[Paraview] 3.2 Plugin loading

[Sean Ziegeler]

I am developing on Linux, AIX (just barely), and eventually on Windows. 
  I assume on OS X, that the PV directory structure is similar, so I 
guess the plugin directory would go along with ParaView.app, sort of 
(actually the .app would be in bin/ and plugins/ would be in the same 
directory alongside bin/).

Anyway, the idea is for the administrator (whomever installed PV in this 
case) to be able to simply place common plugins in that directory. 
Individual users can still load their own plugins via Plugin Manager or 
by setting the PV_PLUGIN_PATH environment variable.

It should be possible to select some default directory for users based 
on each platform, the one you recommended for OS X, perhaps 
~/.config/ParaView for most other Unices, and similarly in the user's 
Application Data directory in Windows.  It's not a bad idea, but I'm on 
the fence about it because I don't think we should try to search every 
possible combination of directories when PV_PLUGIN_PATH is available for 
use.  The question is where to draw the line.

Clint is likely going to replace my code with something a little more 
generic (based on the location of the executable as provided by argv[0] 
instead of the install path).  He might also have a good idea about 
something for user directories.

-Sean

Mike Jackson wrote:
> What platforms are you developing your code on? I was thinking for OS X 
> we could use the ~/Application Support/ParaView3/PlugIns directory, 
> otherwise the plugin directory will be either dangling alongside the 
> ParaView.app or buried in the .app package structure.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Mike Jackson   Senior Research Engineer
> Innovative Management & Technology Services
> 
> 
> On Dec 5, 2007, at 3:47 PM, Sean Ziegeler wrote:
> 
>> I would assume that you can put any plugin in there.  I am using it for readers and filters, but I don't see why you couldn't do custom GUI's assuming that you use the Qt GUI process outlined in the wiki. Essentially, my modification is no different than:
>> (1) using the Plugin Manager to load plugins
>> (2) setting PV_PLUGIN_PATH to a directory and placing plugins there.
>>
>> It requires that you set CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX when you run cmake and then do a make install.  Any .so plugin file you place in CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX/plugins will be loaded as if it were in PV_PLUGIN_PATH.  Does that help?
>>
>> -Sean
>>
>> Mike Jackson wrote:
>>> Sounds Great. What type of plugins can I put in there? Things that add custom GUIS? Custom Readers/Writers? Do you happen to have a sample project to go with the code?
>>