Re: GtkColorSelection

[Jay Cox <jaycox gimp org>]

Federico Mena Quintero wrote:

> GdkColor is also useless for color calibration.  Unless we declare it
> to hold SRGB, which sort of makes sense.


Declaring that GdkColor defines color in the sRGB color space would be bad.

If we were to actually implement the color calibration and color conversion
functions implied by this, then gtk+ would (mostly) be unable to display many
colors that are within the gamut of the typical monitor.  It would also
be a pain in the neck to get colors to match between widget sets.  Do you
really need to have color calibrated radio buttons?

If we don't implement these functions and still say that GdkColor is defined
in the sRGB color space then we accomplish nothing except confuse software 
developers trying to work with color in gtk+.

GdkColor should stay useless for color calibration.  If an application needs
color calibration it needs to work with a real color management library.

At some point we should probably add hooks to the GtkColorSelection widget 
so that applications can color manage the colors the widget displays.  
Considering the current state of color management under linux this would
almost certainly be overkill for gtk+ 2.0

Jay Cox
jaycox gimp org