[vtk-developers] GUISupport directory ?

[Clinton Stimpson]

Sebastien BARRE wrote:

> Hi
>
> I just saw a new top directory showing up in the VTK CVS tree, 
> something that does not happen too often, hence my curiosity.
>
> It is named GUISupport.
>
> I scratched my head and tried to remember when it was discussed, and 
> finally found a track somewhere lost in a "QVTKWidget update" (no 
> chance I had read that one). 

It was first brought up in the middle of December.  And a couple times 
since then.
The two responses that Kitware gave were
  1. make sure there are no licencing issues.
  2. probably make a GUISupport directory and put it in there.
In December is when we got responses from people who wanted to try it.  
In Janurary is when licensing and where to put it in VTK was discussed.

>
>
> - Is this a new GUI repo, or something targeted at a specific GUI 
> project ? (I'm asking here since mostly non-Kitware people were 
> involved), 

This is supposed to be for anyone who wants to use Qt with VTK.  It is 
already being used by several different projects.  It was in the vtkSNL 
repository for a year or so.

>
> - So far I see only a QVTKWidget class at the top level, it starts 
> with a Q, so I'll make a very smart assumption that it is related to 
> Qt... Maybe GUISupport could be organized by GUIs, say Qt/, KDE/, 
> wxWidget/, MFC/ ? 

I had thought about that.  But didn't do it because the Rendering 
directory not having subdirectories for Carbon, Cocoa, X, Win32, or 
whatever.

>
> - How does it (or is it going to) relate to (or overlap with) the GUI 
> classes and support code already in Wrapping/Python (Qt too, Tk, wx), 
> Wrapping/Tcl, or even Examples/GUI (SampleMFC/, vtkMFC/ etc). 

I'm not totally sure on this.  Things look a bit scattered around right 
now.  There's also Tk stuff in the VTK/Rendering directory.

When it was suggested by Kitware to make a GUISupport directory, it was 
also suggested that the Tk widgets in the Rendering directory be moved 
to GUISupport.  I don't use the Tk stuff so I'm not sure about moving it 
myself.

I'm not sure what's up with the Qt stuff in the Wrapping/Python 
directory.  That uses PyQt and was developed by those using free 
versions of Qt and/or PyQt.  So there's probably some licensing 
violations there.  Perhaps we just wrap this QVTKWidget and maybe it'll 
work with PyQt.

I think the MFC stuff should be moved into the GUISupport directory and 
perhaps polished up if necessary to work for almost anyone, if not 
anyone.  And whatever other C++ GUI/VTK support there is in the VTK tree.

Hope that answers your questions.

Thanks,
Clint