In preparation for the Hackfest, I'd like to start looking at ways to reduce (eventually eliminate!) our use of GtkAction.

One of the main uses we currently have for them is in toolbars, where the tool widgets (buttons, spinbuttons etc) are all some kind of subclass of GtkAction, which has been removed from Gtk+ 4.  This means that when the user clicks on the button, it triggers an "activate" signal, which is handled by a callback function.

My question is basically, "what's the point?"  Is there any reason why we can't just use a plain old button in most cases, and just connect up the "clicked" signal instead?

If it really needs to be some kind of Action, we could migrate to the GAction API, but this may be much more difficult.

Best wishes,

Alex