Re: Expecting all terminals to be the same [was: Re: x11 point symbols]

[Daniel J S. <dan...@ie...>]

Petr Mikulik wrote:
>> into better agreement for the first 8 or 12 line and point types
>> (I forget exactly what the upper limit was).  If we missed some
>> terminals, then certainly let's fix that.  But many terminal types
>> only *have* 8 linetypes, so I think asking for consistency out to
>> the 14th or 15th is not realistic.
> 
> 
> A typical usage for these symbols is to plot curve with just few 
> symbols, but big! You have even made a patch taking symbol size from 
> datafile.
> 
> I propose we have the first 16 (i.e. until nb 15) the same. If it is 
> (easily) possible, then let's support it. (An ideal case is to have all 
> of them the same, of course...)

It would be nice to give names to the symbols so that either the name or the number can be used.  For example:

plot sin(x) with points square
plot sin(x) with points triangle

instead of

plot sin(x) with points 4
plot sin(x) with points 8

Or maybe even replace "points" with the name, so

plot sin(x) with squares
plot sin(x) with triangles

Now the array of names should be printed via "help set style points"

<usual doc>

Translations are:

1  - pluses
2  - crosses
3  - stars (or whatever that thing is)
4  - squares
5  - filledsquares
   - solidsquares
6  - circles
7  - (you're right Ethan, these things are hard to tell apart) dots
8  - triangles
   - uptriangles
9  - filledtriangles
   - solidtriangles
   - filleduptriangles
   - soliduptriangles
10 - downtrianges
11 - filleddowntriangles
   - soliddowntriangles
12 - diamonds
13 - filleddiamonds

or something like that.

[This next part is a joke, for all the non-americans out there on the list...]

We could then have a special edition Lucky Charms version of gnuplot for which there are symbols like

plot sin(x) with blue diamonds
plot cos(x) with yellow moons
plot tan(x) with green clovers

[... Sorry, I couldn't resist.]

Dan