patch 9.1.1418: configures GUI auto detection favors GTK2

Problem:  configures GUI auto detection favors GTK2
Solution: make configure favor GTK3 over GTK2 for the GUI
          when auto detecting the gui toolkit (Drew Vogel).

Prior to these changes if the dev packages for both GTK2 and GTK3 were
installed, the `--enable-gui=auto` would used GTK2. After these changes
it will use GTK3. Users can still use `--enable-gui=gtk2` to
specifically select GTK2.

In addition to the prioritization change, this also brings some cleanups
to the GTK autoconf code:

* The `AM_PATH_GTK` macro had an unused third argument that has been
  removed.
* The `AM_PATH_GTK` macro checked the `SKIP_GTK2` & `SKIP_GTK3`
  variables but the code that decided whether to call it also checked
  those. Now just the calling code does so.
* The `AM_PATH_GTK` macro set a default minimum version based on
  `SKIP_GTK2` and `SKIP_GTK3` but the calling code was also expected to
  pass a version. Now the calling code _must_ pass a version.
* The GTK test program previous used `gtk_(major|minor|micro)_version`
  as all of: a C variable name, a C macro provided only by GTK2, and an
  autoconf variable name. It also needlessly parsed a `x.y.z` version
  string when the same string was already parsed by autoconf + sed. Now
  the parsed values are used directly in the test program.
* The GTK test program previous created a test program `conf.gtktest`
  which was cleaned up by the autoconf script. This appeared to be a
  crude way to debug whether an erroring configure run had actually run
  the test program. Instead the autoconf script now outputs more messaging
  and the user can check `config.log` to determine the status of the
  configure script.

I'm not an autoconf expert and I don't have access to some of the older
systems we try to support with gvim. So I would very much appreciate if
anyone could run this on their systems to ensure it doesn't misbehave.

While my motivation here is mainly to further establish GTK3 as the
primary GUI mode, this should at least partially address the concern
described in #15437.

Here are a few test runs with both GTK 2 and GTK 3 installed:

```
    --with-features=huge \
    --enable-gui \
    --enable-gtk3-check=no \
    --enable-gtktest \
```

```
checking --enable-gui argument... yes/auto - automatic GUI support
checking whether or not to look for GTK+ 2... yes
checking whether or not to look for GNOME... no
checking whether or not to look for GTK+ 3... no
checking whether or not to look for Motif... yes
checking for pkg-config... /usr/bin/pkg-config
checking --disable-gtktest argument... gtk test enabled
checking for pkg-config gtk+-2.0... found
checking for GTK - version >= 2.2.0... yes; found version 2.24.33
checking ability to compile GTK test program... yes
```

```
    --with-features=huge \
    --enable-gui \
    --enable-gtk2-check=no \
    --enable-gtktest \
```

```
checking --enable-gui argument... yes/auto - automatic GUI support
checking whether or not to look for GTK+ 2... no
checking whether or not to look for GTK+ 3... yes
checking whether or not to look for Motif... yes
checking for pkg-config... /usr/bin/pkg-config
checking --disable-gtktest argument... gtk test enabled
checking for pkg-config gtk+-3.0... found
checking for GTK - version >= 3.0.0... yes; found version 3.24.49
checking ability to compile GTK test program... yes
```

```
    --with-features=huge \
```

```
checking --enable-gui argument... yes/auto - automatic GUI support
checking whether or not to look for GTK+ 2... yes
checking whether or not to look for GNOME... no
checking whether or not to look for GTK+ 3... yes
checking whether or not to look for Motif... yes
checking for pkg-config... /usr/bin/pkg-config
checking --disable-gtktest argument... gtk test enabled
checking for pkg-config gtk+-3.0... found
checking for GTK - version >= 3.0.0... yes; found version 3.24.49
checking ability to compile GTK test program... yes
```

```
    --with-features=huge \
    --disable-gtktest \
```

```
checking --enable-gui argument... yes/auto - automatic GUI support
checking whether or not to look for GTK+ 2... yes
checking whether or not to look for GNOME... no
checking whether or not to look for GTK+ 3... yes
checking whether or not to look for Motif... yes
checking for pkg-config... /usr/bin/pkg-config
checking --disable-gtktest argument... gtk test disabled
checking for pkg-config gtk+-3.0... found
checking for GTK - version >= 3.0.0... yes; found version 3.24.49
```

```
    --with-features=huge \
    --enable-gui=gtk2 \
```

```
checking --enable-gui argument... GTK+ 2.x GUI support
checking for pkg-config... /usr/bin/pkg-config
checking --disable-gtktest argument... gtk test enabled
checking for pkg-config gtk+-2.0... found
checking for GTK - version >= 2.2.0... yes; found version 2.24.33
checking ability to compile GTK test program... yes
```

```
    --with-features=huge \
    --enable-gui=gtk3 \
```

```
checking --enable-gui argument... GTK+ 3.x GUI support
checking for pkg-config... /usr/bin/pkg-config
checking --disable-gtktest argument... gtk test enabled
checking for pkg-config gtk+-3.0... found
checking for GTK - version >= 3.0.0... yes; found version 3.24.49
checking ability to compile GTK test program... yes
```

And here is a similar run with the GTK 3 dev package removed:

```
    --with-features=huge \
    --enable-gui=gtk3 \
    --enable-fail-if-missing \
```

```
checking --disable-gtktest argument... gtk test enabled
checking for pkg-config gtk+-3.0... no; consider installing your distro
GTK -dev package
configure: error: pkg-config could not find gtk+-3.0
```

closes: #17369

Signed-off-by: Drew Vogel <dvogel@github>
Signed-off-by: Christian Brabandt <cb@256bit.org>
4 files changed
tree: 9f21a3f35aeea8bb1141865bd8b0ddd0ffe1e8bf
  1. .github/
  2. ci/
  3. lang/
  4. nsis/
  5. pixmaps/
  6. READMEdir/
  7. runtime/
  8. src/
  9. tools/
  10. .appveyor.yml
  11. .cirrus.yml
  12. .clang-format
  13. .codecov.yml
  14. .editorconfig
  15. .git-blame-ignore-revs
  16. .gitattributes
  17. .gitignore
  18. .hgignore
  19. configure
  20. CONTRIBUTING.md
  21. Filelist
  22. LICENSE
  23. Makefile
  24. README.md
  25. README.txt
  26. README_VIM9.md
  27. SECURITY.md
  28. uninstall.txt
  29. vimtutor.bat
  30. vimtutor.com
README.md

Vim The editor

Github Build status Appveyor Build status Cirrus Build Status Coverage Status Coverity Scan Debian CI Packages Fossies codespell report

If you find a bug or want to discuss the best way to add a new feature, please open an issue. If you have a question or want to discuss the best way to do something with Vim, you can use StackExchange or one of the Maillists.

What is Vim?

Vim is a greatly improved version of the good old UNIX editor Vi. Many new features have been added: multi-level undo, syntax highlighting, command line history, on-line help, spell checking, filename completion, block operations, script language, etc. There is also a Graphical User Interface (GUI) available. Still, Vi compatibility is maintained, those who have Vi "in the fingers" will feel at home. See runtime/doc/vi_diff.txt for differences with Vi.

This editor is very useful for editing programs and other plain text files. All commands are given with normal keyboard characters, so those who can type with ten fingers can work very fast. Additionally, function keys can be mapped to commands by the user, and the mouse can be used.

Vim runs under MS-Windows (7, 8, 10, 11), macOS, Haiku, VMS and almost all flavours of UNIX. Porting to other systems should not be very difficult. Older versions of Vim run on MS-DOS, MS-Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP/Vista, Amiga DOS, Atari MiNT, BeOS, RISC OS and OS/2. These are no longer maintained.

For Vim9 script see README_VIM9.

Distribution

You can often use your favorite package manager to install Vim. On Mac and Linux a small version of Vim is pre-installed, you still need to install Vim if you want more features.

There are separate distributions for Unix, PC, Amiga and some other systems. This README.md file comes with the runtime archive. It includes the documentation, syntax files and other files that are used at runtime. To run Vim you must get either one of the binary archives or a source archive. Which one you need depends on the system you want to run it on and whether you want or must compile it yourself. Check https://www.vim.org/download.php for an overview of currently available distributions.

Some popular places to get the latest Vim:

Compiling

If you obtained a binary distribution you don't need to compile Vim. If you obtained a source distribution, all the stuff for compiling Vim is in the src directory. See src/INSTALL for instructions.

Installation

See one of these files for system-specific instructions. Either in the READMEdir directory (in the repository) or the top directory (if you unpack an archive):

README_ami.txt		Amiga
README_unix.txt		Unix
README_dos.txt		MS-DOS and MS-Windows
README_mac.txt		Macintosh
README_haiku.txt	Haiku
README_vms.txt		VMS

There are other README_*.txt files, depending on the distribution you used.

Documentation

The Vim tutor is a one hour training course for beginners. Often it can be started as vimtutor. See :help tutor for more information.

The best is to use :help in Vim. If you don't have an executable yet, read runtime/doc/help.txt. It contains pointers to the other documentation files. The User Manual reads like a book and is recommended to learn to use Vim. See :help user-manual.

Copying

Vim is Charityware. You can use and copy it as much as you like, but you are encouraged to make a donation to help orphans in Uganda. Please read the file runtime/doc/uganda.txt for details (do :help uganda inside Vim).

Summary of the license: There are no restrictions on using or distributing an unmodified copy of Vim. Parts of Vim may also be distributed, but the license text must always be included. For modified versions, a few restrictions apply. The license is GPL compatible, you may compile Vim with GPL libraries and distribute it.

Sponsoring

Fixing bugs and adding new features takes a lot of time and effort. To show your appreciation for the work and motivate developers to continue working on Vim please send a donation.

The money you donated will be mainly used to help children in Uganda. See runtime/doc/uganda.txt. But at the same time donations increase the development team motivation to keep working on Vim!

For the most recent information about sponsoring look on the Vim web site: https://www.vim.org/sponsor/

Contributing

If you would like to help make Vim better, see the CONTRIBUTING.md file.

Information

If you are on macOS, you can use MacVim.

The latest news about Vim can be found on the Vim home page: https://www.vim.org/

If you have problems, have a look at the Vim documentation or tips: https://www.vim.org/docs.php https://vim.fandom.com/wiki/Vim_Tips_Wiki

If you still have problems or any other questions, use one of the mailing lists to discuss them with Vim users and developers: https://www.vim.org/maillist.php

If nothing else works, report bugs directly to the vim-dev mailing list: <vim-dev@vim.org>

Main author

Most of Vim was created by Bram Moolenaar <Bram@vim.org> Bram-Moolenaar

Send any other comments, patches, flowers and suggestions to the vim-dev mailing list: <vim-dev@vim.org>

This is README.md for version 9.1 of Vim: Vi IMproved.