[Paraview] Generating a distribution of ParaView with Plugin

[Takuya OSHIMA]

Hi,

I am trying to do mostly the same thing as Rafael (eventually build
and deploy my own build of ParaView onto our university cluster), and
having a similar problem.

I tried to build a 32bit binary of unmodified ParaView 3.4.0 (as a
first trial to build my own modified ParaView) using Windows XP SP3
pro, VS2008SP1 pro edition, Qt 4.3.5 opensource edition, CMake 2.6.3
and NSIS installer 2.44. The compilation and running INSTALL and
PACKAGE targets both went fine, but when I try to run the binaries on
another machine I always get an error, regardless of the packaging
targets (INSTALL or PACKAGE):

(the original message is in Japanese, but should translate as follows)
"The Side-by-Side configuration information contains errors. This
application has failed to start because the application configuration
is incorrect. Reinstalling the application may fix this problem."

What I noticed is that the package created by running the INSTALL
target contains msvc[mpr]90.dll and Microsoft.VC90.CRT.manifest while
running the PACKAGE target does not, but the resulting errors are the
same. Also, I read around
http://www.cmake.org/Wiki/CMake:Packaging_With_CPack
http://www.cmake.org/Wiki/CMake:CPackPackageGenerators
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa374224(VS.85).aspx
and their relevant pages without significant success so far.

The question is, what are the missing steps to create a win32 package
of unmodified ParaView 3.4 that works out of the box using VS2008,
like the one distributed from the ParaView site?

Thanks,
Takuya

Takuya OSHIMA, Ph.D.
Faculty of Engineering, Niigata University
8050 Ikarashi-Ninocho, Nishi-ku, Niigata, 950-2181, JAPAN

From: Berk Geveci <berk.geveci at kitware.com>
Subject: Re: [Paraview] Generating a distribution of ParaView with Plugin
Date: Wed, 18 Mar 2009 11:07:40 -0400

> > 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