GTK4 : menus and pango markup

Hello world,
few months ago already tried to ask about this here: https://discourse.gnome.org/t/gtk4-migrating-from-gtk3-menu-items-and-markup/7561

If it is possible I am sorry but I did not find a way to re-open / refresh the same topic.
Migrating my app from GTK3 to GTK4 I re-created a bunch of pop menus, menus that need to be able to use pango markup, so basically this is what I was doing with, and what I am doing now:

  1. GTK3
   GtkWidget * markup_menu_item (gchar * label)
   {
     GtkWidget * item = gtk_menu_item_new ();
     GtkWidget * lab = gtk_label_new (label);
     gtk_label_set_use_markup (GTK_LABEL(lab), TRUE);
     gtk_container_add (GTK_CONTAINER(item), lab);
     return item;
   } 
  1. GTK4
   GMenuItem * menu_item (const gchar * label, 
                          const gchar * action, 
                          const gchar * accel,
                          const gchar * custom,
                          gboolean use_markup)
   {
     GMenuItem * item = g_menu_item_new (label, action);
     if (accel) g_menu_item_set_attribute (item, "accel", "s", accel, NULL);
     if (custom) g_menu_item_set_attribute (item, "custom", "s", custom, NULL);
     if (use_markup)
     {
       // What would be the attribute (if any ?)
       // g_menu_item_set_attribute (item,  ???, use_markup, NULL);
     }  
}

Here is some illustrations of why I need to be able to do this (chemical formula mostly), first what I have with GTK3:

Then what I have with GTK4:

So my question is, is there anyway to achieve the GTK3 result with GTK4 ?
If not yet, will there be a way ?

Maybe an action that can be performed on the entire menu ?

Thanks for your lights.
All the best.

S.

You have two options:

  1. when defining a menu using XML, you can use the use-markup boolean attribute. Remember to escape the markup inside your XML, so foo<sup>bar</sup> becomes foo&lt;sup&gt;bar&lt;/sup&gt;
  2. when defining a menu programmatically using GMenu, set the use-markup boolean attribute, e.g.
g_menu_item_set_attibute (item, "use-markup", "b", use_markup, NULL);

You will need GTK 4.6 in order to do this, as the “use-markup” attribute was added in that release.

2 Likes

Thank you very much for your answer !

1 Like

Hello again,
I installed GTK 4.6, re-build my code using this suitable version, and tried your solution, the code one since I am not using XML file:

g_menu_item_set_attibute (item, "use-markup", "b", use_markup, NULL);

And I am afraid to tell you that it does not work … not sure what I am doing wrong here …
I am now using Fedora 35 and Gnome 41.3 and X11 can it be related to any it ?

Update: same (bad) result with Wayland.

Fedora 35 does not come with GTK 4.6: it still ships with GTK 4.4.

If you want to try GTK 4.6, I strongly recommend using the GNOME nightly SDK with GNOME Builder.

Yes, Fedora 35 ships with GTK 4.4, I noticed, that is why after installing Fedora 35,
I did build/compiled and install GTK 4.6, yet I got the error and reply to let you know …
Thanks you for letting me know about GNOME nighlty SDK and GNOME builder, I will look into these.

If you built GTK 4.6 and installed it over the system installation, you may have borked your system; if you installed it into a separate prefix, you should ensure that you’re linking against the newly built version of GTK.

I would strongly recommend you use Flatpak and Builder: they should simplify the cases, and avoid breaking your base OS.

I am sorry I am not really familiar with all these tools you are mentioning, but I will look into these as well.
However I am familiar enough with library building and linking to be sure that GTK4.6 was installed in a separate directory (/usr/local) and that I built and linked my program with GTK 4.6,
and also that I am using it at runtime, and that is why I updated my post in the first place.
I do that setting up LD_LIBRARY_PATH in my .bashrc file.
I would not have bothered you unless I was sure to use the appropriate version of GTK … maybe this comes from Gnome Shell using the other version (no idea how to check that, or enforce a version) … anyway I think will have to be patient to see this through.
Thanks for your help.

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