I suggest to use cmake's functions generate_export_header.

The primary reason is we saw that many ROS projects have been already following this ROS Wiki to define the exports header, and figured we are not going to use another idiom to diverge from this existing one for ROS1 community. What do you think?

The ROS wiki page was created back in 2013, when cmake didn't yet provided this neat function.
I think, you should update the wiki and let cmake do it's job. It doesn't make sense to write such boiler-plate code manually.

The ROS wiki page was created back in 2013, when cmake didn't yet provided this neat function.
I think, you should update the wiki and let cmake do it's job. It doesn't make sense to write such boiler-plate code manually.

Understood. I switched the implementation to make use of CMake built-in generate_export_header.

catkin_lint seems not to get along with dynamically generated files?

catkin_lint /root/rviz
rviz: src/rviz/CMakeLists.txt(183): error: install() needs missing file '${PROJECT_BUILD_DIR}/src/rviz/rviz/rviz_export.h'
rviz: src/rviz/default_plugin/CMakeLists.txt(87): error: install() needs missing file '${PROJECT_BUILD_DIR}/src/rviz/default_plugin/rviz/default_plugin/rviz_default_plugin_export.h'

catkin_lint seems not to get along with dynamically generated files?

Yes, I know. Please file a bug at https://github.com/fkie/catkin_lint.
There is the possibility to ignore issues once.

@rhaschke Thanks. #catkin_lint: ignore_once missing_file does the trick.

Looking into this error...

Errors     << rviz:make /root/ws_moveit/logs/rviz/build.make.000.log
make[3]: warning: jobserver unavailable: using -j1.  Add '+' to parent make rule.
In file included from panel_dock_widget.sip:7:0:
/root/ws_moveit/src/rviz/src/rviz/panel_dock_widget.h:34:10: fatal error: rviz/rviz_export.h: No such file or directory
 #include "rviz/rviz_export.h"
          ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
compilation terminated.

travis CI errors are fixed.

@rhaschke this is ready for another round of review. Let me know if any feedbacks, thanks!