The legendary GTK+ 1.3 resurrected for modern Windows.

This repository contains a working port of GTK+ 1.3 compiled with MSVC 2022 and CMake. It proves that 25-year-old native C code can outperform modern UI frameworks by orders of magnitude while running flawlessly on Windows 11.

Modern GTK versions (3 and 4) have moved towards CSS-based styling, complex scene graphs, and heavy abstractions. While flexible, this came at a cost. GTK 1.3 represents a "Golden Era" of UI development:

• Pixel-Perfect Native Feel: It doesn't emulate widgets; it builds them from the ground up using fundamental GDK primitives.
• No CSS Overhead: Layouts are calculated using fast, imperative C code, not by parsing stylesheets at runtime.
• Simple Object Model: The early GObject implementation is lightweight and doesn't require the massive boilerplate of modern versions.
• Pure Win32 GDK: This port uses the native GDK Win32 backend, which means it speaks the language of the Windows OS without unnecessary translation layers.

1. Install Perl (e.g., Strawberry Perl) and ensure it's in your PATH.
2. Open the folder in Visual Studio 2022 (via CMake support) or run:

   cmake -B build
   cmake --build build --config Release

This isn't just a nostalgic experiment; it's a showcase of rational software engineering:

• Memory Footprint: ~1.7 MB (Working Set) for a standard window.
• CPU Usage: 0% at idle.
• Startup: Instantaneous.
• Architecture: Direct Win32 API calls with a dedicated HWND for every widget.

• Compiler: Microsoft Visual C++ 2022 (v143)
• Build System: Modern CMake
• OS Compatibility: Tested on Windows 11 (x64), theoretically compatible back to Windows 98/NT.
• Dependencies: Includes glib, iconv, and gdk backends.

In an era where a simple calculator consumes 150MB of RAM, this project serves as a reminder:

1. Bloat is not inevitable.
2. Native code is immortal.
3. Efficiency is a feature, not an afterthought.

• Full build with MSVC 2022.
• All standard examples (helloworld, testgtk) are working.
• Minimal dependency tree.
• Unicode: Limited (Standard GTK 1.x ANSI legacy).
• Warnings: Expect a "waterfall" of compiler warnings due to C89/Modern MSVC type mismatches (to be refactored).

Licensed under LGPL v2.0 (as per original GTK 1.3 source).