[PyX-devel] Announcement: PyX 0.5 released

[Andre W. <wo...@us...>]

Hi,

we are proud to announce the release of PyX 0.5. This release marks an
important development step towards a final design of the internal and
visible interfaces of PyX. The most prominent changes are:

- rewrite of the attribute system to improve both consistency and
  flexibility (this introduces new concepts, conventions and modules
  which renders this release not backward compatible; however,
  modifying existing code is not very difficult, since all the
  functionality is still avaiable)
- further improved TeX integration (integrated virtual font handling,
  configurable font mapping files, support for markers to access
  positions within the text, support for TeX's inter-process
  communication option,  split the dvifile reader from text module)
- some internal improvements in the graph module along with pathaxis
- streamlined install process (C extention modules for font stripping
  and path searching has become optional)
- new FAQ
- lots of small improvements and bug fixes

Find a more detailed list of changes below. Enjoy!

Jörg, Michael, André



---------


0.5 (2004/01/20):
  - setup.py and distribution:
    - allow customization of the extension modules built (via setup.cfg)
    - disable building pykpathsea module by default
    - more detailed description of install process in INSTALL
    - provide more information and pointers to other files in README
    - include example data files in distribution (suggested by Andrea Riciputi)
    - force dvips to write ps files instead of printing them (suggested by Otto Tronarp)
    - includ pyxfaq.pdf in distribution
  - text module:
    - improved is-readable test for lfs files and pyx.def file
    - explicitly quit (La)TeX in cleantmp (helps when quitting with <Ctrl>C)
    - showwaitfortex implemented following a suggestion by Fernando Perez
      (waitfortex is increased to 60 seconds now)
    - support of TeX extention --ipc for reading dvi results while TeX keeps running
    - configurable font mapping files (via pyxrc or parameter of the texrunner constructor)
    - markers to get access to positions within TeX expressions
    - fix: allow for e-tex in texmessage.start (reported by Andrea Riciputi)
    - fix: print warning at syntax errors in font mapping file and continue (cf. bug #795271)
    - remove limitation on number of fonts in dvi file
    - added native virtual font support
    - dvicopy support not needed anymore (it is still available, but obsolete and
      removed from the documentation)
    - do not include too many glyphs in the eps file
    - _xxx -> xxx_pt renaming
  - dvifile module (NEW):
    - separated from the text module
    - dvifile class returns standard pyx canvas instances on readpage
  - graph module:
    - removed manualpart and partitioners mix keyword
    - results of the splitting at "=" in graph.function were not stripped
    - skip title=None in key (cf. bug #821284), properly align a single key entry
    - another (the last?!) axis redesign: axispos -> class of its own
    - some axispos name have changed slightly (zeroline -> zeropath etc.)
    - tick/data-vmin/vmax removed
    - pathaxis
    - linkaxis
    - minor enhancements in exponentionaltexter
    - axes alongs paths including a set of examples
    - mixing a partitioner and manual ticks by two distinct keyword arguments now
    - _xxx -> xxx_pt renaming
    - part -> parter renaming
  - canvas module:
    - stroke, fill, draw, set and insert do no longer accept variable length argument lists but
      an attribute list as last argument
    - stroke and fill now support trafos (TODO: documentation)
    - uppercase version of a4, a3, ... paperformats
  - config module:
    - new module for loading PyX configuration information
  - pyx module:
    - automatically import main modules into pyx namespace as suggested by Fernando 
      Perez.
  - path module:
    - check for sorting of parameter list passed to path.split method
    - _xxx -> xxx_pt renaming
  - deco module (NEW): 
    - contains decoratedpath and decorators from canvas module
    - all predefined decorators are instances now (deco.stroked is thus ok) and 
      attributes have to be passed explicitely, e.g., deco.earrow.small(attrs=color.rgb.red) 
      and deco.stroked([color.rgb.blue])
  - style module (NEW):
    - contains all line- and fillstyles which formerly had been defined in the canvas module
    - dash now supports relative dash lengths (as suggested by Otto Tronarp)
  - mathtree module:
    - fixed incorrect handling of - (for instance -x**2 was not negative)
  - attrlist module:
    - contents have been moved to the (obsolete) tex module, which was the only user anyhow, and
      the module itself was removed
  - t1strip module:
    - new fallback solution in pure python
    - bugfix: pyxadapt.h needs to open files binary under Windows (reported by Gary Pajer)
  - box module:
    - _xxx -> xxx_pt renaming
  - trafo module:
    - _xxx -> xxx_pt renaming


-- 
by  _ _      _    Dr. André Wobst
   / \ \    / )   wo...@us..., http://www.wobsta.de/
  / _ \ \/\/ /    PyX - High quality PostScript figures with Python & TeX
 (_/ \_)_/\_/           visit http://pyx.sourceforge.net/