HGKeeper

~~--- a/htdocs/win32/index.php Mon Sep 15 18:18:32 2003 -0400~~

+++ b/htdocs/win32/index.php Thu Sep 25 15:17:37 2003 -0400

@@ -19,16 +19,24 @@

What happened to the Gaim systray icon? - As of 0.65 systray functionality has moved into the docklet plugin, labeled "System Tray Icon" in the plugins section. You will need to load this plugin for the systray features to work.

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-New and improved Gaim Installer - As of Gaim 0.63, the Gaim installer is back to installing GTK+ using our own NSIS installer: <a href="gtk-runtime-<?php print $current_win32_gtk_version; ?>-rev-<?php print $current_win32_gtk_revision; ?>.exe">gtk-runtime-<?php print $current_win32_gtk_version; ?>-rev-<?php print $current_win32_gtk_revision; ?>.exe</a>. Gaim will now install properly for all users, not only Admins (Guests included). There is an option to install three GTK+ themes (GTK-Wimp, Bluecurve and Lighthouseblue). DLL Hell is avoided by setting the 'Start In' shortcut property to the GTK+ lib dir. If you wish to add Gaim shortcuts anywhere else, make sure that they are copies of the ones created by the installer.

+GTK+ Runtime Installer <?php print $current_win32_version; ?> rev <?php print $current_win32_gtk_revision; ?> - This release fixes: Handling of dead keysyms for the US-International keyboard layout and the Caps Lock bug. Also introduced is an option to disable my move/resize <a href="http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=99540">patch</a>, which is known to be buggy on Win XP. To do so, set DISABLE_GTK_RESIZE_PATCH environmantal variable. You may download the standalone GTK+ runtime installer <a href="gtk-runtime-<?php print $current_win32_gtk_version; ?>-rev-<?php print $current_win32_gtk_revision; ?>.exe">here</a>.

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-GTK+ default font setting - For those still using Dropline's GTK 2.2.1 and 2.2.1.1 Runtime installations, the default font and size is set to "tahoma 12". Those of you who ran alpha versions of Win Gaim will be used to "sans 8". In order to change this back, keep reading. For those using non Western character sets (i.e. Chinese) it is important to use a default font setting that maps to your paticular language (i.e. sans). If you check your pango.aliases file in your GTK\2.0\etc\pango dir, you will see that sans is aliased to many non-western font sets. To set your default font, edit your gtkrc file (located in your GTK\2.0\etc\gtk-2.0 dir) and make sure it contains the following line (with the font name and size of your choosing):

+How does Win Gaim determine which language to use? - Win Gaim will use the language selected during installation. This, however, can be overridden by setting the LANG environmental variable (for example LANG=de). If either of these methods fail, Win Gaim will fall back to the default Windows user locale setting.

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+Where are my Gaim settings saved? - As of 0.69, shfolder.dll is used to determine the location for a user's app data. On Windows ME this will be something like "C:\WINDOWS\Profiles\username" and on Win 2k/XP "C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data". This can be overridden by setting the HOME environmental variable.

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+GTK+ default font setting - To change your default font and/or size, edit your gtkrc file (located in your GTK\2.0\etc\gtk-2.0 dir), with the font name and size of your choosing. For example:

gtk-font-name="sans 8"

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-Native Windows look and feel - GTK is themable, which means that you can change colors, fonts and how the actual widgets are drawn. The Gaim installer (as of 0.63), gives you the choice of installing one of 3 GTK+ themes. If you choose GTK-Wimp, Gaim will look and feel like a normal Windows application (including on XP). To switch back to no theme or to change the theme just run the Gaim installer again and pick a different theme. You can visit the gtk-wimp site at <a href="http://gtk-wimp.sf.net">http://gtk-wimp.sf.net</a>

+Native Windows look and feel - GTK is themable, which means that you can change colors, fonts and how the actual widgets are drawn. The Gaim installer, gives you the choice of installing one of 3 GTK+ themes. If you choose GTK-Wimp, Gaim will look and feel like a normal Windows application (including on XP). To switch back to no theme or to change the theme just run the Gaim installer again and pick a different theme. You can visit the gtk-wimp site at <a href="http://gtk-wimp.sf.net">http://gtk-wimp.sf.net</a>

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<h3>Major Win Gaim bugs and Workarounds</h3>

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~~-WinGaim 0.68 Installer Bug - The installer is freezing on Windows ME (possibly Win9x aswell) when prompting the user for the GTK+ install path. ~~

~~-Solution: Grab and install the <a href="gtk-runtime-2.2.2-rev-a.exe">GTK+ installer</a> separately, then run the Gaim installer once more.~~

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-DLL Hell and Win Gaim - Since switching to using a GTK+ Runtime installer, a very common but very unpleasant Windows SNAFU (known as DLL Hell) is being experienced by many Win Gaim users.

+DLL Hell and Win Gaim - A very common but very unpleasant Windows SNAFU (known as DLL Hell) has been experienced by many Win Gaim users.

Symptom: Win Gaim crashes routinely on startup (but not neccessarily just on startup).

-Cause: This problem occurs if you have installed dlls on your machine which have the same name as the GTK+ dlls used by Gaim. More specifically, if those other dlls were installed to either your Windows or Windows system (system or system32) directories. The problem is that there is a specific search order that Windows uses to look for the dlls that your program needs. In our case.. when Gaim starts it tells Windows that it needs, among others, libglib-2.0-0.dll (which should be in your GTK+ runtime installation directory). Windows then goes looking for this dll, starting with the directory from which Gaim was run, then the windows system dir, then the windows dir, then Gaim's App Paths directories (set in the registry) and then finally the system PATH is checked. The result is that if you have a duplicate of libglib-2.0-0.dll in any of your Windows directories, Windows will load it instead of the correct version in your GTK+ install dir. For this reason it is bad practice for third party developers to install their dlls to the Windows directories. Unfortunatly the reality is that some do.

+Cause: Dlls with the same name as those that Gaim uses are found in the dll search path and are used instead of those installed by Gaim, likely causing Gaim to malfunction. This can happen when application developers install their dlls to Windows system directories. The most commonly used dll to cause dll hell is zlib.dll.

-Solution: As of v0.63 the Gaim installer creates shortcuts with the 'Start In' property set to your GTK+ lib directory. As long as these shortcuts (or copies of them) are used 'Dll Hell' can be avoided. In some cases this will not work. For example, if you are using the winprefs plugin to auto-start Gaim on Windows startup, Dll Hell can not be avoided. In such cases you may use <a href="gtk-dllhell-chk.exe">gtk-dllhell-chk.exe</a> to identify and rename any duplicates of the GTK+ dlls in your Windows dll search path (use <a href="gtk-dllhell-chk-old.exe">gtk-dllhell-chk-old.exe</a> for GTK+ 2.2.1 and older).

+Solution: As of 0.69, Gaim will perform a check during startup to determine if any 'dll hell' candidates are found in the dll search path. The user will be prompted to rename the problem dlls. Doing so will likely break the applications responsible for installing to the Windows system directories. To remedy this, contact the authors of the applications in question. This check will only be be performed for versions installed via the installer.

Why did we move to using the GTK installer? More and more GTK apps are being ported to Windows, and rather than having each app install its own copies of the GTK dlls, it is better that GTK is installed in a common location to avoid having many duplicates of the same dll. There is more in-depth info about DLL Hell in <a href="http://www.desaware.com/Articles/DllHellL3.htm">this article</a>.

gaim/www