Request: Force GtkPopover to use GtkMenu globally

[lah7]

What should be patched?

Popovers are starting to be misused as context menus in a GTK 3 application, namely Inkscape 1.4.

We already patched the menus in places like the file chooser, so it is unknown how easy it is to apply this globally.

Screenshots

Inkscape 1.4 - context menu	GNOME Disks 46.1 - as a toolbar item

Commits

It seems intentional that Inkscape moved to use popovers instead of menus due to some background work of porting to GTK 4. It's possible it was a regression in the application:

• https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/-/issues/4890
• https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/-/issues/5325

Since Inkscape is also distributed as an AppImage, it could be possible to just downgrade and stick with that version forever instead.

[ssokolow]

Has any investigation been done yet into how difficult would it be to just gut GtkPopover and stick calls to GtkMenu inside it?

Since Inkscape is also distributed as an AppImage, it could be possible to just downgrade and stick with that version forever instead.

Unfortunately, new versions of Inkscape bring support for new document constructs. That will increasingly become like staying on an old version of Microsoft Office to avoid the Ribbon.

[lah7]

I'm hoping it would be a simple API wrapper from GtkPopover to GtkMenu.

I wondered if GitHub Copilot Workspace (Preview) can help out. A computer came up with a feasible plan, but won't know if it works until I see the diff code it generates. Currently rate limited by the hour.

Might be wise to put it behind an optional environment variable, just in case.

Edit: ✨ It came up with this. May be a useful stating point: 6861853ac517fc715eaff4bc9c0de5fa3de36692.patch.txt