[Paraview] Fwd: [ParaView3-Developer] Fwd: [Still having Problems] Re: Generating a distribution of ParaView with Plugin

Tue Mar 24 16:50:16 EDT 2009

Forwading from developers list.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Burlen Loring <burlen.loring at kitware.com>
Date: Tue, Mar 24, 2009 at 2:55 PM
Subject: Re: [ParaView3-Developer] Fwd: [Paraview] [Still having
Problems] Re: Generating a distribution of ParaView with Plugin
To: Berk Geveci <berk.geveci at kitware.com>
Cc: ParaQ Developers <ParaQ-Developer at paraview.org>

Rafael,

I am going to assume that, you have all the compiler version/qt
version stuff sorted out, if you don't what I suggest won't make a
difference.

I recall having a similar issue. To work around I had to add my
plugin's bin directory (where it and all of its .dll dependencies
reside)  to the PATH. When you load  a dll on windows *all* of its
dependencies must be found, either in the applications run directory
(in this case that's the ParaView.exe location) or in the PATH. This
all has to do with the way Windows resolves shared library
dependencies. Your plugin won't work unless all of the dependencies
are in the PATH or the same folder as ParaView.exe. In the 3.6 release
we are adding the plugin's bin directory to the search space
during/prior plugin load behind the scenes to get around these type of
issues.

There is a free dependency walker tool that is useful to determine if
there are any dependencies that you don't know of that may be causing
your issues.

Burlen

Berk Geveci wrote:
>
> Can someone answer Rafael's question?
>
> -berk
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Rafael March <rafaelmarch3 at yahoo.com>
> Date: 2009/3/20
> Subject: [Paraview] [Still having Problems] Re: Generating a
> distribution of ParaView with Plugin
> To: paraview at paraview.org
>
>
> Hi,
>
> thanks, Berk, for your answer. As you corrected me, I've compiled my
> plugin under the same Qt version of the ParaView distro which is in
> the website. Now, it is built under the following environment:
>
> plugin:
>
> Operating System: Windows Vista Business - SP1
> Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Professional Edition 8.0.50727.867
> no python
> Qt 4.3.5 open source version
>
> ParaView of Kitware's site:
>
> paraview-3.4.0-win32-x86.exe:
>
> Built on Windows XP Professional Version 2002 (Service Pack 3)
> Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Professional Edition 8.0.50727.762
> python 2.5.2
> Qt 4.3.5 open source version
>
> But is still doesn't work ! I got another machine that never saw
> ParaView before, installed it, and tryied to load the plugin. Then I
> get a message like "The file "blabla.dll" is not a valid Qt plugin.
>
> I'm wondering if the problem is the slight difference between the
> visual studio versions. Or maybe the OS. What do you think ?
>
> Regards,
> Rafael March.
>
>
>
> --- On Wed, 3/18/09, Berk Geveci <berk.geveci at kitware.com> wrote:
>
> From: Berk Geveci <berk.geveci at kitware.com>
> Subject: Re: [Paraview] Generating a distribution of ParaView with Plugin
> To: "Rafael March" <rafaelmarch3 at yahoo.com>
> Cc: paraview at paraview.org
> Date: Wednesday, March 18, 2009, 3:07 PM
>
>
>>
>> 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
>
>
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