Deprecated depends

[Fantu]

Hi I'm looking about some deps deprecated, I found there is gir1.2-gtkclutter-1.0 that also take have old not maintained and deprecated clutter and cogl (out of muffin) as deps.
From a fast search I don't found import of gtkclutter so seems not used anymore, is it correct? and clutter cinnamon should now use only the muffin one, is it correct?
There is also caribou that is not maintained upstream anymore (only security and fail to build fix in latest years), latest upstream version of 6 years ago and still use the deprecated clutter (out of muffin/mutter).
I think can be good search for alternative virtual keyboard. @mtwebster @clefebvre what do you think?

[mtwebster]

Yeah we can get rid of gtkclutter from cinnamon. Unfortunately it's still needed in nemo-preview, but that's another issue.

We've talked about replacing or absorbing libcaribou - I've never found a similar library though. Gnome went and implemented their own virtual keyboard in gnome-shell, which I really don't want us to have to do (I think they did because caribou wouldn't be useful in wayland without a lot of work).

We have onboard also by default, but it really doesn't integrate well at all, but is more useful for applications.

[lestcape]

I think they did because caribou wouldn't be useful in Wayland without a lot of work

Can be implemented with Gtk3, but the problem will be with Gtk4. It need the same type of solution that what will need mate-panel to work with Gtk4 in Wayland. See: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/-/issues/2132

So, if you want to have Wayland and port all to Gtk4 some day, you should considered avoid the problem that Mate already face. Is cleared that GNOME have not any interest in resolved that any time soon. A PopOS developer have more than 3 years trying to push that in Gtk...

If he have success, the on screen keyboard can be implemented at top of gtk-layer-shell. More info:
wmww/gtk-layer-shell#37

Edit: But also the positivity of have this in Gtk4 doesn't imply that GNOME agree to keep it in Gtk5 and followed versions, because in GNOME they just aren't using Gtk to render the shell, so they just don't care about a feature like that and the people that want this are mostly considered the competition of gnome-shell.

[Fantu]

there is a discussion to remove caribou from debian, remained only cinnamon using it: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=1041641
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=1041646
@clefebvre @mtwebster can you please tell what do you think relating of the future of virtual keyboard in cinnamon?

[diizzyy]

As well for FreeBSD, https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=276955

Friendly ping on this issue

[City-busz]

Cinnamon developers should fork Caribou if they want to continue using it.