Re: Interactive terminals : behaviour on window resizing

[<br...@ph...>]

Timothée Lecomte wrote:

> At least for me with a CVS version picked up one month ago, the new window
> size is taken into account when you do 'set term x11', but not for a
> simple new plot.

Hmm... that's not how I remember it (dimly) from Ethan's description 
when he added this.

[Don't rescale anything.]

> Yes, but as mentioned in my reply to Ethan's message, it's the way most
> other applications work. 

We have to be careful what kind of applications we compare to, here. 
There are two major classes.   One class holds those apps where the GUI 
window is just a peep-hole through which you look at a small part of a 
much large document: a "viewport".  This is the case for all text 
processors, spreadsheets, and lots of others.  Here, zooming and GUI 
window resizing can be (and usually are) treated as separate user commands.

The other class of applications have GUI windows that *by definition* 
show their content in its entirety.  Media players and all kinds of user 
interface dialogs, e.g. In such programs, a resize of the window 
forcibly triggers a redraw from scratch, often with a re-layout.

Some apps are mixtures between these two basic cases.  E.g. in a web 
browser, vertical resize will just show you more of the page, but 
horizontal resize triggers redraw and changes the layout.  Acroread 
changes behaviour depending on which "zoom" mode you selected.

The problem we're facing with gnuplot is that we're firmly in the second 
category: we have a 1:1 relationship between the GUI window and the plot 
that's shown in it.   So we never actually zoom into the graphic, but we 
re-do the plot.  Except in those cases where we can't.  Then we just 
have to decide among several equally bad alternatives.

Particularly in case of a multiplot, I don't think there's *anything* 
useful that can be done.  So we could

1) bluntly refuse to resize the GUI window --- just inform the GUI that 
this window is non-resizable until further notice

2) allow resize, but don't try to redraw --- just blank the window.

3) do what we do now: i.e. replay the series of term API operations 
stored by the GUI window handler, with re-mapped coordinates.

4) (only for non-multiplots, may need mousing turned on): send a 
'replot' command back to gnuplot through the mouse command channel

> For my wxt terminal, it would just imply (for example) a new button 'fit
> to window' that the user would have to click on to inform gnuplot of the
> new geometry.

We don't need such a button.  That must the one-and-only behaviour. 
Zooming into a plot such that only part of it is visible is just 
useless.  A plot only makes sense if you can see all of it.