Does anyone still use Xt for GUI development

Development
1

There is a chunk of Xt code in VTK and I’m wondering if people still use VTK within an Xt based app. Or has everything migrated to xcb or Qt etc?

2

Open Inventor still has Xt-based API, so there might be a reason, since it represents a maintenance cost to its vendor.

3

Hearing no response…now that 9.0 is branched, maybe removal for 10.0 would be something to consider?

4

Here at work we identified a single application that uses VTK with Motif, which is based on Xt.

5

Ah, sorry. I hadn’t realized Open Inventor was VTK-based.

6

No! Where did I say that? OpenInventor is another 3D API. I cited it because they keep a Xt interface for some reason (e.g. applications that use the legacy UI).

7

Oh. Why would their support of Xt affect our decision to use it? I don’t think we know of any customers using the Xt APIs through VTK (the majority probably use ParaView and therefore the Qt stuff).

8

I just cited an example.

9

“that uses VTK”

So does OpenInventor use VTK or not? :confused:

10

Why are you asking that? My goodness…

11

I think you’re trying to stir confusion.

12

I gave you two reasons to justify Xt:

  1. Another 3D API uses Xt.
  2. I cited a client application using VTK with Xt.

Now you can make a better informed decision. If you decide to end Xt support, the consequences are:

  1. Potential users may adopt OIV (or other 3D APIs) instead of VTK;
  2. Orphaned legacy applications may demand support for old versions of VTK.
13

Here’s what I was reading in this thread:

  • Anyone using VTK+Xt?
  • OpenInventor uses Xt (no indication of relation to VTK)
  • I suggest removing it
  • You reply that you identified an application
  • I assume that it is the OpenInventor you mentioned earlier and reply to that effect

Basically, I was assuming OpenInventor was your application because of the way your “we identified a single application” and my reading that your tone seemed indicate that you had already mentioned it before.

I don’t think we’d make a decision based on such things. If others still supported, e.g., SGI, I think we’d still drop it (if it was a decision to make today).

14

Oh… I thought OIV was fairly known int the 3D developer community. Sorry about that.

I don’t think we’d make a decision based on such things.

So, what’s the point of starting a discussion? Simply take it off and be done with it.

15

I appreciate the feedback as it helped me gauge the risks of removing Xt.

I have removed the dependence on Xt from the XRenderWindowInteractor. The class now only relies on Xlib. It made the support for Vulkan a bit easier to implement and cleaner. I’m not sure if that will even be a problem for Xt based apps. They may have to change how they parent a vtk window or add a bit of glue code themselves to do it like the old Xt based interactor style did. It might be a really simple change or nothing at all. But it is out there now. If it turns out to be a big issue we can always bring back the old XRenderWindowInteractor as a XtRenderWindowInteractor. Thanks!

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16

We can stick to the newest VTK version with Xt for a while. Thanks.

17

I’m a build systems guy; I only use VTK and ParaView in as much as I need to debug things usually :slight_smile: .

I meant that just because FrobNarRender supports Xt wouldn’t be that influential (to me) for VTK’s suggested support.