MITK BlueBerry FAQ

Feel free to post any questions which are not covered in this FAQ to mitk-users@lists.sourceforge.net (subscription required).

What is BlueBerry and what is its relationship to MITK?

BlueBerry is an application framework, which is used to build the new Qt4 based MITK applications. It has no dependencies on MITK and can be used to build arbitrary, modularized applications. MITK as a toolkit does not depend on BlueBerry, but if you want to use or extend the Qt4 ExtApp, you need to build BlueBerry.

I want to build Qt4 applications using MITK, do I need BlueBerry?

To build your own applications with MITK and Qt4, you do not need BlueBerry. MITK provides many Qt4 widgets tailored for medical applications, which are available as a shared library (libQmitk). The MITK Tutorial shows you how to build standalone Qt4 applications using MITK.

However, if you intend to build larger applications, or if you want to use existing MITK plug-ins, you should use BlueBerry (for example by using the Qt4 ExtApp).

I want to start developing with MITK, shall I use Qt3 or Qt4?

The Qt4 ExtApp has been tested and is stable. It is no longer recommended to use the Qt3 MainAp, which is not present anymore in the current codebase. If you still do we migth not be able to help you as a lot of improvements have been incorporated in the Qt4 version.

Is there any functional difference between the Qt3 and Qt4 MainApp?

Yes. The Qt4 ExtApp exceeds the capabilities of the deprecated Qt3 MainApp.

I am using Qt4, but I can't find ExtApp

Make sure the CMake variable MITK_USE_BLUEBERRY is set to ON (this is the default). Without BlueBerry, the ExtApp cannot be build.

I don't want to learn all this new stuff, what shall I do?

You don't have to learn a lot of the new concepts. If you don't care about them, just don't use them. However, if you intend to build larger applications you are strongly advised to investigate the possibilities of BlueBerry and how it can help you to modularize your code. For faster prototyping, MITK provides a tool which generates a plug-in skeleton for you which can be compiled and integrated into the Qt4 ExtApp out of the box.

How can I extend the Qt4 ExtApp?

Follow the steps in the How to create a new MITK plug-in document.