[Paraview-developers] Impending ParaView CMake changes following VTK Modularization

[Utkarsh Ayachit]

Folks,

As you may have noticed, VTK's CMake files were recently revamped to support
what's being known as VTK Modularization. In short, VTK's old fashioned Kits
have disappeared, instead we have 'modules' that now comprise the VTK
library.

As a first step, we simply updated ParaView to build against this
modularized VTK
with minimal changes to ParaView's cmake files. This is what's currently in
git-master.

Now, the next step is revamping ParaView's cmake files to leverage the
modularization concepts to create modules for its libraries. We have been
working on this for the past few weeks. The plan is to convert all libraries
ParaView builds into VTK style modules. Since this required updating almost all
of ParaView's CMake files, we decided to use this opportunity to clean up
ParaView's cmake files in entirety, removing redundant/obsolete cmake options,
reorganizing third-party dependencies, cleaning up install rules, etc.

We believe we are now at a stage where these changes can start making their way
into git-master. Despite a few known missing components (which are being worked
on) such as VisIt-bridge, Xdmf, plugins that need to be updated, it may be
worthwhile to start getting these changes in git-master so that the community
can start seeing the changes and provide feedback, and help identify any issues
or missing capabilities. We'll start merging these changes into master
by the next
gatekeeper review (or so), so users working off git-master
should expect a few hiccups until the dust settles down.

For the adventurous few, these changes are available on the stage under the
topic name "modularize_paraview". I would recommend starting with a clean
binary directory when trying these changes out.

Thanks for your patience and look forward to your feedback.

Utkarsh