk/third/gtk2/README.win32 @ 18785

The Win32 port of GTK+ is a work in progress, and not as stable or
correct as the Unix/X11 version. For more information about the Win32
port, and prebuilt runtime and developer packages see
http://www.gimp.org/win32/ .

There is a gtk-1-3-win32-production branch of GTK+ that was branched
off from before the addition of the no-flicker and other recent
functionality. That is what should be used by "production" code until
this CVS HEAD (2.0) version is useable. (But note, the Win32 backend
has never been claimed to be "production quality", although it works
surprisingly well for the GIMP.)

Building GTK+ on Win32
======================

There are two ways to build GTK+ for win32:

1) Use the autoconf-generated configure script, and the resulting
Makefiles (which use libtool and gcc to do the compilation). I use
this myself, but it might be hell to setup correctly. 

Personally I run configure with:
CC='gcc -mpentium -fnative-struct' CPPFLAGS='-I/target/include' CFLAGS=-O2 LDFLAGS='-L/target/lib' ./configure --disable-static --prefix=/target --with-gdktarget=win32 --with-wintab=/src/wtkit126 --with-ie55=/src/workshop/ie55_lib --host=i386-pc-mingw32 --enable-maintainer-mode

It might well be that in order for this to work, you will have to get
a bleeding-edge version of libtool for Win32, run libtoolize yourself,
and then run autoconf to generate the configure script.

2) Use the Microsoft compiler, cl and Make, nmake. Say nmake -f
makefile.msc in gdk and gtk.

Alternative 1 also generates Microsoft import libraries (.lib), if you
have lib.exe available. It might also work for cross-compilation from
Unix.

Note that I use method 1 myself. Hans Breuer has been taking care of
the MSVC makefiles. At times, we disagree a bit about various issues,
and for instance the makefile.msc files will not produce identically
named DLLs and import libraries as the "autoconfiscated" makefiles and
libtool do. If this bothers you, you will have to fix the makefiles.

Using GTK+ on Win32
===================

To use GTK+ on Win32, you also need either one of the above mentioned
compilers. Other compilers might work, but don't count on it. Look for
prebuilt developer packages (DLLs, import libraries, headers) on the
above website.

Multi-threaded use of GTK+ on Win32
===================================

Multi-threaded GTK+ programs might work in special simple cases, but
not in general. Sorry. If you have all GTK+ and GDK calls in the same
thread, it might work. Otherwise, probably not at all. Possible ways
to fix this are being investigated.

Wintab
======

The tablet support uses the Wintab API. The Wintab development kit can
be downloaded from http://www.pointing.com. Pass the --with-wintab
flag to configure if you use that. If you use nmake and you don't care
for Wintab, undefine HAVE_WINTAB in config.h.win32 and remove
references to the wntab32x library from the makefile before building.

Libintl
=======

GTK wants to be built with the GNU "intl" library for
internationalisation (i18n). Get the version ported to Win32 (not a
very big deal) from the web site mentioned above. The "intl" library
as gets built as a DLL called libintl-1.dll. If you don't want any
i18n stuff, undefine ENABLE_NLS, HAVE_GETTEXT and HAVE_LIBINTL in the
config.h.win32 file, and remove references to the intl library from
the makefiles.

ActiveIMM
=========

If you want to build a GTK+ that supports ActiveIMM (the Input Method
Manager for non-EastAsia locales that can be used on Win9x/NT4), you
need the dimm.h header file. That is somewhat difficult to find, but
http://msdn.microsoft.com/downloads/samples/internet/wizard/ seems to
be a good place to look nowadays. If you use "autoconfiscated" build,
pass the --with-ie55 flag to configure specifyin the location of the
ie55_lib directory created by downloading the IE5.5 headers and libs
from the above URL.

--Tor Lillqvist <tml@iki.fi>