gnuplot development

awwww it removes the filled circles ; ) nice to see this is being followed
up.

Here is a prologue file that is usable with existing gnuplot builds (no
need to recompile or re-install). It replaces the default point types
16-24 with your fill+black_border shapes and also adds a set of 5-pointed
star variants.

To use:
Either replace the file prologue.ps that came with your gnuplot, or
copy the default PostScript prologue and header files to a directory of
your choice, replace prologue.ps with this new version, and set the
environmental variable GNUPLOT_PS_DIR to point to the directory of locally
customized files.

I will also start a section on the web site for other contributed
customizations.
File Added: prologue.ps

I'll have to check how to make a patch then : )

I actually never thought of replacing an "old" symbol, it never occured to
me that the prologue file was there to modify to my liking. I'll try to
make a patch containing a few more symbols than the ones I already put in,
one can never have enough symbols : ) If you prefer it I can name them
UserDefined1 and so on. I might also make the prologue file and contribute
it.

Thanks.

For future reference, please note that it is much easier to deal with
patches than with whole files. Inevitably the current version of the source
code doesn't match the version you were working with, and replacing the
whole file would lose all the work that has been done in between. Chances
are good, however, that a smallpatch against an old version will still
apply against the current version.

If I could make a suggestion:
As you found, the actual symbol definitions are now in a separate prologue
file that is locally customizable. The whole idea here is to let people
make changes like this without having to recompile or reinstall gnuplot
itself. To take full advantage of this, consider modifying your patch so
that the added symbols have names like "UserDefined1". That way it is more
obvious that individual users are free to redefine these symbols in the
prologue file. For that matter, did you consider just replacing one of the
existing rather boring symbol series with your new one? Your modified
prologue file could go right onto the "contributed" section of the web
site, and people using the existing released version of gnuplot code
benefit from it without having to rebuild or update their installation.