dolfin team mailing list archive

[Andy Ray Terrel <andy.terrel@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, Aug 29, 2012 at 4:55 AM, Garth N. Wells <gnw20@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On 29 August 2012 10:36, Anders Logg <logg@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> On Wed, Aug 29, 2012 at 11:20:19AM +0200, Joachim Berdal Haga wrote:
>>> On 29 August 2012 11:11, Garth N. Wells <gnw20@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>> > On 29 August 2012 09:42, Joachim Berdal Haga <jobh@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>> >> I would like to switch the window handling and event loop to QT,
>>> >> because it's much more flexible and mature (stable) than VTK's. An
>>> >> example of things that are hard to get working right with the VTK
>>> >> window handling is to close a single plotting window.
>>> >>
>>> >> This will introduce a new dependency for plotting (in addition to
>>> >> VTK). It will be optional, and if it's not configured then it's only
>>> >> plotting that is disabled.
>>> >>
>>> >> Any protests?
>>> >>
>>> >
>>> > I'd rather not have it as a dependency. I don't really want a major
>>> > dependency for lightweight plotting. I think we should bear in mind
>>> > that we have ParaView, MayaVi, etc for making 'real' plots, so the
>>> > DOLFIN plotting should remain as simple as possible.
>>>
>>> I agree with keeping it simple. The reason I want to introduce it is
>>> not to introduce anything complex, but to gain more robust window
>>> handling / event loop. However: Opposition noted -- would option 2
>>> (basic support for VTK-only) be acceptable to you?
>>
>> I don't see why QT would be a problem. Isn't the VTK dependency just
>> as heavy?
>
> Are you saying the 2 x 'heavy' is the same as 1 x 'heavy'?
>
> I've just checked, and QT is a 229MB tar ball!
>
>> Or are there systems where VTK is easily available but QT is
>> not?
>>
>
> There are lots of systems where neither is available. Needing two
> makes the configuration and build ever more complicated. I know
> first-hand that our config and build needs work on non-Ubuntu/Debian
> systems, which I'd rather have sorted out before adding big
> dependencies.
>
> Garth

Piping in from a guy who builds too much code on supercomputers, I
would suggest not making QT a hard dependency.  It is a pretty intense
build and takes lots of space.  We only support it on a few of our
machines but all our machines support VTK.

Although Joachim is right about the event loop.  QT is the best gui
interface out there, but perhaps it should be more of an optional
dependency.

-- Andy

>
>> --
>> Anders
>
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