Remove Visdom dependency and update documentation

.github/workflows/unit-tests.yml

@@ -128,11 +128,12 @@ jobs:
         if: ${{ matrix.os == 'ubuntu-latest' }}
         run: |
           # 2) mnist_with_visdom.py
-          python -c "from visdom.server.build import download_scripts; download_scripts()" # download scripts : https://github.com/facebookresearch/visdom/blob/master/py/server.py#L929
-          python -m visdom.server &
-          sleep 10
-          python examples/mnist/mnist_with_visdom.py --epochs=1
-          kill %1
+          # Visdom is unmaintained and cannot be installed with modern packages
+          # python -c "from visdom.server.build import download_scripts; download_scripts()" # download scripts : https://github.com/facebookresearch/visdom/blob/master/py/server.py#L929
+          # python -m visdom.server &
+          # sleep 10
+          # python examples/mnist/mnist_with_visdom.py --epochs=1
+          # kill %1
           # 3.1) mnist_with_tensorboard.py with tbX
           python examples/mnist/mnist_with_tensorboard.py --epochs=1
           # 3.2) mnist_with_tensorboard.py with native torch tb

ignite/contrib/engines/common.py

@@ -384,6 +384,11 @@ def setup_visdom_logging(
         - Learning rate(s)
         - Evaluation metrics
 
+    .. warning::
+
+        This function uses VisdomLogger which is currently untested due to the visdom package being
+        unmaintained and difficult to install with modern Python packages. Use at your own risk.
+
     Args:
         trainer: trainer engine
         optimizers: single or dictionary of

ignite/handlers/visdom_logger.py

@@ -30,6 +30,11 @@ class VisdomLogger(BaseLogger):
     """
     VisdomLogger handler to log metrics, model/optimizer parameters, gradients during the training and validation.
 
+    .. warning::
+
+        This logger is currently untested due to the visdom package being unmaintained and difficult to install
+        with modern Python packages. Use at your own risk.
+
     This class requires `visdom <https://github.com/fossasia/visdom/>`_ package to be installed:
 
     .. code-block:: bash
@@ -156,7 +161,7 @@ def __init__(
         **kwargs: Any,
     ):
         try:
-            import visdom
+            import visdom  # pyrefly: ignore
         except ImportError:
             raise ModuleNotFoundError(
                 "This contrib module requires visdom package. "

requirements-dev.txt

@@ -17,7 +17,7 @@ tqdm
 scikit-learn
 matplotlib
 tensorboardX
-visdom
+# visdom  # Removed: unmaintained package, cannot be installed with modern packages
 polyaxon
 wandb
 mlflow
@@ -27,6 +27,8 @@ torchvision
 pynvml<12  # pynvml module was removed in 12.X, is not developed or maintained. We should replace pynvml with something else.
 clearml
 scikit-image
+# TODO: py-rouge is very old package and its code should vendored into our rouge tests and finally remove py-rouge dependency
+setuptools<82
 py-rouge
 pycocotools
 # temporary fix for python=3.12 and v3.8.1

tests/ignite/contrib/engines/test_common.py

@@ -505,6 +505,7 @@ def test_setup_tb_logging(dirname):
 
 
 @pytest.mark.skipif(sys.platform.startswith("win"), reason="Skip on Windows")
+@pytest.mark.skip(reason="Visdom is unmaintained and cannot be installed with modern packages")
 def test_setup_visdom_logging(visdom_offline_logfile):
     vis_logger = _test_setup_logging(
         setup_logging_fn=setup_visdom_logging,

tests/ignite/handlers/conftest.py

@@ -5,13 +5,15 @@
 
 import pytest
 import torch
-from visdom import Visdom
-from visdom.server.build import download_scripts
 
 
 @pytest.fixture(scope="session")
 def visdom_server():
     # Start Visdom server once and stop it with visdom_server_stop
+
+    from visdom import Visdom
+    from visdom.server.build import download_scripts
+
     vd_hostname = "localhost"
     if not (Path.home() / ".visdom").exists():
         (Path.home() / ".visdom").mkdir(exist_ok=True)

tests/ignite/handlers/test_visdom_logger.py

@@ -16,9 +16,12 @@
     WeightsScalarHandler,
 )
 
-# Run tests on a single worker to avoid issues with connecting to the visdom
-# server This requires that the --dist=loadgroup option be passed to pytest.
-pytestmark = [pytest.mark.timeout(30), pytest.mark.xdist_group(name="visdom")]
+# Skip all tests in this module: visdom is unmaintained and cannot be installed with modern packages
+pytestmark = [
+    pytest.mark.skip(reason="Visdom is unmaintained and cannot be installed with modern packages"),
+    pytest.mark.timeout(30),
+    pytest.mark.xdist_group(name="visdom"),
+]
 
 
 def test_optimizer_params_handler_wrong_setup():