Re: grouping available terminals together

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

On Sunday 11 February 2007 03:16, Timoth=E9e Lecomte wrote:
>=20
> But do we want gnuplot to stay at what was the least-common denominator=20
> 20 years ago ? How many people use gnuplot right now for pen plotters ?
> And since we provide rgb colors, why not doing the same with other kind=20
> of "modern" features ?

I have been working for some time now to add exactly this capability for
RGB color, explicit fonts,  choice of symbols for plotting, and so on.
And you know what?  In version 4.2 we are already about 90% of the way
to exactly what you want.

In particular, if you have not already done so, please take time out to
investigate the new mechanism for replacing the fixed set of line "types"
with an arbitrary set of line "styles".  This allows you to choose any
sequence of colors, line widths, point types, etc, and have those used
in preference to the default set.  Furthermore, it is implemented in=20
such a way that old command scripts "just work", even thought they are
unaware of the new set of line properties being used. =20

The operative command is

	set style increment user

I must admit that I hate that syntax.  Suggestions for a more obvious
command are welcome.


Back to the topic of allowing color in LaTeX plots.  It seems perfectly
reasonable to me.  Just as with the post, emf, pbm terminals there would
be a choice of {monochrome|color} when you select the terminal.  If you
don't want color in your TeX document, then don't select it.

I am inclined to agree with Timoth=E9e and Mojca. We should either update
the latex driver to the extent possible or deprecate it altogether.

> Hans-Bernhard Br=F6ker wrote:
> > The moment "set term latex" produces dvi files with \special in them,
> > it becomes pointless to have it.

Could you elaborate, please?  Are you suggesting that only
PostScript-based specials (pstricks, metapost, [e]pslatex, pstex) have
any merit? Why would it be "pointless" to allow color in other LaTeX
output via color.sty?

Mind you, I myself do not see much point in using the current latex
terminal at all.  The curve-drawing is terrible, the list of features is
minimal, and I am unaware of any practical benefit that comes from=20
avoiding the more feature-complete epslatex pathway.  But I may be=20
ignorant of some major category of use.

=2D-=20
Ethan A Merritt
Biomolecular Structure Center
University of Washington, Seattle 98195-7742