Making Improvements to a Find Module which isn't under Test

Development
1

Newbie questions here…

Situation/Background

Our office insist on using an outdated library for new developments (FLTK 1.3.3 for Windows) and it took a bit of time to get things up and running. I don’t want to delve too much into specifics yet as my intention is to keep this initial post general. Things should have been a little easier:

  • I gave up on FLTK’s exported config script which simply doesn’t work for me
  • CMakes FindFLTK module needs a few client side tweaks or it will only find partial bits of FLTK

A minor change to the FindFLTK module would be beneficial for us however, I’m reluctant to create a pull request as this module is not under test in kitware’s Gitlab CI system and I suspect I would need to add the antiquated FLTK 1.3.3 into Kitware’s docker images as a first step.

Questions

Firstly, assuming I’m right about the need for improvement should I be taking this forward? Specifically, I’m I on the wrong track here in some regard, should I be talking to the FLTK community?
Secondly, and regardless of the answer to my first question, how should potential contributors request additional layers to kitware’s Docker images? I’m just curious.

Cheers
David

2

Most of the nightly builds are not done using the docker images. My understanding is that for some modules, we have specific build machines where the extra dependencies needed for those modules are installed on that machine. We then enable the relevant CMake option for that build machine to turn on testing that module. This is usually coordinated by @brad.king.

Regarding FLTK, the ideal solution is that it would provide (correct, usable) config package files. Having these provided by the package itself is the most robust since then the details should always stay in sync with the package. In contrast, Find modules are only able to use heuristics to try to work out those details and keeping them up to date can be a challenge. If there are some changes that can be made to CMake’s FindFLTK module to update it or fix wrong details, then a merge request may be appropriate. If you’re concerned about whether such work would be accepted, perhaps open an issue in the gitlab issue tracker with an explanation of what the current limitations/bugs are with the existing FindFLTK module:

https://gitlab.kitware.com/cmake/cmake/-/issues