gnuplot-4.2.rc3 is out Re: Version 4.2 release plans

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

I have put a third release candidate on SourceForge
  	gnuplot-4.2.rc3.tar.gz

Could someone please update the "Latest News" entry?


Announcement / Release Notes:

=====================================================
3rd (FINAL) RELEASE CANDIDATE FOR GNUPLOT VERSION 4.2
=====================================================

We are delighted to announce the availability of the third and hopefully
final release candidate for gnuplot version 4.2, in the form of a source
file tarball.  Pre-compiled binaries for selected platforms will follow.
Unless serious new bugs are reported, the final 4.2 release will be
identical to -rc3 except for the versioning tags.

You may download 4.2-rc3 from the gnuplot development site on SourceForge.

  http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=2055


Installation
------------
Installation instructions are available in the source itself; the short
version for linux/unix-like systems is to unpack the tarball and then
build it:
		cd gnuplot-4.2.rc3 ; ./configure ; make
test it:
		make check
install it:
		make install


Short list of fixes since 4.2-rc2
---------------------------------
- Auto-configuration will use gnu libreadline unless explicitly disabled
- Document deprecation of "set size" to change image file size in pixels.
- Explicit size in terminal commands (e.g. "set term png size 500,300")
  guarantees output image size in pixels.
- 2D back/front settings are also honored in 3D plots made with "set view map"
- Allow for quoted strings in csv data files.
- Orientation of images drawn by "with image" is corrected for axis direction.
- Multi-dimensional parameters to "binary" and "with image" plot commands are
  now separated by colons rather than commas, and may be variables.
- In anticipation of libgd 2.0.34, gd.trm now checks for error from gdImageCreate
- Add Xresource gnuplot*encoding to work around a font selection bug in x.org 7.1
- Bugfix for splots with explicit reversed axes.

Remaining issues (unlikely to be resolved before official 4.2 release)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
- Installation of the new wxt terminal under OSX and Solaris is problematic
- In plots with mixed font sizes, vertical centering of text is imperfect
- Plot styles image and rgbimage are EXPERIMENTAL; implementation is incomplete


Version 4.2
-----------
This version has been under development since the release of version
4.0 in April 2004. You have probably seen frequent mention of it here
as "the development version" or "version 4.1" or "the cvs version". 

4.2 contains a ton of new features and several new terminal drivers.
For a complete list, see the NEWS file that comes with the program.
Major additions include

	* new 2D plot styles 'histogram' 'labels' 'image' 'rgbimage'
	* new 3D plot styles 'labels' 'vectors' 'image' 'rgbimage'
	* user control over color definitions and color choices
	* improved font handling and text formatting
	* text strings can be read and manipulated as normal data
	* new syntax to handle string variables and string functions
	* creation of animated gif sequences

Demo plots illustrating these and other features are online at

	http://gnuplot.sourceforge.net/demo_4.2/


We encourage everybody with a vested interest in gnuplot to get this new
version and give it a test ride.  In other words, we're calling for a
beta-test by the broader public.  That means you.

In order to assure that the quality of the upcoming full release is as
high as practical, it is important that as many of you as possible test
this release candidate in your own ways, and check that it doesn't break
spectacularly.  If there's a bug in it that makes this version unusable,
we'd like to hear about it _now_, rather than 3 hours after we release
an official version 4.2 to the general public.

Please report all bugs and installation problems to the bug tracker
on SourceForge:

	http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=2055&atid=102055

Thanks in advance, and have fun with it!