gnuplot-beta

Re: metapost terminal

[Hans-Bernhard B. <br...@ph...>]

On Wed, 9 Jun 2004, Andrzej [utf-8] W=C4=85sowski wrote:

> Hans-Bernhard Broeker <broeker <at> physik.rwth-aachen.de> writes:
> =20
> > Not necessarily.  The general method for platforms that don't sup=
port
> > patterns in some native way is to draw them as lots of individual=
 lines.
> > That's possible because we do pattern-filling only for boxes.
>=20
> Do you mean that there is some software level option that can be se=
t in
> the terminal driver to make the calling code use primitive line dra=
wing
> commands of the terminal to draw the patterns?

No --- although arguably there should be.  What I was getting at is t=
hat
each terminal driver is on its own how to do it, but those that aren'=
t as
sophisticated as to allow masking a large pattern to the inside of a =
given
curve,  usually achieve pattern filling by just drawing the hatch lin=
es
directly.  Check out how existing drivers do it, and you'll see.

> The main issue for me now is to know what are the patterns to be dr=
awn.

Your choice.  You may want to imitate some existing driver's behaviou=
r
for consistency, but you don't have to.

> > Not necessary.  As long as the grid line style is noticably light=
er than
> > the borders, you're OK.  Some terminals dot it, some draw it in g=
ray, some
> > others combine those two.
>=20
> The distinction between grid line style and other lines is fairly g=
ood
> with on screen postscript previewers, but it is much less clear on =
the
> printout IMHO.=20

That'll depend heavily on the kind of printer you use, I guess.  'set=
 term
postscript colour solid' output will print badly on a b/w laser anywa=
y,
regardless of what you do with the grid lines.  On a colour printer, =
the
current method should work very nicely.


--=20
Hans-Bernhard Broeker (br...@ph...)
Even if all the snow were burnt, ashes would remain.

Re: [gnuplot-beta]metapost terminal

[Hans-Bernhard B. <br...@ph...>]

On Mon, 7 Jun 2004, Ethan A Merritt wrote:

> Should I re-order the line and point types in the metapost driver to
> match other drivers?  

I don't see any strong reason why not.  Note that lt -1 (the border line
type) is generally the *only* solid black line type, in most other
terminal drivers.  I.e. black should not show up as any other line type
but -1 (internally -2).

-- 
Hans-Bernhard Broeker (br...@ph...)
Even if all the snow were burnt, ashes would remain.

Re: [gnuplot-beta]metapost terminal

[Daniel H. L. <lue...@ua...>]

On Tue, 8 Jun 2004, Hans-Bernhard Broeker wrote:

> On Mon, 7 Jun 2004, Ethan A Merritt wrote:
>
> > Should I re-order the line and point types in the metapost driver to
> > match other drivers?
>
> I don't see any strong reason why not.  Note that lt -1 (the border line
> type) is generally the *only* solid black line type, in most other
> terminal drivers.  I.e. black should not show up as any other line type
> but -1 (internally -2).

Well, I did seek guidence when I chose the colors.  The best I could get
was the advice that they should be distinguishable, and black is easy to
distinguish from almost anything. Color for its own sake seems
irrational but I am all for consistency between terminals.

Dan

-- 
Dan Luecking                           Dept. of Mathematical Sciences
lue...@ua...                      University of Arkansas
http://comp.uark.edu/~luecking/        Fayetteville, AR 72101

Re: [gnuplot-beta]metapost terminal

[Hans-Bernhard B. <br...@ph...>]

On Tue, 8 Jun 2004, Daniel H. Luecking wrote:

> Well, I did seek guidence when I chose the colors.  The best I could get
> was the advice that they should be distinguishable, and black is easy to
> distinguish from almost anything. 

But we're already using black for the borders, tick marks,  and all kinds
of text in the graph.  You usually want to be distinguishable from those, 
too.

-- 
Hans-Bernhard Broeker (br...@ph...)
Even if all the snow were burnt, ashes would remain.

Re: [gnuplot-beta]metapost terminal

[Daniel H. L. <lue...@ua...>]

On Tue, 8 Jun 2004, Hans-Bernhard Broeker wrote:

> On Tue, 8 Jun 2004, Daniel H. Luecking wrote:
>
> > Well, I did seek guidence when I chose the colors.  The best I could get
> > was the advice that they should be distinguishable, and black is easy to
> > distinguish from almost anything.
>
> But we're already using black for the borders, tick marks,  and all kinds
> of text in the graph.  You usually want to be distinguishable from those,
> too.

You don't need color to distinguish a plotted curve from those things.


-- 
Dan Luecking                           Dept. of Mathematical Sciences
lue...@ua...                      University of Arkansas
http://comp.uark.edu/~luecking/        Fayetteville, AR 72101

Re: [gnuplot-beta]metapost terminal

[Hans-Bernhard B. <br...@ph...>]

On Wed, 9 Jun 2004, Daniel H. Luecking wrote:

> On Tue, 8 Jun 2004, Hans-Bernhard Broeker wrote:
> 
> > On Tue, 8 Jun 2004, Daniel H. Luecking wrote:
> >
> > > Well, I did seek guidence when I chose the colors.  The best I could get
> > > was the advice that they should be distinguishable, and black is easy to
> > > distinguish from almost anything.
> >
> > But we're already using black for the borders, tick marks,  and all kinds
> > of text in the graph.  You usually want to be distinguishable from those,
> > too.
> 
> You don't need color to distinguish a plotted curve from those things.

I disagree.  Curves can come asymptotically close to the borders, or do
other strange things that make it hard to find them if the whole diagram
is black, as a plot of only one dataset in metapost would currently be,
from what has been said here.

-- 
Hans-Bernhard Broeker (br...@ph...)
Even if all the snow were burnt, ashes would remain.