Re: Bug #1503114

[Ethan M. <merritt@u.washington.edu>]

On Wednesday 21 June 2006 02:01 am, Timoth=E9e Lecomte wrote:
> Ethan A Merritt wrote:
> > How about if we change the message to:
> >
> > "Please copy your PostScript prolog files to <somewhere Windowish>"
>
> The problem is this "somewhere". What would it be ? On Windows, it
> should be a path relatively to the executable, and the code to
> retrieve the absolute path from the path of the executable has yet to
> be written.

(Please forgive my total inexperience with Windows. I'm working off
what I know from running MSOffice under Wine)

Why should it be a path relative to the executable?
Can't it go in  C:\Applications\gnuplot\
or something to that effect? =20

I was under the impression that all Windows systems had a
conventional set of directory trees under C:
=46ailing that, isn't the point of the registry file that you can
register where individual programs keep their data files?=20
Is there not a "register <prog-name> <directory-tree>" command of
some sort that enters this information in the registry?
=46or instance, in the dummied-up Windows registry file that Wine
uses, I see these entries for Acrobat:

  [Software\\Adobe\\CommonFiles] 1080673271
  "AdobeHome"=3D"C:;"

I have no idea what the magic number means, but it seems clear that
the "AdobeHome" entry tells the Adobe programs where to base their
data files.  Can't we add an entry something like:=20

 [Software\\Gnuplot\\CommonFiles] <magic-number-foo>
 "PS_DIRECTORY"=3D"C:Gnuplot\;"

I would imagine that this is basically what an installer does,
but we might not need the whole installer. =20

> I think it is probably the first place in gnuplot where external
> files are needed _on all platforms_.
> This issue has never happened on Windows (some needed files are just
> placed in the directory of the .
> On OS/2, pm.trm looks for gnupmdrv.exe
> Where the X11 terminal is available, x11.trm looks for gnuplot_x11.
> Nowhere we have a code that has been written for all platforms.

I hate to use it as an example, since I've been complaining about it
for other reasons (need to install at least part of TeX), but....

It seems from the code that the "kpsextend" path searching is used
by all platforms to find the location of fonts. =20
Could it also be used for this purpose?
That is, put the prolog files in the same directory as the PostScript
fonts (since we're going to need them anyhow) and use "kpsextend" to
find them? That puts us right back in the midst of the argument about
whether it is reasonable to require TeX in order to install gnuplot,
but it does seem to be a platform-independent solution.

=2D-=20
Ethan A Merritt
Biomolecular Structure Center
University of Washington, Seattle WA