[vtkusers] Windows installer for 5.0.3

[Andreas Keil]

I must admint that I was also mislead by the "Windows Installer" in the
download section.

Andreas



-----Original Message-----
From: vtkusers-bounces+andreas.keil=cs.tum.edu at vtk.org
[mailto:vtkusers-bounces+andreas.keil=cs.tum.edu at vtk.org] On Behalf Of
David Goldsmith
Sent: Thursday, June 28, 2007 15:41
To: vtk
Subject: Re: [vtkusers] Windows installer for 5.0.3

David Cole wrote:
> That installer merely installs a pre-built "vtk.exe" for Windows such 
> that you can run VTK Tcl scripts...
Then the Windows installer should tell the unsuspecting user that that 
is all that it is doing (and indicate that if the user wants to actually 
develop software w/ VTK, one has to download the source and build it "by 
hand," as w/ any other platform, the point being it is *misleading* to 
offer an installer for Windows and no other platform - it gives the 
impression that for Windows, one need only run the installer, not go 
through all the machinations one needs to on other platforms).  Given 
the pace of modern life, it is unrealistic to expect users to read the 
excessive verbiage that people put on download pages, but it is 
realistic to expect people to read a big flashing "WARNING" sign put 
either at the beginning (preferably) or end of an Install wizard.
> Given the number of compilers/platforms in use these days, it's 
> impractical to ship a useful "make install" tree or binary libraries 
> for VTK. 
Yet you offer an Installer for VTK Tcl scripts, but only for Windows - 
why show Windows preferential treatment here but not elsewhere?  I'm not 
suggesting you ship "make install" trees and/or binaries for all 
compiler/platform combinations (though your complaint rings hollow: 
given the amount of time clearly spent just developing the software, it 
seems like a rather marginal extra investment to develop said 
trees/binaries), merely that you better "dummy-proof" what you do "ship."
> For VTKConfig.cmake, or libraries to link your own programs against, 
> download or pull the source tree from CVS, as detailed at 
> http://www.vtk.org/get-software.php and then build it with CMake and 
> your favorite compiler/build system.
TLTL,

DG
>
> HTH,
> David
>
>
> On 6/27/07, *David Goldsmith* <David.L.Goldsmith at noaa.gov 
> <mailto:David.L.Goldsmith at noaa.gov>> wrote:
>
>     http://www.vtk.org/files/release/5.0/vtk-5.0.3-win32.exe
>
>     appears not to install VTKConfig.cmake (and who knows what else...)
>
>     DG
>     --
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