Re: -persist command line option and the wxWidgets terminal

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

Timoth=C3=A9e Lecomte wrote:

>> I can make a guess as to what may be going on here.  We've had this=20
>> discussion many times in the past, which is the fact that gnuplot only=
=20
>> retains information about a single plot.  If there are several X=20
>> windows open, still it is only the information about the most recent=20
>> plot that is available.  Hence, you'll see that the mouse functions=20
>> only work for the most recent X plot.
>=20
> And worse, with the "persist" implementation in the X11 terminal, you=20
> lose all zooming capabilities once gnuplot has exited.
> That's an additional argument that I forgor to mention if my maxima bug=
=20
> report...

OK, before that discussion gets reopened, there are two approaches as to =
how this could have been programmed.  One would be to zoom what is in the=
 gnuplot_x11 memory buffer.  I.e., make the existing plot bigger so it lo=
oks exactly the same only one is looking at a portion of the plot.  Or, a=
 second would be to send a command back to gnuplot with a new range and r=
eplot.  Consensus is the latter, and of course that means zooming can't b=
e done once gnuplot is closed.


>> Well, I know that for Octave, John decided to open a new instance of=20
>> gnuplot for every plot created.  That way, ever plot in Octave does=20
>> have its information retained.  John figured that gnuplot was a rather=
=20
>> small program so not much harm done.
>>
>> Maybe Maxima people have the same philosophy to get multiple windows,=20
>> only they figure why keep so many versions of gnuplot around?  It's=20
>> wasting memory.
>=20
> I don't really get what you mean here.

In Octave, if there are 20 windows open, it means there are twenty versio=
n of gnuplot running.  If Maxima uses the same strategy, i.e., to open a =
new version of gnuplot for every plot, they may have figured "Why do we n=
eed gnuplot still running for each of these windows?  We've got our plots=
, let's keep those and get rid of the gnuplot executables."  I'm not sayi=
ng that is what they did, but could have been their thinking.


> We are talking about UNIX here. Under Windows, maxima does something=20
> else (I think it is using the png terminal, and copy the image to their=
=20
> home-made gui).

Well, then I don't know what they are thinking.

Dan