[Paraview] Generating a distribution of ParaView with Plugin

[Berk Geveci]

> I've developed a plugin for ParaView, and now I would like to distribute it
> to some researchers, so that they can use it. As the binaries of ParaView in
> the website aren't compiled with support to shared libs, I think I must pack
> my own version of it.

This is not true. The binaries we distribute use shared libraries and
it is possible to build plugins that can be run with them. You have to
match the compilers and Qt version we use. On the download page
, there is a link to a wiki page that describes those.

> What I would like to do, is to give them a zipped folder with a distribution
> of ParaView and the dll of the plugin (Windows environment). They should
> execute a .bat file (which would set environment variables like PATH and
> PV_PLUGIN_PATH) to get ParaView to run, and automatically put my filter in
> the filter menu.
>
> The question is: how to get this to work ? I've tried to copy the folder
> which Visual Studio creates when I build the project INSTALL (I thought this
> would be what I needed: a distribution of ParaView), but I'm getting
> problems to run ParaView by this folder in another computer.

You need to use cpack like we do to make binary distributions. You
should probably check out the cpack documentation first. I believe the
CMake book talks about it so does this page:
http://www.cmake.org/Wiki/CMake:Packaging_With_CPack. You will have to
install the nullsoft install system if you want to distribute self
installing packages. Then you have to change the install rules of
ParaView such that you plugin is installed with ParaView. This is
somewhat complicated. We are working on making it simpler.

Is you plugin proprietary? We have plans to create methods for
researchers to contribute plugins that we maintain and build as part
of our release process.

-berk